It gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce to you this evening Past President John Meyer. For some of you, you wont need this introduction. You were here with me when John was a member of our club.
John Meyer joined the Rotary Club of Waimate on 7/6/73 His original classified was Beef Production and then it was changed to Sheep farming on 1/6/78.
As I look back to then, something like 40+ years ago, we were a club of just over 50 members about the same number as now. Much is still the same, the noise and camaraderie the pleasure at meeting up together again and catching up with each others week. Sure we are not quite as formal as we used to be but the fun and joy are the same. Believe it or not we were young like many of you. Full of energy and enthusiasm as we planned different projects and enjoying the company of our Youth Exchange students. It was very social. We had people like Ross and Averil Bell, Kelvin and Roberta Smith, Stuart and Judy Laing, Val and Jim Chamberlain (the music makers) Alister and Melva Brown and we had John and Melva Meyer. We all loved to party. Life was fun in Rotary!
John very quickly became involved in the running of our club. He was, still is, a practical down to earth person who was a true enthusiast in every thing he took on. In the early days of Polioplus he was one of the drivers. as we set about raising the funds needed to rid the world of Polio. He was also one of the most enthusiastic members of the Te Aka fishing group. He was always one of the first to put his hand up to volunteer to help on our many projects.
He Serviced our club as
Chair Youth Committee 76/77
Director Vocational Service 77/78
Director International Service 78/79
Chair of Foundation Committee 81/82 and again in 87/88
Director of Youth Committee 82/83
Vice President 83/84 and Club Service Chair 83/84
And he served our club as our President during the Rotary year 84/85
Around 1990 John and Melva sold their farm at Waituna and bought a block of land up on Garlands Road. John became a Market Gardener growing choice vegetables. The work was hugely labour intensive and time consuming. So much so that John had to ration his time.
And so after nineteen years of service John resigned from Rotary on the 1/10/92 Simply not enough time to do everything! A big loss to our club but on the plus side he has remained a close friend to many of us through till now. Melva and John eventually retired into town and he became involved at Knottingley Park and is a very enthusiastic member of the Savage Club.
Tonight we want to say thank you John for your time with our club, serving as our President and your enthusiastic encouragement in everything you have undertaken over these many years.
The best way we can do this is to place $1000 US dollars into the Rotary Foundation with your name John F Meyer attached. This will remain there for all time with the earnings from this fund being used each year to fund projects helping people in need around the world.
- PDG Jim Rayner