Frayne Mathijs, Visiting Rotarians, Ronnie Kasrils and New Approach to Membership from New Zealand.

Last Week

 Frayne Mathijs spoke about the plans for Universal Health Coverage and its importance but she didn't mention the financial aspect.
Unlike most Western European countries we do not have an aging population, quite the opposite, so maybe the emphasis is different as the requirements certainly are.  It will be interesting to see what happens long term from a government perspective as a Universal Free Health System has been mooted but not very much seems to have been done to implement or even say how it would be implemented. Perhaps it has gone the same way as the Nuclear Power Stations Plan?

We had two visiting Rotarians, Hideo Kawamato from the Rotary Club of Kobe who not only presented President Lyn with a banner but gave everyone a Baumkuchen, the Cake of Good Hope and a symbol of peace in Japan.

Baumkuchen is one of the most popular pastries in Japan, where it is called baamukūhen (バームクーヘン) or sometimes just keeki (ケーキ). It is a popular return present in Japan for wedding guests because of its typical ring shape.

It was first introduced to Japan by the German Karl Joseph Wilhelm Juchheim. Juchheim was in the Chinese city Tsingtao during World War I when Britain and Japan laid siege to Tsingtao. He and his wife were then interned at Okinawa.  Juchheim started making and selling the traditional confection at a German exhibition in Hiroshima in 1919. After the war, he chose to remain in Japan. Continued success allowed him to move to Yokohama and open a bakery, but its destruction in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake caused him to move his operations to Kobe, where he stayed until the end of World War II. Some years later, his wife returned to help a Japanese company open a chain of bakeries under the Juchheim name that further helped spread baumkuchen's popularity in Japan.

Our other visiting Rotarian was David Craik from the Rotary Club of Sevenoaks, Kent in England.  He visits South Africa regularly and it looks as if he is becoming an occasional visitor to our club when he is here.

This Week

Our speaker is Ronnie Kasrils.

Ronnie Kasrils at the book launch of A Simple Man in Cape Town in 2017.
The book is highly critical of Jacob Zuma.

After the first fully democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, Kasrils became a member of the Transitional Executive Council's (TEC) Sub-Council on Defence. He was appointed as Deputy Minister of Defence on 24 June 1994, a post which he held until 16 June 1999. He was also the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry from 1999 to 2004 and was appointed as Minister of Intelligence Services in 2004.

Following the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki in September 2008, Kasrils was among those members of the Cabinet who submitted their resignations on 23 September.

Kasrils is known for his strong criticisms of the government of Israel and for his sympathies towards Palestinian political struggles. He rose to international prominence after penning a "Declaration of Conscience by South Africans of Jewish Descent" in 2001 against Israeli policies in the occupied territories. He has participated in events in the Palestinian Territories with all elected Palestinian parties and endorses a two-state solution premised on the 1967 borders.

Kasrils has been strongly critical of the ANC under Jacob Zuma. He is also a noted critic of what he has called the "descent into police state depravity".

 In April 2014 he launched the "Vote No" campaign alongside fellow ANC member and former government minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge. The campaign aims to encourage people to cast protest votes or spoilt ballots in the 2014 general election as a protest against Zuma and the perceived corruption of his government.  In December 2014, Kasrils was elected to the national working committee of the newly created United Front, a workers' party led by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), and also spoke favourably of the Economic Freedom Fighters, a newly formed leftist opposition party.  In April 2016, shortly after the EFF's major court victory over President Zuma, Kasrils joined several other prominent former ANC insiders in calling for Zuma to resign.

Rotary Arts Festival

Or is it the RAF?  I thought that stood for something else.
Do get in touch with Costa Qually who is coordinating the manning or womanning of the Festival as it is imperative that we do fill all  those vacant spaces.

The Rotary Club of Invercargill NRG – the abbreviation stands for Next Rotary Generation – relishes its reputation as a projects-focused, hands-on team. 

A diverse group with members from all over the world – most of them women – the club has restored playgrounds, helped build a house that will be auctioned for charity, and distributed comic books to promote literacy. It has also adjusted some rules to make membership more feasible for younger people.

Rotary Club of Invercargill NRG, New Zealand: Charter date: 7 April 2016; Original membership: 20; Current membership: 28  

When Leon Hartnett, originally from Ireland, moved to Invercargill, New Zealand, he started looking into local service organizations. “I wanted to find something I could do to connect – and to help people.” When a colleague invited him to a Rotary meeting, Hartnett addressed practical concerns upfront. “I asked, ‘How does this work and how much does it cost?’” he recalls. “I had a young family and we had bought our first house. It sounded like a great organization, but I could not afford to be a member.”

Shortly afterward, in May 2015, District 9980 brought Holly Ransom, an Australian who as a 22-year-old had been one of Rotary’s youngest-ever club presidents, to speak at a local community center. Hartnett left that talk inspired – and convinced that Rotary was devoted to new approaches to finding members. He was not mistaken. With the support of the district, he and a small group started doing projects, and soon they had enough people to charter a club. To make the club attractive to younger members, they looked at the costs associated with membership. “We decided no meals. Too expensive. We’ll have nibbles,” he recalls. He estimates that each member saves about NZ$700 a year on restaurant meals.

With an emphasis on service projects, the club made attendance at meetings optional. “But you are required to be active in the club through service,” Hartnett says. “Some of our club’s most involved members rarely attend meetings, but they are always the first to share ideas, give feedback, and then do the actual work. We do still have a good turnout at meetings, with an average of about 70 percent of members attending.”

These changes have attracted younger people. “When our club chartered, we had the youngest average age in Australasia – 28,” says Hartnett. The members now range from 21 to their mid-50s (Hartnett is 43). 

The club often works with other local clubs. “We did a glow-in-the-dark golf event with the Rotary Club of Invercargill South. Their average age is 20 years older than us,” Hartnett says. “They brought logistical skills that we didn’t have, but we had some ways of doing things they hadn’t thought about. They thought we needed to create a website for the tournament. We said, ‘No, we can use Google Docs for people to sign up. Let’s not spend money on a website.’” 

Despite the club’s novel approach, Hartnett says, “as time goes by, we tend to evolve into a more traditional Rotary club. At first we said, ‘Let’s not have a board.’ Now we have a board.” Some things they simply needed to discover for themselves. 

“We are Rotarians in every sense of the word. We’re just doing it our own way.”