In Gear | Rotary in Southern New Zealand Issue 1 | Page 30

Bruce Cowan

Andrew Hamilton

District governor-elect
Rotary Club of Dunedin

District governor-nominee
Rotary Club of Dunedin Central

PROFILES

After 17 years serving in Rotary in southern
New Zealand, Bruce Cowan will take the reins
of District 9980 for the 2017-18 year.
Bruce joined the Rotary Club of Dunedin in
2000, and has served in several key roles since,
including a year as club president in 2008. In
2013, he began a two-year stint as assistant
district governor, during which time he
supported the six Dunedin clubs and Rotaract.
His contributions to Rotary saw Bruce awarded
a Paul Harris Fellow in 2011.
Outside of Rotary, Bruce’s career has been
devoted to education. A former secondary
school teacher, he’s spent the past 16 years
working in residential colleges at Dunedin’s
University of Otago, and is currently the deputy
master at St Margaret’s College. In that role, on
the practical front, each year he’s managed
the teams responsible for the provision of
accommodation and meals for more than 200
Kiwi and international students.
He also plays a vital role providing both
pastoral and a cademic support, acting as
something of a substitute ‘father’ to a very
large family of teenagers as they transition to
independent living, becoming financially and
emotionally self-determining, and also making
the big step from directed learning to selfmanaged learning.
Athletics has also proved a lifetime interest for
Bruce, who’s been involved in administration
for the past two decades, and is currently
serving his second term as president of
Athletics Otago.
A proud dad to four children, and doting
granddad to nine, Bruce lives in Dunedin with
partner Jill Shayler, who works for Idea Services
caring for intellectually disabled adults.

With less than two years to go before he takes the
reins of New Zealand’s southernmost Rotary region,
district governor-nominee Andrew Hamilton has
swung right into learning mode, and is out to meet as
many Rotarians as he can.
At the end of this month (August), his formal training
begins, with he and wife Barbara travelling to Penrith,
Australia, for Governors-elect Training (GETS).
Andrew joined the Rotary Club of Dunedin Central
in 2005 and, during the past 11 years, has served at
club level as treasurer, on the Rotary Foundation
Committee, as director of membership, and 201415 president. As well as his role as district governornominee, Andrew is also serving on the district’s
Rotary Foundation Committee for 2016-17, in what is
its centennial celebration year.
He brings to Rotary one of his key life philosophies:
you get out of the things you do what you put into
them, and is constantly amazed at, and appreciative of,
the huge amount of voluntary time and effort people
put into running Rotary District 9980.
Raised on a Northern Southland farm, Andrew enjoyed
a rural upbringing, before attending boarding school.
He studied commerce at Otago University, and went
on to work in both Dunedin and Wellington for Ernst &
Young and its predecessors.
Arriving back from London 23 years ago with the
strong calling of the South Island, he returned to
Dunedin, where he and Barbara owned and operated
a book shop for five years, during which time they also
founded a chartered accounting practice they still own
and run today.
He’s targeting continued learning and observation
as his goals in his current role as district governornominee and, along with getting to know as many
Rotarians as possible, Andrew’s also keen to educate
himself more about the positions within the district
and what they entail.

Page 30 | In Gear - Rotary in Southern New Zealand - District 9980 | www.rotarydistrict9980.org