A giant Totara tree fell recently when we lost one of our long time and very active members of Pakuranga Rotary. Peter Ernest Taylor will be sadly missed.
“Let the Good Times Roll”. This was Peter Taylor's motto when he became the 22nd President of the Rotary Club of Pakuranga in 1991. And they sure did!
The Rotary International President that year was Rajendra Saboo of India, who had as his theme for the year: “Look Beyond Yourself”. I guess this is something that Peter always lived by anyway, so it was no surprise for him to follow that theme for his year. He was determined it would be a fun year in Rotary and it was!
During his tenure as President of our Club, Peter and his Rotary Team were very active in the community and I guess his pride and joy was the establishment of the Trees for Survival Trust, starting with those 3 schools in Pakuranga, using growing units that Peter designed and made in his factory. Peter encouraged the running of the Top Schools programme involving upwards of 600 young students from around our region, enjoying fun and games at the athletic grounds in Lloyd Elsmore Park and latterly at Edgewater College.
Another project he was proud of during his year, was the Home Science Building for the small island of Mauke in the Cook Islands. Situated about 250 kilometres from Rarotonga, a complete kitset building was airfreighted with the help of the RNZAF and the erection of the building was supervised on the island, by our then member, Robin Sissons. A major fundraiser for this project was a “Rock ‘n’ Roll“ evening held in the centre of the Pakuranga Plaza one Saturday evening, in those days when there was no night shopping there. What a great night & great memories.
In his 42 years of service with our Club, Peter was awarded a couple of Paul Harris Fellows as recognition of his “Service above Self” and he was at the centre of many projects conducted by the Club. He was always willing to help in any way he could, you just had to ask. He will be sadly missed by all that knew him.