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I qualified as a Registered Psychologist in 1983 specialising in child and adult l behaviour, mental health welfare and human relationships. I spent over 20 years as an expert witness for the District and Family Courts in New Zealand. More recently, the Minister of Education appointed me as National Manager, managing over 160 staff, to design and implement a highly specialised wraparound intervention programme. This programme, for young people and families experiencing and living in the most severe circumstances in New Zealand, was to support young people and the families to successfully develop new positive life pathways. As a psychologist, I had a leading role in providing leadership support for people managing ‘natural’ disasters. The biggest of these disasters was the ‘Cave Crave’ tragedy which, at the time, was the largest of such disasters in New Zealand since the Erebust plane crash in Antarctica.

Volunteering, and the opportunity to contribute to their communities, are touted as some of the main reasons people join, and remain, in Rotary. Why is it then that some Rotary club members enthusiastically volunteer for every project while others rarely, or never, do? I believe the secret to motivating busy Rotary members lies in focusing your efforts, proactively articulating expectations, seeking and valuing feedback, encouraging excitement and interest in the anticipated impact, prioritizing legislation, especially with social enterprises, and publicly recognizing even small progress. I have tertiary qualifications in strategic leadership and human resource management plus extensive senior management work experience within 24/7 not-for-profit healthcare services that have utilized large numbers of volunteers. I am therefore able to assist Rotary clubs in introducing effective volunteer management policies, procedures, and processes that will improve project participation, minimize potential risk, and still achieve worthwhile results.

I have gained a wealth of Rotary knowledge through the roles I have undertaken. From being an active club member to being on the RI joint committee for Learning, a Rotary Public Image Coordinator to training Coordinators from across the world in Evanston, and using those skills as an RDU Director and Lead Facilitator in Learning. I have been involved in start-up projects involving Rotary and creating partnerships with other organisations which have given me useful experiences to help Rotarians with their projects. I consider that passing on and creating resources to clubs and individuals is essential to the success of Rotary in our zone. I have worked across areas including Membership, Foundation, Governance, Learning and Public Image which has enabled me to have a sound working knowledge of Rotary. The Regionalisation process gives us the opportunity to try out a new way of working collaboratively across our zone.

I am a concerned and passionate advocate for Growing Rotary across our zone. Working collaboratively with like-minded Rotarians to work on different models of club / groups so we present attractive volunteering and networking opportunities to the public in our communities is essential for us to be relevant in the world today. Having presented, led and worked with groups at district level and beyond has given me knowledge and experience to be able to help Rotarians who are wanting to look at new ways to engage their members and grow our organisation to meet future generations expectations. In my working life I work with a diverse range of people within my architectural practice and have developed skills in strategic and lateral thinking which I believe can benefit Rotary at many levels.

Data Science: Assessing the Information Need, gathering data from various sources, assembling/integrating/migrating into a data platform for further use by other applications, artificial intelligence, forecasting, budgeting, and management information. IT Architecture: Assessing the Functional Need, analyzing existing application and data structures, designing/recommending a fit-for-purpose architecture. Procurement: Gathering product/service specifications, preparing a Request for Proposal, summarizing the responses, vendor scoring (financial, environmental & social) and selection, contract & service level agreement negotiations, implementation planning, monitoring of performance.