Charmaine’s Chat
Lovely meeting last week. Our DG Peter Ford was impressed that even with our small numbers we still do so much for our local community. He was very interested to hear how we work with other local community groups so projects can happen, like our Busking Festival. He also liked our Happy Moments instead of the normal Sergeant’s Fine Session.
Peter’s
talk was informative, including his reminder that the District Conference will
be in Ulladulla 6-8 March. Other guests last week were ADG Alan Russell
and his wife Denise, Thérèse Aston and Steve Deck .
I represented our Club on Sunday at the Marine Rescue base at Narooma for their
celebration of 10 years of volunteer service. It featured the new Radio Room equipment
and the opening of the memorial garden and community seat. The garden is in
memory of volunteers who have served with Narooma. There is a magnificent
view from there; we even saw whales.
Other news: Chris O Brien also has locked in 27 December for our Big Holiday Market and Angie is going strong with the Whale Watching raffle ticket sales. A gentle reminder about our Board meeting this Thursday at 5.00 pm.
THIS WEEK
Board meeting at the Golf Club at 5pm. Dinner meeting to follow 6 for 6.30 with guest speaker Susanna Page who is the Divisional Superintendent of St John’s Ambulance. She will talk about the ‘Story behind St John’.
The Week that Was
As President Charmaine said, it was great having our DG Peter Ford visiting us in ‘the outpost’ of Narooma last week. It was sad in a way though that he is the last Governor of District 9710, hence his presentation was titled ‘The Final Chapter’.
Peter said everything is going well for the merger of our District with D9700 to form D9705, and that the change will not affect us at Club level. The new District will come into being on 1 July 2020. The proposal to merge with an extra district was thankfully knocked on the head.
He described the Rotary International Assembly in San Diego in January as ‘a magnificent affair’ and was impressed with the enthusiasm and passion of RI President Mark Maloney and his theme of ‘Rotary connects the World’.
Peter said Rotary is not about being a fundraising body; “it’s about community service and friendship”. He was impressed with our Club which, although small, was servicing our community in so many ways. “Well done to all of you,” he said. He wished our Presidents Four a good year and for us all to have a good time. He drew our attention to the District Goals (p.13 of the District Directory).
Peter, now retired, had moved around with his Army career so consequently has been a member of about 12 Rotary clubs; he said it was a great way to make new friends outside the Defence industry at his various postings.
Throughout he has been supported by his wife Judy who this year is editor of the DG’s newsletter, Chair of the Conference Committee and the Membership Committee, as well as being the ex officio head of the D9710 Children’s Emergency Medical Fund which will be wound up with the end of D9710.
Rod Walker made the appropriate International Toast last week to Rotary International, and belatedly received his Presidential album for his year 2018-2019.
Also in Happy Moments last week Chris O’Brien mentioned she is currently working on her 100th issue of her Welcome to Narooma magazine which will be out 23 August. That’s 25 years of producing the magazine. Well done Chris.
Out and About
IRT and Rotary work together
It started with an email from Luke Burgess at IRT Dalmeny to our Club via Bob Aston saying IRT was replacing 10 hospital-style beds at IRT Dalmeny with new ones and could Rotary use the old ones. Bob immediately saw this was a job for the Canberra-based Rotary Recovery Rehabilitation and Re-use Project team.
Team member Fred Fawke was subsequently advised by Luke that the IRT at Moruya and Batemans Bay would also have beds available soon. Some of these beds will be distributed to grateful recipients within Australia as well as overseas; in some cases they will enable older or incapacitated people to be cared for in their homes rather than in hospital.
Steve Young of Moruya Rotary and Bob are on standby waiting to collect the Dalmeny beds where they will be stored at Bay Removals until all beds are collected. They will then be transported to Canberra. “With our Rehab and Re-Use team we then ensure they all work properly before they are distributed,” Fred said. “We take great pride testing them and in some cases installing them to make sure all is okay.”
So as Bob says, “A great outcome from a single email to our Club”.
Frank’s push for your vote for the electric bus
Frank reminds us the closing date for the My Community Grants is this Thursday so that’s the last chance to Vote 1 for the South Coast Health and Sustainability Alliance’s (SHASA) proposed Electric Vehicle Community Transport Bus project for the Eurobodalla Shire. It’s one of over 30 community projects in the Bega Electorate competing for NSW Government funding under the ‘My Community Project’ grants program. Everyone can vote for up to five participants.
The 2019 Polio case count
The International PolioPlus Committee has released the latest Polio figures for 2018-2019. The wild poliovirus case count reached 37 at the end of June – 27 in Pakistan and 10 in Afghanistan, slightly higher than the previous year’s figures. The film for this year’s Polio fundraiser at the Kinema on Thursday 24 October is Ride Like a Girl.