It is an honour for us, the new administration of the Rotary Club of St. Andrew North, to be given the opportunity to serve in these new capacities, and we express our sincere thanks and crave your support and prayers.

 

My fellow Rotarians, these are challenging times, not only in the life of our Club, but also within our society.  As a  club, we face low attendance rates, and an overworked but committed few.  Our first mandate therefore, is to increase attendance at our weekly meetings and as such participation.  The level of need in the society is great and clubs such as ours have a duty to work in partnership with the state, private sector, religious institutions and international development partners, to advance our society.  Growing Rotary through membership and commitment, will mean having more resources available to commit to developmental and service projects.

 

Our Rotary motto, “Service above Self”, is a wonderful concept which brings hope to many around the world.  Let us therefore resolve to continue to impact lives through our mentoring of the Interactors, Rotaractors.  Permit me now to recommend that in this year and going forward, we seek to mentor some of the older children in one of our schools.

 

I propose that we should build a library – computer centre at St. Richard’s Primary School, which will be used by over 8,000 needy children from around the White Hall, Red Hills community.  My focus on this area is the many who are lacking the tender, loving care of parents and family.  We all know that the strongest part of a chain is its weakest link and whoever these children are, they are indeed a part of us.  This I pray will be our major project for my year.

 

Adjoining this major project there will be other smaller ones, for at least every three months.  Those you will hear about later and I anticipate your full cooperation in the commitment to service.  It makes one more human and by extension, more humane.

 

As a founding member, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you my fellow Rotarians, for the love, respect, friendship and camaraderie, that you have given me over 36 Years.  You were there with me through the good days, then through my recent illness, you entertained me in your homes as an extended family.  You socialized and encouraged me in times of adversity and merriments.  So much so, that I am assured of your continuous support in my year.

 

I move now to thank the outgoing administration for the enjoyable and rewarding experiences of participating  in the many successful service projects, programmes and fellowships.  I wish to specially thank President Glaister Ricketts for his wisdom, dedication to service, outstanding leadership of our club over the past year, and his constant support and encouragement.  I would also like to thank the members of the new administration, for volunteering to serve.  We recognize that the requirements of Rotary have changed and so demand more time and resources.  Some of the volunteerism comes with great sacrifice and so we do not underestimate or take for granted you offering yourselves to serve.  As we go forward together, let us embrace the Rotary theme for this year:  Light Up Rotary.

 

Thank you all and good night.

 

Yours in Rotary Service

 

Lascelles Poyser

President 2014-2015

Rotary Club St. Andrew North