A night to celebrate at a POSH party for the IW Club of Howick on Saturday, 5^th November where they were finally able to celebrate their Club’s 30^th birthday, a year later than initially planned.

Held at the Kotahi Community centre in Pakuranga, the evening was filled with great chatter and the room was filled with memories of 30 wonderful years as women in action sharing friendship through service. The rolling projection of past photos helped to spur memories and conversations around the tables.

Club President, Carmen Hanekom, opened the evening with a welcome and brief history of the Club, followed by a delicious dinner. The after-dinner speaker, Martine Abel-Williamson QSM, shared inspirational stories of her life as a blind woman working as Senior Human Rights Advisor for the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, Co-chair of Auckland Council's Disability Advisory Panel and President of the World Blind Union. The surprise presentation of the Dawn Johnston Koru Award by MP Simeon Brown and Del Johnston was another highlight of the evening.

Cake cutting by four Charter Members followed by dessert, coffee, tea, chatter and a little dancing.

A beautiful evening, celebrating friendship!

Dawn Johnston Koru Award -2022: Martine Abel-Williamson

Dawn Johnston was a charter member and past President of the IW Club of Howick. Inspired by the IIW theme 2017-18 “Leave A Legacy” and the year Dawn's health diagnosis changed, gave her the inspiration to leave a legacy to create this award that recognises and pays tribute to a resident in the Pakuranga, Howick and Botany community who in the face of adversity has or is displaying perseverance in overcoming obstacles in the realisation of their goals and dreams.

To learn more about Dawn and the Award visit http://thedawnjohnstonkoruaward.org/

On Saturday 5^th November, at the IW Club of Howick’s 30^th birthday celebrations it was a wonderful surprise and great honour that the 2022 recipient was presented with this Award.

Martine Able-Williamson QSM, Senior Human Rights Advisor for the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, Co-chair of Auckland Council's Disability Advisory Panel and President of the World Blind Union.

Martine was nominated by Simeon Brown, MP for Pakuranga. Simeon was present on the evening to read his nomination citation and to present the award to Martine, alongside Dawn’s husband, Del Johnston.

NZ291 District Chairman Penelope, Past National President Michelle, Maureen and Past NZ291 District Chairman Adrienne	Past NZ291 District Chairman Adrienne with her partner Jack
Past NZ291 District Chairman Adrienne dimming the candles	Thank you Glennis
Birthday cake cutters	Howick Club's Birthday cake
Cutting the birthday cake	Dawn's husband Del Johnston, Dawn Johnston Koru Award recipient Martine Able-Williamson, Howick Club President Carmen and MP for Pakuranga Simeon during the presentation of the Dawn Johnston Koru Award to Martine
Dawn's husband Del Johnston, Dawn Johnston Koru Award recipient Martine and MP for Pakuranga Simeon	Howick Club President Carmen
Dawn Johnston Koru Award recipient Martine and MP for Pakuranga Simeon	Dawn Johnston Koru Award recipient Martine and MP for Pakuranga Simeon

Members and friends of the  IW Club of Auckland East enjoyed a fundraising afternoon tea for Look Good Feel Better.

Clare O’Higgins, the General Manager of LGFB, spoke to us and bought us up to date on the many opportunities, both by Zoom and in-person classes in communities, they provide for women and men with cancer. What inspiring work this Charity organisation provides for clients at a difficult time in their lives 

The wonderful raffle provided by LGFB was won by Clare, the Auckland East Club President.

Refugees Settling in New Zealand

Project for July 2022 – June 2023

Working with the Red Cross and their settlement programme.

The ISO District project was for clubs to support this settlement appeal. In talking to the Red Cross, Carolyn could see a wonderful way for all clubs to
get involved.

A list of suggestions from the Red Cross was given to all clubs to bring items to District Meeting in Palmerston North on Saturday 14 September.

The response was massive – electric jugs, toasters, lunch boxes, bedding and kitchen items.

The keynote speaker Sievleag set the tone for the meeting. She arrived in New Zealand 41 years ago as a refugee from Cambodia. She spoke of her life before the Pol Pot regime and finally managing to escape and being settled as refugees in New Zealand. I am sure she only covered a brief account of the horrors they as a family along with many more people experienced.

When she called for questions, members sat in awe, many were shell shocked to hear her story.

After lunch Jenny Pepworth from the Palmerston North Red Cross Centre spoke about the work of resetting refugees in New Zealand. She was ‘blown away’ by the very generous and massive response of donations from all ten clubs. So a huge thank you to all clubs.

Challenge for the rest of year for District NZ 294 ISO Project.

Clubs might like to find a small project in their area.
The possibilities are endless. As I suggested at the meeting, if you need ideas, please send me an email.

District NZ 294 Empowerment Day

Saturday 11 March 2023.

Donations of the following for the Refugee ISO Project:

Please note, soft and knitted toys should be new for health and hygiene reasons.

Donations from the day will go to Wellington Red Cross.

Sharing ideas to other clubs:

• Let me know what your club are doing - some clubs are involved with Refugee Projects
• Also those members involved through their local churches, share as it might give clubs ideas

In Friendship Carolyn Crutch.

NZ District NZ294

The Inner Wheel Club of Auckland East have spent 11/2 days assembling 2000 Look Good Feel Better Christmas Joy Crackers ready for filling of goodies. 

A great time of Service with Friendship.

Watch this space for details of how a $20 donation can purchase a Joy Cracker either for yourself, a thank you or Christmas gift or to your club who gift them to a Woman’s organisation in your community.

The Upper Hutt Spring Festival is held annually in the Main Street of Upper Hutt and is run by the Upper Hutt Womens Centre as their main fundraiser. Due to Covid, the fair had been cancelled for the last 2 years but this year it looked like all of Upper Hutt had turned out on a sunny day and it made the event a real success.

The Upper Hutt Inner Wheel ran a very successful spring-themed raffle and spoke to lots of locals about Inner Wheel. Four of the ladies the Club Members met at the fair came along to the September dinner meeting and hopefully they’ll attend the next one too!

The Upper Hutt Club is finding that their presence at these events is proving really successful to meet new people, promote the Club and raise some funds for the Club's charities (and the Members have fun!). The Club's next event is the very popular Upper Hutt Night Market in November, where Members will be selling Christmas decorations, other hand-made items, and raffling a Christmas cake.

Marie (Club President), Lin, Mary (Club Secretary) and Karen	Donna, and Marie (Club President)
Judi (National Vice-President), Marie (Club Secretary), and Anne (Club Treasurer)

At the start of the Ukraine war, Lesley, a Member of the IW Club of Plimmerton, discovered a friend in Scotland had begun knitting teddies for the children of Ukraine refugees arriving in the UK.

The idea appealed to Lesley, so she floated the idea of knitting teddies in Ukranian colours to all her friends, including the ladies of Plimmerton Inner Wheel.

Lots rallied to the cause and when it became evident that no refugee families had yet arrived in NZ (apart from those joining families already established here) teddies started to be made in a kaleidoscope of colours.

At a recent IW meeting, the Club had a guest speaker: Jacqueline from ChangeMakers Resettlement Forum, an organization that works in conjunction with the Red Cross. Jacqueline was presented with all the teddies and undertook their distribution to arriving refugee children.

Hopefully, the teddies will give each child a little comfort combined with a welcome to NZ as they begin a new life here.

On 14th July we held a movie night at the Lighthouse Cinema Pauatahanui to raise funds for the Child Cancer Foundation. Carol Woodfield organised this with the help of Janet Reidy and all the generous Inner Wheel ladies – the dream team. Thank you everyone for your support and the delicious food. The light-hearted movie ‘Phantom of the Open’ was a big hit, enjoyed by all.

Tania Pattemore gave us a brief talk on the role of the Child Cancer Foundation, explaining the beads of courage given to mark treatment procedures. Carol’s grandson George has about 1,300 of these beads, that’s 14 necklaces!

Our total profit for the evening was an amazing $3,097. As you can imagine the Child Cancer Foundation were delighted to receive our donation.  Thank you very much everyone for your wonderful support.  We would like to thank all the sponsors of the raffle, the silent auction and lucky seat prizes:

• Artist John Fisher (member Jan’s husband) for kindly donating the print of his beautiful boatshed painting.
• Margaret and Ted Nation for the chocolates
• Bryan Pauley Hair Hairdressing for lucky seat prizes
• Barbara Nichols for the wine.
• The Whitby Co-op for the 2x $100 vouchers.
• Jennie Sherwin for the gift basket.
• Robin Mita for the skincare set.
•  New World Mana for the gift basket.

A weekend of promotion by members of District NZ294 as volunteers helped at the Inner Wheel stand at the 2022 Women's lifestyle Expo in Wellington's TSB arena  July 23-24th.

Women attending the Expo were encouraged to enter a draw to win a beautiful gift box of KD One skin care. Each person who entered the draw was given a small goodie bag of IW information and a KD One Cosmetics lip gloss. Over 60 ladies entered the draw.

District secretary Brenda is following up with every entry and encouraging them to be contacted by the Clubs in their vicinity. Attendees of the weekend came for a wide area around the Wellington region and as far as Palmerston North, Levin, Wairarapa and Kapiti.

It was a fabulous opportunity to showcase our work and there was a positive response from those we connected with. A busy, tiring weekend for the volunteers but any new members joining our Clubs will be a positive outcome.

A reminder too that if there is not a Cub near you, we also offer a virtual opportunity. Learn more about joining Inner Wheel by visiting our Join Us page.

The IW Club of Matamata has been putting together care packs for Starfish, a not-for-profit organization that works across the Matamata region and provide professional counselling, education and social services in the community. Their contributions have recently been recognized by Starfish and they have been sent the thank you message below. Great work, ladies of Matamata!

Kia ora Gaylene, 

I hope this finds you well  

Jut wanted to let you know how amazing the packs that the inner wheel put together have been for families in need.
Starfish has a new service where we are providing support to whānau who are isolating with covid. This often looks like us providing kai, cleaning and hygiene products to these families who are in need and do not have access to much at all whilst isolating (often our community’s most vulnerable families). These packs have been such a great addition to what we are providing to the families – so THANK YOU so much Inner Wheel
 
Ngā mihi
Debs
Deborah Galloway-Riwhi
Wellness Facilitator| BHSc 
Starfish Social Services Trust
15 Gordon Terrace | PO Box 71 | Matamata
M 027 419 9413

The June 2022 edition of NZ297 Spoke & Felloe magazine gives a wonderful summary of the 2021-22 Inner Wheel year in NZ297.

Click here to read.