Lunch arrangements:
Tea and coffee available and it's a BYO lunch. Food outlets nearby range from Sushi to Subway, Kebabs to Night & Day, and local cafes like Bru located on Moray Place. Alternatively, just make yourself a cuppa!
Members are encouraged to attend Thursday lunch meetings whenever they can. They are an opportunity for fellowship, to hear interesting speakers and to catch up with our Club activities.
Remember that if you are unable to join our lunch meetings in person, we can still provide a Zoom option.
Dr Gerard O’Regan Speaker at Rotary Meeting on 3 September 2026 Gerard is the curator Māori at the Otago Museum, a position he has held for the last five years. He spoke to us on the topic of Māori Rock Art. There are sites of rock art throughout the country. So far there have been 160 North Island sites and 760 South Island sites discovered. Often there are multiple images at each site. Some have been carved as recently as the 1980’s such as at Taupo. Art is often specific to particular environments. Images of footprints are only found in the North Island. Carvings or paintings of canoes are also more common in the North Island, whereas the South Island has more bird and animal images. Red ochre is used to create painted images. There is to be an exhibition of rock art at the Otago Museum next year. Gerard has been awarded a fellowship from the N Z Royal Society which will fund his research work for the next four years.
Gerard shared some of the South Island Rock Art images that he showed and identifed the various locations where they were found. The rock art image shown in Gerard's photo above for example, is a digital enhancement of a red painted tiki (human) with head ornamentation – possible feathers in the hair. Dribbles show the red ochre paint was very runny when applied. It is located in a small cave inland from Moeraki was said to have been marked for what iwi understood was the inland boundary of the historic Kemp Purchase land sale.
The image below is ‘The first recording of the famous Opihi taniwha rock painting by Augustus Hamilton in 1897’.
Click here to view some of the images and information of selected South Island rock art that Gerard shared with us.
Rotary Park Working Bee
with KVC students!
It was a perfect day for planting.
Our team of Rotary Volunteers welcomed the help of a group of enthusiastic Kaikorai Valley College Year 13 students last Wednesday. The student group included some local people but also quite a few exchange students from Germany, Belgium and Japan. It was a lot of fun meeting them!
After a couple of hours work, 145 native shrubs were planted above the shared path.
Following the planting, some super team work took place and ‘magically’ all the rocks remaining after planting were removed in no time!
Our Rotarian volunteers stayed on a short while after the KVC students left and delivered a load of mulch onto the patch of plants above the dog park that we planted in June.
The park is looking better and better every time you visit now, and it's awesome to see so many people out enjoying it.
Paws for a Cause
Help support the SPCA Dunedin
Rotary St Kilda Sunrise are helping SPCA collect items for dogs and cats such as mentioned above. If you would like to help, bring any items to Thu lunch and Fiona can collect on behalf of St Kilda Sunrise for donation to SPCA. Thanks!
Say no to Domestic Violence Campaign
Last week President Lynne requested feedback from members as to whether our club would engage with this national campaign due to commence in October. After receiving feedback, President Lynne has advised that we are not getting involved at this stage.
If you would like to learn more you can view a powerpoint presentation explaining why Rotary is getting involved, what's going to happen and how Rotarians will engage with it, please email Fiona who can send you information and a powerpoint document.
Welcome to Spring
Enjoy our gardens and get out for a walk, Rotary Park is a great place to go!
Iris Hehir is a lawyer who studied law and sociology at Otago University. Iris was a writer for Critic and is an advocate for community law. Her talk with us on Thursday titled ‘Acess to Justice in Dunedin’ should be very interesting.
The five week roster is the most accurate and members are urged to check the Duty Roster webpage regularly.
Instructions for setting up and tidying the room
The duty team are responsible for setting up the room which involves placement of the tables & chairs (in sets of six chairs per table, tables placed lengthwise down each side of the room), please ensure that you arrive in time to assist with this. We also have to put the tables and chairs back after the meeting, please ask members to help the duty team if they can. Place used cups and spoons in the white bin on the trolley to take to the dishwasher. Duty officers are asked to load the dishwasher but not to turn it on.
SPEAKER HOSTS please remember to send a summary of the Speakers presentation complete with photo to Fiona fiona.robin@outlook.com
We're making progress with the planting, we've put at least 545 natives in this winter.
Our next chores will be to apply mulch and keep the weeds from taking over, so look forward to some more working bees as we move on into the warmer spring weather.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
15 Sep Rotary Speech Competition Area Final
hosted by the Dunedin Central Rotary Club. 📍 The Dunedin Club, 33 Melville Street 🕠 5:30pm arrival for a 6:00pm start
25 September, Dunedin Rotary Clubs Fundraising luncheon for the Dunedin Hospital & Rotary Park. Planning is well underway and looking like a sell out event for 200-220 guests. The event has been well supported by donors of auction items and usiness sponsors including ‘Little Minds’ who are our Platinum Sponsor!
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Mosgiel Rotary Book Sale coming up 25-27 Sep
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Volunteering Opportunity In October
Volunteers are sought to give two hours of their time for the Pink Ribbon Street Appeal on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 October.
Donations to: RNZWCS Limited Westpac Acc. 03 1702 0192208 01 placing 303N in the ref. field Swift Code: WPACNZ2WXXX Rotary New Zealand World Community Service www.rnzwcs.org Registered Charity CC2686text here
KEEP UP WITH US
Click on the links below to access our Rotary Dunedin website and our Rotary Dunedin Facebook page.
