From the last meeting, where we had an audiologist and a speech therapist from the Hearing House visit us to promote the great work they do at the Hearing House, as well as the upcoming Loud Shirt Day:

At the meeting before that we threw around some fantastic ideas for community and international service projects:

And a quick recap of what we learnt from Dr Bartle, sleep therapist:

Hello everyone, and welcome to the 2009-2010 Rotaract Year. I’m Kylie and I’m the new president. I’m really looking forward to the next year as we have some interesting  and exciting projects in the pipeline to continue on our good work both locally and internationally. Our club continues to go from strength to strength and I strongly believe this is due to the amazing and motivated people in our club. You all are truly inspirational and each person brings their different qualities to the great big melting pot that is Pupuke Rotaract!

Our new Rotaract year kicked off with our annual changeover where we dressed up in island themed costumes and celebrated who we are as a club and what we can achieve, proving that we may be small but we really are a force to be reckoned with. Keep up the fantastic work guys!

Our meeting on 13th July saw us host Dr Alex Bartle, a sleep specialist. Dr Bartle spoke on what really happens when we sleep, for sleep really is more than just going to bed and then waking up in the morning. He explained that when we sleep the body goes through several stages of sleep throughout the night and these alternate between periods of rapid eye movement (REM) or non rapid eye movement (NREM). During the periods of REM the body is in a light sleep where we’re dreaming. Then when we fall into NREM we’re deep in sleep and our body is recovering and producing the growth hormones that we need. Most of the NREM sleep we experience happens in the first third of the night and this is where all the physical processes take place. The REM sleep occurs predominantly in the latter part of the night and this is the emotional parts of our sleep and where the thought processes take place. Dr Bartle also explained to us the importance of these two types of sleep and why we need them, along with how to deal with insomnia, and if you do suffer from this condition that the most important thing you can do is get rid of the clock! He also suggested that if you’re stressed, don’t take your issues to bed – instead, get up and write them down ready to be ready to deal with them the next day.