MEMBERS of the Rotary Club of Pinetown held a special luncheon to induct Rotarian, Margaret Keogh, as the incoming president of the club for the Rotary year 2016 to 2017.
The outgoing president of the club, Jean Senogles, handed over the heavy chain of office to Margaret at the Peter Dickinson Hall at the Pinehaven Retirement Home on Thursday, 23 June. The chain is heavy as it contains a badge for every president since the club’s formation in 1953 and it also represents the heavy work-load and responsibilities that the incoming president and her board will face in the forthcoming year.
The atmosphere in the room where the induction of the new president was held was light, happy and relaxed. Margaret’s enthusiasm and energy was contagious. Her focus is on the youth of Pinetown and the three major Pinetown schools were not only represented at this occasion, they also fully participated in the programme and speeches. Instead of a formal luncheon, Margaret continued her fresh, youthful theme into the lunch, which included pop corn, hamburgers and ice-cream.
The Rotary theme this year is Celebrating the Youth, hence the club held a particular presentation by a reading group called Reading Gogos, which was started by Margaret about four years ago as part of the schools forum programme. The Reading Gogos is a dedicated group of women who meet at the Pinetown Junior Primary School hall every Thursday to teach groups of children from Grade 2 and 3 who are struggling with not only their reading, but also with sounds and word recognition.
The are volunteers give up their time to help children in these schools with their reading skills. Their individual attention and care has had a great positive effect on the children, who feel privileged to have their help, and the ‘gogos’ themselves feel hugely rewarded. The children also follow a Speak Out programme with volunteers in which they enjoy story-telling.
Junior Rotary Clubs such as Rotaract and Interact are active in these schools under the guidance of dedicated teachers and Rotary’s assistance. They practice the motto of ‘Service above self’ in the projects they undertake and also learn how rewarding helping others is.
In KwaNdengezi, the already firmly-established resource centre continues to help a wide range of pupils with their reading and career guidance, and the introduction of information technology (IT) has been successful in providing visual programmes of learning that are being used to assist teachers.
Should anyone be interested in giving up some of their time to these worthwhile projects, they can contact Margaret on 072 631 0868.
