Inauguration of the 2017-2018 board

 

Good evening!!

 

Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, Rotarians, friends, ladies and gentlemen….
 

Welcome and thank you for coming to join us in a celebration of the rotary year now ending and to galvanize the members of the club to undertake more and far reaching service in the year ahead.

Firstly I should like to congratulate 2016-17 President Garry and his board for an outstanding year of service.  The many citations received by the club under his leadership and the quite stunning achievement in raising funds for our major project to fund a research project at SOS are a credit to you.  May I please ask you to all put your hands together again to thank and congratulate him and his board for their service this past year.

 

Next, I should also like to thank my fellow club members for placing their trust in me as your next club president, I am extremely honoured – and of course confused!!  I should like to thank the incoming board members for agreeing to serve with me.  I can assure all here this evening that they, like me, are fully committed, enthusiastic, excited by the possibilities and ready as the RI slogan says …. to be MAKING A DIFFERENCE! 

 

As some of you may know, in addition to my wonderfully supportive wife Rachel – who has never once nagged me – I have three grown sons.  Alexander and Jonathan who are here in the room tonight (please stand and waive) and their brother Julyan who is in the Philippines.  Julyan, has autism and has severe behavioural and communication difficulties – the journey Rachel and I have with him and our desire to see him (along with our other children) to have a meaningful, purposeful and happy life, in a good and healthy environment inspires me in a very personal way.

With this in mind, in 2017-18, I would like to lead the club along a path of service that, whilst continuing the many fantastic initiatives of prior years, focuses on new sustainable projects that aim to get the best out of two key resources: humankind and nature.  I urge members to find and execute projects that realize the possibilities of people with disabilities (be they physical, mental or developmental) to fully contribute to our society with lifelong purpose, happiness and dignity.  Furthermore, at a time when some world leaders have chosen to put economic development above the future of our planet, I urge you to take on projects that improve our environment and enhance awareness as to its plight and the consequences for all life on Earth should we not act.  I declare that our club’s major project in 2017-18 will embody these values. 

 

So now you all know why I chose my guest speakers Gina Lopez and Dr Yeo this evening – thank you Gina for giving your precious time to today and sharing, with such passion, ways we can work towards improving the environment AND thank you, Sze Ling (Dr Yeo to you guys) for I know what she is going to say, for sharing with us your story and what can achieved when we take the time to support our fellow human being achieve their full potential.

 

I believe in these causes with unrelenting passion.  We all love our fellow human beings; we all love our home, planet Earth.   So should we ever feel that the goals we set ourselves are becoming too daunting, remember the lyrics of the 1967 Beatles song, “All you need is love” the first few words of which are “there is nothing you can do that can’t be done….”

 

Thank you!