Rotary welcomes new president

The new board: Kath Venters (international), left, John Paton (acting treasurer), Lynne Carlson (president), Paul Brewster (youth), Marita Scott (vocational), and Peter Cowburn (immediate past president). (Supplied)

Lynne Carlson has taken over the reins as president of the Ocean Grove Rotary after a successful financial year for the club.

Ms Carlson said she has “enjoyed every moment” of her involvement with the club and felt “very lucky” to continue helping the community through her new role.

“I am excited about taking on the presidency and look forward to the club being actively involved in the local community in the wider Rotary community in the year ahead,” she said.

“There’s a lot going on and a lot of changes with some of the things that we’re doing. I think it’s important that we just don’t do the same thing.”

As part of her new role, Ms Carlson said she looked to start an information program for the club’s members that would hold sessions over close to six months.

“We have got a lot of new people in the club, and they haven’t really had any training, which we haven’t been doing that for some time, but we are going to introduce that again,” she said.

“We’ll call it Rotary Inside Bites so that when the trainees are there, we’ll have some of the major people from within the club that will go along and just be there to answer questions.

Outgoing president Peter Cowburn helped the club donate more than $90,000 to charities over the 2022-23 financial year.

“We thank the local community for their support with our fundraising program,” he said.

“The club has been very successful this year and has donated $12,000 nationally, $23,000 internationally and a huge $56,000 locally.”