District Conference
Over 400 Rotarians and partners from 37 Clubs attended the 2012 District Conference in Young. The numbers attending sessions were around 300 Saturday and 250 Sunday – a wonderful turnout.
RI President Kalyan Banerjee’s representative was PDG Bob Richards and Jill from District 9810 in Melbourne. Bob made the observation that distance travelled between Clubs was one of the major differences between his and our District with most D9700 towns with a Rotary presence being around 75-100km apart where as the entire D9810 was a mere 125km from top to bottom.
Conference speakers focused on the theme of Embracing Humanity and the presentations were combinations of Interesting, Intriguing, Compassionate, Challenging and above all Memorable. Feedback received from individuals and Clubs indicates that the speakers and program showed the depth of work undertaken by Rotarians and non-Rotarians both locally and overseas and the outstanding results being achieved.
A Special Feature of the Conference was a Gnome Convention on the Saturday arranged by Jean Simpson to support her partners Program for Street Swags and Water Filters. The partners of the 2011-12 Board, Assistant Governors and Presidents created Gnomes to reflect interests, hobbies and in some cases professions.
Overall, the Conference was a very fruitful and enjoyable weekend and certainly celebrated Rotary – Embracing Humanity, our theme for this year.