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Welcome to the Rotary Club of Te Awamutu

Are you passionate about our community, our young people and the environment? We are a group of local people with a wide range of business and personal interests. We all share a passion to help our community - why not join us?

Rotary Christmas Parade 2025

The Te Awamutu Rotary Christmas Parade could not happen without the amazing support we receive from our incredible team of sponsors.

Each of the following organisations plays a vital role in helping us deliver a safe, vibrant, and successful community event:

Waikato Construction Management
Waipa District Council
Te Awamutu & Kihikihi Community Board
Waipa Networks
Thorncombe Park
Rosetown Print
Fresh Choice
Pak’nSave
Honda Shop
Subway
McDonald’s

We are grateful to live in a town where community spirit is truly alive and well.

A huge thank you also to our local retailers, who work with us through the road closures so we can provide a completely safe parade for everyone to enjoy. Your cooperation and patience help make this special day possible.

Thank you, Te Awamutu — together we make Christmas magic happen.

Book Fair -Thank you

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU

A huge thank you to everyone that came along and supported our annual Book Fair, thanks to your support and generosity we raised in excess of $13,000. All of this will be put back into the community via the various projects that we are involved in.

Great Te Awamutu Bake Off - Bigger, Better and Sweeter!

On Saturday, 12th April 2025, the ovens were hot and the competition even hotter at the second annual 'Great Te Awamutu Bake Off', proudly hosted by our Rotary Club. What began as a fun community event in 2024 has more than doubled in size this year — growing from 19 entries to an impressive 43 mouth-watering submissions!

We were thrilled to see more youth entries this year, along with the return of several bakers from last year — proof that the baking bug has truly caught on. The calibre of entries was notably higher too, making the judge’s job as tough.

A special shoutout to the four brave blokes who joined the fun this year, including one of our own Rotarians. One of them walked away with first place for his delicious slice, proving once and for all that baking knows no gender!

Thanks to the generosity of our local Pak’nSave, we were able to award $350 worth of vouchers to our winners.

A huge thank you to Kelly from Creative Box for designing our beautiful certificates, and to Kathryn from What The Food, who was a fabulous judge and has already volunteered to return next year.

It was very rewarding to see our community come together in floury, sugary joy. Here’s to another successful Bake Off — and to an even bigger one in 2026!

Christmas Parade 2024

WOW, WOW, WOW what an amazing Christmas Parade 2024

A huge thank you to our sponsors; Waikato Construction Management Limited, Waipā Networks, Waipā District Council, and Te Awamutu and Kihikihi Community Board

To our float entries: Fineline Facia and Spouting; John Austin Ltd: Ohaupo Rugby Sports Club: McDonald's Kihikihi Speedway: Te Awamutu Playcentre; Te Awamutu Scout Group; Te Awamutu Girl Guides; St John Te Awamutu; Joyce Ripo Trust Ltd; Hamilton Roller Skating Club; Booth Logistics Te Awamutu; ConneXu-90486; Te Awamutu GymSports; Te Awamutu District Highland Pipe Band; Te Awamutu Wheelchair Wagon Trust; Beststart Te Awamutu; Tovah's Tutoring Company; Te Awamutu Community Toy Library; Te Awamutu Rod and Custom club; Waipa District Council Animal Control; Seen Learning Collective; Cheer Addiction; Waikato Irish Society; Reach Church;Te Awamutu Volunteer Fire Brigade; The Learning;Te Awamutu AFC; Te Awamutu Volunteer Fire Brigade; The Learning Nest; Waipā Networks; Te Awamutu Brass Band; All Things Trees Waikato Ltd; Waipa King Country Life Education Trust; Precious Paws Te Awamutu; Kwiksmart Photography Limited, we know the time and effort that goes in to getting the floats ready, so a big thank you.

To all of the volunteers, the parade can’t happen without wonderful people like you who give their time to make the parade what it is and to the thousands who came out and lined the streets and cheered everyone on, a huge thank you, it wouldn't be a success without all of you.

Congratulations to all of our winners, especially Te Awamutu AFC who won the best overall category.

Go to our Facebook page to see lots of photos and a full list of winners

Kainga Aroha Holiday Camp

During the Christmas school holidays, Kainga Aroha Community House organise an annual camp. This is a programme for children aged 7–14 years. It is primarily for children who would not normally have the chance to experience this type of programme for whatever reason, but all are welcome. Rotary have assisted with this project for a number of years and have donated $1,000 toward the camp in January 2025.

Operation Christmas Hamper

Operation Christmas Hamper is a community led initiative. Rotarians have been helping a team of volunteers comprising of Staff from Kainga Aroha Community House, Local Churches, businesses and others from the Community who work together to support families in need during the holiday period. Rotary donated $1,000 to help with the purchase of items to fill the hampers.

Essay Competition winners 2024

Congratulations to our 2024 Essay Competition winners. It was great to see more of the local schools taking part this year and as always the entries were of a very high calibre and it was a tough job to pick the winners. Our thanks go to Paper Plus Te Awamutu for their continued sponsorship of this event.

RESULTS

5 & 6 year olds:

1st: Mckenzie Perrett - Ohaupo School; 2nd: Ryleigh Martin - Ohaupo School; 3rd =: Kendyl-Reyn Anderson-Clark - Pekapekarau School & Bella Alexander - Te Awamutu Primary School

7 & 8 year olds

1st: Fletcher Marsh - Ohaupo School; 2nd: Billie Abbott - Ohaupo School; 3rd: Eli Lawry - Wharepapa South School

9 & 10 year olds

1st: Anne Burrows - Paterangi School; 2nd: Nina Diack - Pokuru School; 3rd: Ethan Elphinstone - Te Awamutu Primary School

11 years plus

1st =: Lara Hollinshead - Ohaupo School & Billy Cotton - Korakonui School; 2nd: Jake Grinter - Ohaupo School; 3rd =: Peyton Murie - Ohaupo School & Kylo Holloway-Smith - Ohaupo School

Rotary International President visit

It’s been a big week in the world of Te Awamutu Rotary! On Thursday (6/6/24), along with the National Wetland Trust of New Zealand we were delighted to host Rotary International President, Gordon McInally and his wife Heather at Rotopiko/Lake Serpertine, in partnership with Ngati Apakura.

For many of us this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend time with a Rotary International President, unfortunately their busy schedule rarely lends time for visits to New Zealand, so we relished the chance to welcome Gordon and Heather to the Waikato.

The event was recognised by the unveiling of a bench on site as a lasting recognition of this visit and its significance.

Rotary meetings are fun

Te Awamutu Rotarians meet at the TA Club on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday evening from 5:30pm for a 6:00pm start. We have a broad range of speakers who are both informative and entertaining. Sometimes we hear from our own members and on the 10th October we heard from member Tracy Hemingway. Now Tracy loves pink and sparkles, so what better way to have some fun than ask our members to add some pink and /or bling to their outfit for the meeting. As you can see from the image, a lot of our members joined in the fun.

If you'd like to find out more about Te Awamutu Rotary and join us for some fun, you can contact us on teawamuturotary@gmail.com or use the contact us form under the 'About Us' tab

Te Awamutu Riding for the Disabled

New Zealand Riding for the Disabled Association (NZRDA) is a member association made up of over 50 local RDA groups who are in local communities throughout New Zealand.

The core purpose of NZRDA is to provide interaction with horses to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for people experiencing disability, or who have specific challenges or needs.

Following a talk from Rosalie who manages the Te Awamutu group, Te Awamutu rotary club had no hesitation in deciding to offer some support from our 2023 Book Fair.

Urban Miners

About Urban Miners

Urban Miners is a not-for-profit organisation that runs an e-waste reuse, repair and recycling service for the Waipa District in New Zealand.

Urban Miners is run entirely by volunteers from Rotary Cambridge, Rotary Te Awamutu, and the local Waipa community. We also work in partnership with other community groups including the Lions Club of Cambridge.

The main goal is to provide an environmentally focused e-waste service that diverts as much material as possible form landfill through recycling, reuse or repair.

History of Women in Rotary

Women are active participants in Rotary, serving their communities in increasing numbers and serving in leadership positions in Rotary. The 1989 Council on Legislation vote to admit women into Rotary clubs worldwide remains a watershed moment in the history of Rotary.

“My fellow delegates, I would like to remind you that the world of 1989 is very different to the world of 1905. I sincerely believe that Rotary has to adapt itself to a changing world,” said Frank J. Devlyn, who would go on to become RI president in 2000-01.

The vote followed the decades-long efforts of men and women from all over the Rotary world to allow the admission of women into Rotary clubs, and several close votes at previous Council meetings.

Rotary at the Start of the United Nations

Rotary and the United Nations have a shared history of working toward peace and addressing humanitarian issues around the world.

During World War II, Rotary informed and educated members about the formation of the United Nations and the importance of planning for peace. Materials such as the booklet “From Here On!” and articles in The Rotarian helped members understand the UN before it was formally established and follow its work after its charter.

Many countries were fighting the war when the term “United Nations” was first used officially in the 1942 “Declaration by United Nations.” The 26 nations that signed it pledged to uphold the ideals expressed by the United States and the United Kingdom the previous year of the common principles “on which they based their hopes for a better future for the world.”

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