Rotary’s three-day multi-district impact summit brought about 400 members to Horsham across the weekend to network and hear from a range of guest speakers.

Nhill-based District 9870 governor Christine Dufty, along with Adelaide district governor Rajeev Kamineni and Melbourne’s Peter Shepheard, said districts usually hosted their own separate events each year.

“We decided to combine and meet in the middle,” Ms Dufty said.

“To have 400 people here for conferences, it’s testing the limits of not just the town hall, but Maydale and the caterers and everything else. 

“But doing it all together gives us a little bit more push power with speakers.”

Rotary International’s first female world president Jennifer Jones travelled from Canada for the event as the organisation’s representative, appearing with a host of speakers.

Among others, ‘Beautiful Bogan’ Marc Ryan spoke about men’s mental health, Rotary Australia World Community Service chief executive Mahir Momand talked about his experience coming to Australia as a refugee, speaker Jessie Harman raised money for polio eradication by walking to Base Camp, and David Sudholz spoke of the impact of the Grass Flat fire.

Mr Shepheard said the event was also an opportunity for Rotarians to get together and check in with each other.

“By having three different districts come together, it’s an opportunity to actually see what other people are doing and getting some ideas and share,” he said. 

“We’re very big on collaboration, we like the idea of people sharing ideas and replicating things that work in different places. 

“It’s an opportunity to look at the wide variety of activities that are going on, get some inspiration and in a lot of cases go back to your club feeling a little bit more fired up for the next 12 months.”

The summit was at Horsham Town Hall, which also featured public displays of Rotary’s services and opportunities in the Heritage Hall. 

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