Our guest speaker this week, Neil Cole, has a very interesting and varied background and he shared his mental health challenges in a very open and honest manner. Neil’s early career was in community law and he explained how, as a young lawyer, he represented some very colourful characters who in various forms are the basis for his recent book Trials and Tribulations in Community Law.
On a positive note Neil feels the current level of crime is lower than previous periods, in part due to the higher level of employment opportunities for young people, but media outlets want to report on the negative aspects.
It has been a very busy and exciting week for Rotary Hawthorn and I am pleased to provide an update on a number of our key projects.
The Balwyn Centenary Grants Committee have confirmed they will provide $10,000 towards the St Vincent’s Mental Health Unit Care Packs project. This is a project Katrina and Bronwyn Stephens have been working on over the past few months to extend our current MHU Care Packs from The Alfred and Box Hill Hospitals to St Vincent’s. We will also have support from Rotary Glenferrie for this project in terms of member engagement and financial aid. Well done to Katrina, Bronwyn and their team for the Care Packs project.
Vincent, Andrew, Ian Bentley and I had a very constructive meeting on Monday with representatives from the Doherty Institute and University of Melbourne to discuss the proposed Rotary Hawthorn Emerging Scientist Award. Over the next few weeks the Doherty and University of Melbourne will provide a document outlining how the annual Award can be established to support their highest ranked PhD research candidate during the early years of their studies.
Subject to Board approval we hope to have the Award up and running in 2025.
We have also been contacted by Auburn High School to advise they want to start the planning for the 2024 Year 9 Mock job interviews. Auburn High have 158 students participating this year in the Mock interviews and have scheduled the sessions for Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th September from 8:30 am to 12 noon.
Geoff Wright and David Owen have kindly offered to assist with organising the Mock interview schedule and we have determined it will require 32 Club members and friends to act as interviewers over the two days. From my experience the interviews have always been an interesting activity, if you could keep these dates in mind for your diaries and we will be trying to lock in participants over the next few months.
Announcements:
The annual Changeover Dinner is scheduled for Tuesday 4th June at Kooyong LTC starting at 6:30 pm. We currently have 81 members and guests registered and bookings will close this week on Friday 24th May.
Footing tipping this week remains close with Richard Logan still top Dog (I know he is not a Bulldog’s supporter) followed by myself and Demons of Old with David Rush moving up the rankings to number four.
The next Club meeting is on 28th May on Zoom and the guest speaker is Jacinda Goodwin from Werribee Open Range Zoo with her topic being “A Unique Species!”. Jacinda assists in overseeing the whole natives team working with a variety of native Australian species, including Tammar wallabies, koalas, orange bellied parrots, kangaroos, emus, tortoises and some reptiles. She is part of a team at Werribee Open Range Zoo that does incredible work with a very endangered species: the final remaining members of a genetic line that traces its origins to around 100 million years ago, when Australia was joined to Antarctica and South America
I hope you will be able to join us.
Doug McLean
President 2023-24