Posted on May 11, 2022
    Geoff Gartly was our chairperson for today’s club meeting at Cilantro.  He called upon President Helen for the invocation and Marg Lucas for the royal toast.  Guests, Marcus Godinho, CEO of FareShare, and Elise Facer- Childs, our guest speaker, were welcomed.  Tony Ryan and Jo Impey joined the meeting via Zoom.  There was a welcome return from Graham Chad, who also performed a toast to the club.
    We had some intermittent technical problems today, however, true to form, we got by very well.  We wish to thank Tony Fitzlaff and his team for preparing breakfast this morning under some challenging circumstances having experienced a gas leakage last night and not having any gas for cooking this morning.  Yet the kitchen team provided a lovely breakfast to the high standard we have come to accept as normal. 
Club Donation – FareShare CEO Marcus Godinho
    Linda O’Brien and Marg Lucas from the Community committee presented a club donation of $3,500 to Marcus Godinho, CEO from FareShare, to purchase a plant seeder and garden tools for use in the their kitchen garden.  Whilst thanking the club Marcus explained their kitchen garden is now more a kitchen farm having extracted 70,000 kilograms of vegetables so far this year.  The plant seeder will enable more consistent, efficient and economic planting, and help provide a reliable and continuous supply of ingredients for food preparation.   
Club Announcements
    Faye Weeks thanked Tim Lynch for his contribution as auctioneer at Saturday’s Art Auction with a special mention the football signed by the club raised $1,500.  Overall, $8,615 was raised on the night and far exceeded expectations.  It was a very enjoyable night enjoyed by all who attended.
    Marg Lucas provided a brief rundown of the degustation dinner enjoyed at Cilantro on Tuesday night by a group of club members. The food was very different, unique but all delicious, served with different wines for each course.    The Fire Brigade attended after the fire alarm went and everyone had to evacuate – fortunately, it was short lived and a false alarm set off by something else.
    President Helen mentions she had nothing in particular to announce.
    The club offered best wishes to Ron who had a pacemaker inserted during these past few days
Rosters – the rosters for Sunday’s market and the next club meeting were announced.
Sergeant’s Session – John Mason
    Sergeant John had happy fines for supporters of Melbourne Football Club, and fined all the supporters of ‘losing’ St Kilda F.C.  John told an Irish joke enjoyed by all and fined anyone who had an Irish heritage.  Paul Ferguson was fined for not allowing all the whirling helicopters from landing.  Larry Green was fined for his 29 year Rotary anniversary, and lastly all the club members who attended and enjoyed the degustation dinner were fined.  John had more on his plate to present, but was curtailed with breakfast being served.
Guest Speaker – Elise Facer-Childs from Danny Frawley Centre
    Elise introduced herself as having a nickname of ‘foghorn’ – able to be heard from anywhere with or without a microphone! She is the director of Research and Translation at the Danny Frawley Centre, and explained the term translation which is not the common understanding of translating from one language to another, but is the conversion of information and knowledge gained from research for use in the real world.  Elise works part time at the Danny Frawley Centre (DFC) one day a week, and other times she runs programs on mental health at Monash, and is a program lead in sleep and performance at the St Kilda Football Club.  The importance of sleep and its effect on mental health, performance and recovery is little understood and is becoming a huge area for research.  The amount and quality of sleep is being recognized as a contributing factor to mental health.  Elise outlined the objectives of mental health at DFC – Purpose to build a healthy, connected and thriving community, Vision to drive mental fitness in athletes (past and present) and the community,  with Pillars – mental fitness education, mental fitness programs, mental health led services, and, research and translation.  Experts are brought in to support these programs, and research looks at what is changing using medical advances, drive innovation using best practice and interventions.  The underlying philosophies are: people thrive when there is a sense of belonging, focus is directed to mental fitness programs, make a positive impact in well-grounded programs, contribute to future well-being from science and practice through research and innovation.   The programs are designed for St Kilda F.C. team members – past and present, athletes of all levels and codes, and the community – children, young people and families.  They are for driving mental fitness for the community.  Elise provided the research overview and guiding principles: Uphold the concepts of philosophy, Conduct research, Conduct niche research not done elsewhere, Translate research benefit for the community, Be relevant to the environment and community.  The research has broad focus areas – looking at the mental health of male and female athletes, commenting very little has been done so far to research the mental health of female athletes. There is a strong connection between mental health and physical health and that good mental health supports systems and high performance, fosters the culture and mental health of teams.   The Danny Frawley Centre is planning for a PHD Scholarship in Athlete Mental Health Fund project and is seeking funds and support from interested parties and organisations. Geoff Gledhill mentions club members are welcome to visit the Danny Frawley Centre to see the facilities and programs that are available.  On behalf of the club, he thanked Elise for her very informative presentation.  
Chairperson Geoff Gartly closed the meeting.