Report on our meeting of Tuesday 17th July 2018
Congratulations to Laura for her win of the New World Tawa raffle.
We heard from club speaker, Judith Havill, on her interest in sewing dresses for “Dress a girl around the World” (http://www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com/). This arose from an interest Judith had in patch work and an inspirational lady who leads the NZ involvement in this international organisation. “Dress a girl around the World” believe that every girl should have at least one nice dress, and through this may show that someone cares about her and thus reduce the risk of her being preyed upon by predators in the sex trade industry of Asian and African countries. See https://www.facebook.com/dressagirlaroundtheworldnz/ for more information on the NZ activities.
Our main speaker was Liz Koh, Vocational Service Chair for District 9940 (from Kapiti Club). Liz presented about the 9940 Vocational initiatives.
Click on read more ->> for the report on her talk.
Past member Ken Pearson was also in attendance, on holiday from Europe - being looked after by Tony.
Liz Koh, District 9940 Chair, Vocational spoke to the club on July 17th on the various Vocational initiatives that are being initiated in our district and introduced us to the principles of the Vocational Service.
Liz has been a member of Kapiti Rotary for 17 years and in that time has been Youth Director, and President. During 2017 Liz was awarded a Paul Harris Fellow. Liz had previously lived in Tawa for 18 years in the 80s and 90s, where she was GM of the DSIR at Kenepuru, before moving to Paraparaumu and is a member of Kapiti Rotary. Liz Koh runs her financial planning firm, Moneymax, and is a certified financial planner and chartered accountant. Three years ago Liz was asked to become the district representative for Vocations.
Vocational Service is one of the Avenues of Service of Rotary and through Vocational Service Rotarians are called upon to encourage and foster:
• High ethical standards in business and professions
• The recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations
• The dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity to serve society.
Vocational Service is therefore the platform that addresses one of the earliest criteria on the Rotary club membership which was that we each represent a particular trade or profession in our community. As we now know these criteria is no longer a club membership requirement but the Vocational Service in the community has been maintained to address, service and encourage trades and professions with particular focus on certain initiatives in District 9940.
Learn more in An Introduction to Vocational Service. https://my.rotary.org/en/document/introduction-vocational-service
Liz told us of the function of her role as 9940 District Chair, Vocational:
• Encouraging Fellow Rotarians to undertake innovative approaches to solving community needs at club and district level
• Sharing about service-related resources to Club service leader
• Serving as a Vocational Service subject-matter expert
• Publicizing Vocational Service initiatives undertaken by Clubs.
Additionally Liz presented the ways that the Vocational Service can be achieved within clubs by the membership:
• Talk about your profession in your club, and take time to learn about fellow members’ occupations.
• Use your skills and expertise to serve a community.
• Practice your profession with integrity, and inspire others to behave ethically through your words and actions.
• Help young people achieve their career goals.
• Guide and encourage others in their professional development.
Some of which Tawa Rotary is already undertaking through our three-minute talks.
Liz then addressed the District 9940 current vocational initiatives:
• Pride of Workmanship: Currently run by Rotary of Upper Hutt for the past 20 years where up to 100 local companies are invited to nominate employees for an award and 8-12 awards are given out each year to all nominees presented.
• NZ Business Week: Recently rebranded as The Brave Thinkers in conjunction with Massey University and Palmerston North High School.
- A one week programme for Year 12 and 13 students,
- Where students are divided into teams to come up with an innovative solution to a social or environmental problem,
- Presents guest speakers who are leading entrepreneurs and business owners,
- And finishes with a “Dragon’s Den” where teams pitch their solutions.
• National Science & Technology Forum: A 14-day programme for high-achieving Year 12 students that is to broadly promote the sciences including STEM subjects as a career and help talented Science students excel in the studies and careers of their choice. Held in conjunction with Auckland University.
Liz also presented three new Vocational initiatives that are in the pipeline or currently in trial:
• Work in Progress Conference #2 (a follow-up to the successful 2017 conference is in the planning) - a conference concerning the future of work, for which Rotary sponsors attendees – see https://www.wipwellington.co.nz .
• Collaborate – building a stronger community one volunteer at a time through linking volunteers with organisations – see www.letscollaborate.co.nz
• Work Ready Passport – a getting ready for work learning programme for students designed by employers. A pilot programme has been run on the Kapiti Coast - which has become imbedded into the school curriculum in Kapiti to help introduce students and employers and present new “workready” candidate employees - see http://www.workreadykapiti.com .
Liz ended her presentation by noting the initiative this year at Tawa of the Tawa Rotary Young Employee Award – sponsored by the Club as part of the Tawa Community Civic Awards.
Liz ended by asking the question: What else could you be doing to support Vocational Service?
So Tawa Rotary…some food for thought that we can use for a future Vocational Tawa initiative?
Thanks Liz for your enlightening presentation