Weekly Message From President Ngaire
What a lot of fun and laughter we have had these last two weeks. Imagine the scene at The Royal Auburn Bowling Club Tuesday last week. It is Twilight Bowls, and 35 Rotarians and partners have gathered to learn the game. Most have never held a bowling ball in their hands before so have no idea about bias, which means that bowling balls are careering all around the greens, both long and wide, to the merriment (and some disparagement) of surrounding spectators and players.
Surely, this was one of our best fellowship nights this year – thanks to Master Bowler David Pisterman, Caterer Extraordinaire Anne Scott and Fellowship Coordinator John Christoffelsz, for their organisation, not to mention Angoves for their amazingly generous donation of wines for Albury, that we consumed freely after the effort of bowling!! Congratulations to DG Dennis, Helen Corrigan and Pru Logan for starring on the greens. Thank you to all who attended, for your spirit and participation. It was a great alternative to lunch at Kooyong and one many of us would like to see repeated.
And we had another great meeting today as we played host to a number of guests, including President Jill Forsyth and 15 members from RC of Kew, who were ‘making up’ with us – so to speak. We all so enjoyed our guest speaker, Dr Jack Ayerbe from Geelong, who was highly entertaining, most informative and had the best Irish accent heard outside the Green Isle. Jack’s scientific research into the use of Fontania, a bush unique to Queensland, for use with cancer patients, was fascinating. His slides showed us the amazing results achieved so far with his canine patients with the product which will be marketed as EBC46. We wish Jack and his team all success in this potentially life-saving work and look forward to receiving regular updates from friend Bill Troedel.
Rotarians At Work Day on Sunday April 21 would have to be considered an outstanding success. It was certainly fun being involved in a District-coordinated project. 54 out of the 70 clubs in the District fielded volunteers and many gardens and parks got a great makeover. Gerald Swinnerton did a terrific job coordinating 20 volunteers from RCH, thank you Gerald, working at 2 different locations in Boroondara. The hot muffins, courtesy of RC Glenferrie’s Glenis Heath, were very appreciated. RAWD is what Rotary is all about, giving back to the community and I personally think we should do this kind of hands-on project much more often.
Congratulations to Gerry Cantwell, who has just completed an 11-day trek from Perth to Melbourne with 26 Postie motor bikes and 4 support vehicles (34 people in all). The group raised $410K for Prostate Cancer Research. A phenomenal result and well done, Gerry – we’re proud of you. I understand Gerry’s sailing team also were first across the line at a sailing carnival over this last weekend. And Joe Devereux has pulled off another golf victory, despite his senior years. No question, we have some sporting talent in this club!!
It is with great regret that the Board has accepted the resignation of Ian Stoney from his position as Vocational Director, and has also granted Ian an extended leave of absence from Rotary, due to his slower than expected recovery from surgery. Both Murray Elrington and Annie Johnson have tendered their resignations, for reasons of work and relocation respectively. We will miss them both.
Meanwhile, our Rotary year moves at a leisurely pace towards June 30th. Please contact PE Gordon Cheyne if you can join our DIK workshop on May 2, District Assembly on May 19th and/or DG Changeover on Saturday June 29th. All are important events in our Rotary calendar.
An entry for your diaries, for Tuesday May 21st: We have another Club Vocational visit organised, this time to the new Melbourne Mint in the city. Geoff Wright will keep you updated in the coming weeks. Make sure you are part of this interesting visit.
Next week our speaker is Erin Wicker, the coordinator for Social Inclusion and Advocacy for Girl Guides Australia. She has been asked by the World Association to attend a forum in Rwanda for the 'Stop the Violence' program that was launched at the United Nations in New York last month. I do hope you will join us for lunch and make Erin feel very welcome.
Enjoy your Anzac Day celebration, in memory of many fine men and women who have helped make this country the proud nation it is.
Yours in Rotary,
Ngaire
Thought for the week:
"Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” - Dalai Lama