Rotary 9800 Conference had everything last weekend at sunny Bendigo.

Terrific presentations but for me, I was ensconced for the weekend in the Showcase area.

There were 38 terrific, inspirational stands, and I am ecstatic with the support, and encouragement from so many Rotarians from Clubs throughout 9800.

Peter Berg (Rotary Melbourne), Lookman Lawal (Rotary Richmond and our latest member of the Inclusive Communities Initiative) and I handed out all our printed resources, wallet cards and fruit lollies!

We were overwhelmed at one point with Rotarians having to find me on the Sunday to say hello as they couldn’t get near us on Saturday. I have many new SAFE Families’ followers, numerous invitations to present at Rotary Clubs and several meetings to talk with a host of diverse communities. 

It was a lot of work, but so worth the effort. A huge thank you to David Pisterman who after falling backwards down some stairs made his way to our Rotary SAFE Families stand on Sunday, as he knew I was on my own. He helped deconstruct and pack me up!

Thank you David.

Oh! The snake! I parked my car early Sunday morning in the school car park only to discover a lady standing beside her car in great distress!  She had opened the door to discover a brown snake sunning itself on her seat!

I spent half an hour trying to get one of the three Bendigo snake catchers to pick up their damn phone on a Sunday morning. This obviously distraught lady had to drive back to Point Lonsdale not knowing if she had company in her car.

Eventually, snake catcher from Castlemaine answered our call for help! 

This “event” was not on the Conference program but be alert and respect the Scouts motto: Be Prepared!  

Dorothy sent us no snake photos, so we include a Royalty-free photo from PEXELS - Ed.