From the Editor Another month has slipped by and maybe like me, you are finding life settling into the new normal and beginning to enjoy special occasions again. I attended the National Inner Wheel Change Over dinner late last month and what an enjoyable evening it was. Held on the 7th Floor of the Copthorne Hotel in Oriental Bay, we were able to experience Wellington at its best on a lovely clear night and it was a delight to show case our lovely city to out of town visitors. It was also a delight to put on some posh clothes and dine out in style. I know I was not alone in being able renew and greet Inner Wheel friends from across the country. Without doubt there is a new and younger influence in the top levels of the New Zealand organisation who are bringing a great deal of experience in technology as well as being creative and excited about Inner Wheel and whilst sometimes we all feel resistant to change it is important to our future that we welcome the changes that are almost certain to ensue. The ideals of Service, Friendship and International Understanding are well entrenched in the organisation – the aim is to explore new and innovative ideas in which they might be delivered in the future. National President Carol Haskett took the opportunity to review her year and present an impressive list of achievements designed to lead Inner Wheel into the future in a new and modern way. We may not always be comfortable with change but if the organisation is to survive, we need to embrace the future and meet it in a prepared and considered way. (The achievements of the National Governing Body in the last year are listed elsewhere in the news letter.) A Lovely occasion at the National Change Over Last month

L/R Marie Gillies, Margaret McIver, Mary Houston, Jaye Howey

IWNZ Eastern Hutt News Letter

July 2020

Club Change Over

It may be a little late but this month we celebrate this important event in our calendar.

Tuesday 21 July 2020 Angus Inn

Mix and Mingle from 5.30pm $28 per head (2 Courses) to be paid on arrival at

the venue Partners most welcome

Our guest for the evening

Is David Dell Composer, Historian, And a great entertainer

Is

It is with sadness we acknowledge the death of Robyn’s Mother who passed away on the 25 June at

the great age of 95 years.

Our thoughts and love are with Robyn and her family at this time

Dates for your Diary Tuesday 21st July – Dinner meeting and Changeover. Partners welcome.

(We continue to collect items for the medical ward at Hutt Hospital and They are most grateful for what we can help with. We asked them if there were other than

Tooth brushes and toothpaste, Body wash, etc. They responded with the following items: Hair ties and clips, More body wash

Shaving foam and disposable razors We will collect these up at our meeting

Saturday 25th July - District Changeover. A gathering of Inner Wheel Friends to mark the beginning of a

new Inner Wheel year. Hosted by Plimmerton and Palmerston North clubs at the Coast Community Church, Hinemoa St. Paraparaumu. From 10.30

Carol Woodfield will continue in the role of District Chair but the District will be welcoming several new office bearers as well as members of District 293 who are becoming part of

IWNZ 294 . A fun day with a great speaker is planned. This is your opportunity to join in the activity of the wider organisation and broaden your Inner Wheel experience. Please let secretary Judy Dearsley

know if you would like to attend.

Saturday 1st August : Latte at Boulcott Farm Golf Club. Come and join us. The venue is lovely, the coffee is good and the date scones are superb.

Friends and/or other interested women are welcome to attend our Dinner Meetings and Latte Mornings

An impressive list of achievements!

At times, as members, we sit back and wonder or even worse criticise those that commit to leading the organisation at a National level. During the last year the organisation has been lucky to have some exceptional expertise available and with consultation with Past Presidents the following has been achieved.

Ø we have registered our domain name iwnz.org.nz with a highly secure provider which features on Googles recommended providers list. We have been able to register IWNZ with Non-Profit status on Google giving us free access to all Google Suite apps

Ø we have set up a safe and secure email system with Google - this grants us access through Google

Suite to maintain our own unlimited domain name email users Ø we have written and moved proposals to take to our IWNZ conference in Queenstown 2021 to create

needed roles and adjust some roles at National & District level Ø we have updated the Resource manuals

Ø created a membership toolkit with ideas on the retention and recruitment of members

Ø created a marketing toolkit with ideas to promote Inner Wheel within your communities Ø developed a membership campaign to target women 65+ Ø developed a plan to update our IWNZ website

Ø developed a plan to create a National database which will allow us to communicate directly with

members – eliminating the need for emails to be forwarded down through the branches of IWNZ

Ø we have applied for 24 grants across all regions with IW clubs to support our IW Website/National

database projects and our membership campaign Ø we have gathered the information needed to record each Districts history for our archives and to be

shared with IIW for the Centenary celebrations in 2024

Ø Formed a Past Presidents Forum to support and mentor members where needed .

_____________________________ My thought for the month

This is Priceless

I found this a week or two ago and to be honest I could not wait to share it with you. I know it is long but I am sure you will enjoy it. My apologies to any one may have already seen it on Face Book. It did have a lovely pic with it but Facebook would not allow me to lift it off no matter how hard I tried. Read on now and enjoy the moment Ed

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment,. The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days." The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations." The older lady said that she was right, our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain: Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day. Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable, besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then. We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day. Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day. Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the "green thing" back then. Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't

need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint. But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then? Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much. Do you remember the bad old days when we did not care about the planet! I felt just a little bit nostalgic.