Whakatū Rotary, Nelson, New Zealand
Whakatū Rotarians are passionate people of action. We are a dynamic, diverse group of changemakers, who have a passion for service and who volunteer our time to work together to effect positive change in our community.
We welcome visitors. Please get in touch via the email address below if you would like to come along. You’ll find us on Friday mornings 6.45am-8am (venue open from 6.30am) for breakfast at The Tides Hotel, 66 Trafalgar Street, Nelson, New Zealand.
Email: secretary@rotarywhakatu.club
Facebook: https://facebook.com/rotarywhakatu
Who are we?
We connect people with diverse perspectives to exchange ideas, forge lifelong friendships and take action to change the world. We collaborate with community leaders who want to get to work on projects that have a real lasting impact on people’s lives. Together we apply our professional experience and personal commitment to tackle our community’s most persistent problems, finding new, effective ways to enhance health, stability and prosperity across the globe.
We value diversity and celebrate the contributions of people of all backgrounds, regardless of their age, ethnicity, race, colour, abilities, religion, socio-economic status, culture, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Our club membership boasts an even gender split and includes members from around the world, including the USA, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lithuania, England, Scotland, and Australia. Our youngest members are in their 30s but we don’t focus on age. We’re more interested in people who want to get things done and who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty to do so.
Our experience in both paid and volunteer work covers a broad cross-section of skilled professionals across all sectors of the community. Our members live throughout the city and Tasman. Many of us work, some of us are recently retired. We are a diverse bunch: we have a GP, an aged care service manager, a food compliance director, a change and implementation manager, a joinery manufacturer, an accountant, a historian, a visual journalist, a scientist, an academic lecturer, an IT project manager, a funeral director, a real estate company owner, a maritime lawyer, and an interior designer. Among our retirees are former police officers, a theatre manager, a psychologist, and a property developer. We’d love to welcome you!
What does Whakatū Rotary do?
We work with our community to identify and then respond to community needs. We have a particular focus on vulnerable youth and adults. This includes help and support for youth mentoring, teenagers who fall outside the traditional education system, the homeless, the aged, and Rotary’s own youth programmes.
We also actively support emergency preparedness and the environment.
These focus areas see us involved in some large, high impact projects.
How do we get together?
We have hold gatherings, summits, forums, get-togethers, events, confabs, rendezvous, sessions and workshops.
We regularly meet for breakfast at The Tides Hotel at 66 Trafalgar Street, Nelson, New Zealand, on most Friday mornings between 6.45am-8am.
Some weeks we have a speaker telling us something of importance happening in our community, other times we split into focus groups to plan projects and events. Occasionally we take time out for a relaxed confab, at which we can network with each other.
Social events outside of our usual Friday morning get-togethers are regularly enjoyed.
DIFFERENT FROM THE START
Whakatū Rotary was chartered in February 2003 with 22 members. These people included experienced Rotarians transferring from other clubs in search of a new way of experiencing Rotary and others who had not been with Rotary before. There was an even mix of men and women, and ages and this is reflected in today’s membership.
Whakatū, is the Māori name for Nelson. A macron above the ‘u’ was added several years later after consultation with local iwi.
The club became the first (and remains the only) Rotary club in the Top of the South Island to meet over breakfast and it quickly earned its reputation for doing things differently. It rejected traditional Rotary trappings, instead embracing an informal, social club culture that readily adopted emerging technology.
It seems strange now, but online club payments instead of paying cash at the door caused quite a stir back in the day, as did the arrival of the country’s first club blog, which kept followers up to date with club news. These days the blog has been replaced with an active Facebook Page and the club also has an active Instagram account. The club also had a purpose-built website, which was developed by a member, the late Sean Thomas. This served the club well until it was replaced with this current site in 2025.
real-time app for members to access
club activities and processes
The club continues to lead the way in technology with a purpose-built club app. Sean developed what has become the envy of Rotary clubs throughout the country. It enables members to access everything they need to know about club activities. Members can sign up for get-togethers, projects and events, contact each other via email or phone directly from the app, and access club documents.
As Artificial Intelligence develops, the club is also starting to adopt AI tools to help in administration tasks and social media and public relations materials.
We have not shied away from local and district leadership roles within Rotary. Club member, Phil Gully, served as District 9999 Governor in 2023-2024, and four members have served as Assistant Governors (John Bethwaite, Phil Gully, Anna Gully, Karen Stade), looking after clusters of clubs in the Top of the South Island.