Our guest speaker this week was Adam Courtenay, who gave an entertaining review of his book “Three Sheets to the Wind”, a tale of accidental discovery by William Clark and his party after being ship wrecked in 1796 near Tasmania. He explained, as often happens in history, significant individuals are not given the recognition they deserve due to being lost in records and other parties claiming the naming rights for their discoveries.
As members will be aware, the Rotary District Conference was held last weekend in Bendigo and Ian Bentley has provided an interesting overview and photos in this week’s edition. It was a very well organised and informative Conference with excellent guest speakers and quality entertainment provided. At the end of the Conference, Rotary Hawthorn were acknowledged for their Club’s contribution of $4,400 to the Rotary Foundation and we picked up a new Club banner which will be used at future events.
Photo: President Doug and Terry with gardener Costa Georgiades at the District Conference.
Dorothy attended the conference with Rotary SAFE Families as one of the Showcase Displays and had very positive feedback from other Clubs that visited the display.
We had a Club Board meeting last Tuesday and one of the key decisions was to accept the Membership applications from Mark Eldridge and Tamara Cannon. I look forward to inducting them into the Club at an upcoming in-person meeting.
A number of other key topics were discussed at the Board meeting:
· The Club Bulletin has had an issue with some of our photos used in older editions being subject to copyright protection. With new investigative software, the owners of the copyrights have been able to review our Bulletins and identify the photos and then issue infringement notices. We have established a team headed by Ian Bentley to remove all the suspicious photos from the past six years’ Bulletins to minimize the risk of any future infringement notices.
· Katrina and her team are working to establish the MHU Care Packs program at St Vincent’s MHU. We have applied for a Balwyn Centenary Grant to fund the initial stage of the extension. We are also hoping to extend the Rotary Clubs involved in packing and deliveries to include other local Clubs.
· We are continuing to make progress with Lille Fro to bring their status up to date with RAWCS and are working on establishing a Memorandum of Understanding between all the parties in the near future.
Last Wednesday I was invited to attend the Hawthorn Glen Combined Probus Club’s 30th Birthday lunch. Rotary Hawthorn were acknowledged as being instrumental in the establishment of the Probus Club and they paid special thanks to Dr John Carre-Riddell for his support in the early stages.
Footy tipping results for the last round were interesting to say the least with your President moving up one spot to number 1, followed by Demons of Old and Terry in number 3 spot. I know a number of members are horse racing fans as well so, as you will be aware, an early lead does not always ensure a good home stretch finish.
Announcements:
Bunnings Barbeque Saturday 20th April at Bunnings Hawthorn. We have a full roster of members for the day, which is appreciated, but I would encourage members to visit and show their support. I know many of you will probably drop into Bunnings on weekends as part of your odd jobs routine.
CWA Boroondara have invited our members to attend a Biggest Morning Tea event on Saturday 25th May from 10:30am -12 noon at Auburn Bowls Club. Funds raised will be donated to the Cancer Council and additional details are elsewhere in this week’s Bulletin. We hope members will support this very worthwhile event; for catering purposes please RSVP by 12th May to suecrockett@gmail.com
Our annual ANZAC meeting is on Tuesday 23rd April at Kooyong when our guest speaker will be Dr Graham Pratt. He was commissioned as a lieutenant serving as a specialist officer, served in Vietnam and retired in 1987 as lieutenant colonel. His talk will cover From Gallipoli to Afghanistan - the continuing place of the Anzac legend in our nation. This will be an insightful presentation and I look forward to seeing you there. The President’s Room at Kooyong has a capacity of 50 so I urge members to invite friends and family to attend this special lunch meeting to share in Dr Pratt’s story.
Doug McLean
President 2023-2024