At the club’s changeover dinner, Annette Wade was named a Paul Harris Fellow by the club.

This citation recognises an outstanding commitment to the club or the community.

Rotarians across the world can designate a Paul Harris Fellow to recognise a person whose life demonstrates a shared purpose with the objectives and mission of The Rotary Foundation.

That is namely to build world understanding and peace.

Mrs Wade was handed the honour for her work with exchange students.

This particularly related to her involvement in the Rotary Youth Exchange program for over 30 years and community organisations such as the Country Women’s Association and Inner Wheel.

Mrs Wade and her Len have hosted around 30 exchange students from countries all over the world during this time.

On the night, Mrs Wade commented that when she and Mr Wade took on their very first exchange student (Maria Isberg from Sweden, 30 years ago) they had no idea how it would change their lives.

“It has been beyond our imagination – the wonderful families across the world we now have in our lives,” she said.

Mrs Wade also said she was honoured to be named as a Paul Harris Fellow. 

The changeover evening was also attended by district governor Michael Milston and wife Ann Dib.

A Rotarian from Orange, Mr Milston has recently taken over the role of District Governor.

As part of his role he travels to all of the clubs across the region and, in Leeton, he introduced the Rotary theme for 2016-17 “Rotary serving humanity” and a new logo for district 9700 in Wiradjuri that shows respect for the traditional landowners.

Mr Milston also outlined what he felt it was like to be part of Rotary and encouraged others to join the fun.

He outlined the goals of Rotary, including eradication of polio throughout the world and working with Indigenous groups to bring communities together.

Ms Dib, also a Rotarian, spoke of how close the world is to eradicating Polio and Rotary’s role in that.