Greenmeadows Rotary welcomes new members

New Rotarians are (from left) Natalya Latysheva, Hamish and Jinice Lack and Lynne Gibson. PHOTO: Brian Hall.

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New Rotarians are (from left) Natalya Latysheva, Hamish and Jinice Lack and Lynne Gibson.

PHOTO: Brian Hall.

by Greenmeadows Rotary Club membership coordinator Ian Holyoake.

Are people seeking to help each other these days? Are they joining clubs – or is everybody just too busy?

In a somewhat unique moment, the Greenmeadows Rotary Club recently had four people join on one night, when a few weeks of Covid-19 lockdown dropped to a lower level and allowed such activity.

However, an interesting feature was the family connections and the international aspects of the whole process.

First up was Lynne Gibson, who had previously belonged to the Napier Rotary club but recently transferred to join her daughter at Greenmeadows. In fact, Lynne's late husband had previously belonged to Greenmeadows Rotary for a good number of years and daughter Hayley had joined him there some time back.

As a side issue Hayley, when she joined, became a fourth generation Rotarian, as along with Lynne's late husband being a Rotarian, so too were Lynne's father and her grandfather.

Next in the queue was Natalya Latysheva, who shifted to New Zealand from Russia 17 years ago.

Initially living in Dunedin, she moved north to Napier a couple of years back. Looking to do something to assist in the community, she had noticed the Greenmeadows Rotary social media presence, followed the leads, made contact and walked in the door on a meeting night.

By coincidence perhaps, one of her two teenage sons is sort of 'Rotary connected' through his high school Interact Club. He claims his mum is following him.

Next up was Jinice Bautista-Lack, originally from the Philippines but who had also lived in Singapore for some time and is a doctor in audiology.

She made her way to New Zealand where she met up with New Zealander Hamish Lack – in somewhat unusual circumstances. She was trying to fuel her car when she could not find any staff on the Taupo forecourt to assist her – like they did at home.

Local Napier man Hamish Lack stepped up - and it was "love at first fuelling". The car was filled and now she has added his name to hers. Hamish builds rowing boats – fast ones.

Also looking for a 'community interest', Jinice mentioned this to a Rotarian patient whose ears she was "assessing" at her new Napier practice and (as soon as he could hear her) he made the necessary connection and explanations and Jinice and Hamish both joined Rotary.

In a roundabout way then, this multiple induction linked four members, four generations and demonstrated the true 'internationality' of Rotary – as well as helping each other.

But there was a further international coincidence and one topical in this vaccination age. The birthplace of Jinice was the Philippines where in 1979, there was a sort of experimental project by Rotary International to eradicate polio in that nation. With six million children vaccinated, it was so successful that Rotary set out to expand the project and eliminate polio right throughout the world.

This took a bit of setting up and got under way properly in 1985 when US$120 million was raised to launch the programme. At that point some 350,000 children, in 125 countries were becoming infected every year with many of them becoming paralysed and dying.

The campaign has continued right up until the current time and more than US$2.1 billion (and millions of Rotary volunteer hours) expended vaccinating three billion children overall.

Rotary has not funded this alone, but joined with World Health, UNICEF and of course many of the governments around the world, including New Zealand and Australia.

One big, 'private' supporter however, was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who came on board in 2009, then giving Rotary US$355m to assist. They have continued assisting ever since and in a current three year period, they have been donating $2m for every $1m that Rotary raises – up to $150m total per year.

The campaign is now described as being 99.9 per cent successful and there are only two countries in the world that have polio - Afghanistan and Pakistan. As can be imagined, the unsettled nature of these countries and the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic make it a little difficult to finish it off.

While there were 140 cases of wild polio virus in 2020, in the first six months of this calendar year there were only two cases, one each in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

All this assumes some significance this month, as on October 24, Rotarians throughout the world celebrate that as their National Polio Day. It is estimated that if vaccinating stopped now, polio could easily return and within 10 years we could be back to having 200,000 children infected per year.

Rotary are this close to finishing the polio campaign. Can the world also do the Covid-19 battle? However at Greenmeadows Rotary, we have four more Rotarians ready to assist in the fight and continue 'To do good in the world'.