Club's first female president

Lea Johnson.
Lea Johnson.
Lea Johnson hopes becoming Mosgiel Rotary Club's first female president will inspire other women to join the community group.

The club has 48 members, five of them women, and she hopes she will be able to increase the female membership.

''It would be great to see if more women were interested in taking part in service clubs, but we want to increase our membership anyway,'' Mrs Johnson said.

She became president on Monday when she took over from John Seddon.

When asked if she felt more pressure as the club's first female president, she said: ''No, definitely''.

''There's a Taieri club and they have had several female presidents, so it's just a first for our club.''

Mrs Johnson joined the club in 2005 and convinced her husband, Dave, to join about 18 months ago.

She joined after her daughter, Nadia, took part in an international Rotary exchange.

''I knew about it [Rotary] but hadn't been involved until I went along with my daughter and thought I would quite like to be involved with this kind of organisation.''

Since then she had been treasurer of ShelterBox, a disaster relief organisation administered in New Zealand by the Mosgiel Rotary Club.

As well as the sense of contribution to her community the group gave her, it also gave a sense of fellowship.

The best aspect of Rotary was the people, she said.

''Personally I have got far more out of Rotary than I ever thought I would.''

It was that message she aimed to portray during her presidency.

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