Welcome to another bulletin for 2024.

 

Attendance; 13 members, Max's wife, our  speaker ,plus visiting Rotarian Kathy Simpson ex Palmerston North Club who is moving to Auckland central city area. Kathy is already known to some of our members involved in Starship Hospital assistance as she has assisted with contacts in Wellington.

 

 

Apologies:  Greg, Ingrid, David, Wendy and Malcolm.

 

Stand in for President, Peter Barron confirmed Malcolm has been appointed Rotary coordinator for our Rotary club grouping RCG6,so we are hopeful of  improved communication  and joint projects and activities.

RYLA starts 29th June and assistance will be needed to transport  attendees to and from the course.

There is a trees for survival planting day with St Kentigerns school at the same South Auckland farm at Brookby as last year.

Planned for Thursday 20th June 10am to1.30pm.

It was collection day for Avis and the Grace Foundation for which a number of members remembered to bring donations in kind and money.

 

3 Minute speaker was Stephen,who revisted Greg Moyle's talk on Le Quesnoy ,by talking of all the other historical battle sites within a counple of hundred kms of that Northern French town,5kms south of the Belgium border.

 

From the east-the Marginot and Seigfred fortification lines -Sedan where the Germans broke through at the start of War 2-the Ardennes with the battle of the Bulge-Verdan- Arras where the British tank counterattack against Rommel failed-Dunkirk, Ostend and Zeebruger-Ypes (now known as Leper) Passenndale- and then 40kms north of Le Quesnoy is.....Waterloo.

 

Sergent stand in Nick  was in fine form-co inciding with Waterloo, today was the Duke of Wellington's birthday-1st May-also the day GaryPower's u2 spy plane was shot down over Russia-the day the first postal stamp, the Penny Black was issued-The Mona Lisa is to have a display room of her own-many members had actually seen the painting-USA students are protesting Gazza.

About $200wasraised,thanksto a generous fine from David Jones, who thus hoped to incentervise Wendy on her return as sergent.

 

Speaker was Sarah Grandke a German PHD student who Max and his wife had met when Sarah was hiking in New Zealand 15 years ago.

She is a historian who speaks 4languages,English,German,Polish and Ukrainian.

-Her study was of displaced person 1945 to 1947 and particularly 180,000 jews who were deported to a ghetto in the Polish city of Lodz-1 hour southwest of Warsaw- including 20,000 from Hamburg-

she researched the 24,000 postcards which these persons wrote from Lodz but which were never sent due to being censored, which still exist having survived the war-postcards were the only communication available for ghetto inhabitants with up to 20,000 being purchased on just one day-"receiving inwards mail was the most important event of the day".

She held a 2022 exhibition in a park in Hamburg situated on the site of the main rail station from which deportees left for Lodz.- when talking to parents of children visiting the exhibition she reports that some find it "uncomfortable" to explain what happened under National Socialism (the Nazis )in the War 2.

Sarah now claims that this presentation is her fatherest lecture from Germany.

 

Meeting closed 8.30.