Stories

Peter O’Brien was our chairperson for today’s club meeting at Cilantro.    Charles R. PP Glenda S and Karin S joined the meeting via Zoom. 

• Today’s club meeting heralded President Ron Brownlees first club meeting as President for this current Rotary year – held at The Deck in Bay Street Brighton.  With our club website down and not knowing who was rostered, President Ron was also Chairperson for today’s meeting.  Serge returned as a guest, and Charles joined the meeting via Zoom. 

• President Ron presented D.G. Ian with a PHF lapel ruby pin and a Centurion Certificate in recognition of donations made by Ian to The Rotary Foundation.

• Grant’s international club toast this week was to President Frances Willacy and members at Annan Rotary Club in Scotland – a town in Dumfries and Galloway located in south-west Scotland and the birth place of George Johnston who sailed aboard the Lady Penrhyn in the First Fleet to Botany Bay in 1788.  Grant provided an interesting and well-researched history lesson for everyone – thank you Grant.  Annan R.C. projects include hosting a Young Artist Competition, tree planting, and providing electronic equipment to students in their local school.

• Tim L was chairperson for this week’s club meeting which was an evening meeting at Cilantro, with a full house of club members, partners and many guests. Partners included Asia, Angie, Leonie, Julie, Helen, Sarah, Angela and Gary.  Friends and guests included Russell and Ian (friends of Neville), Chris (Pres of Beaumaris R.C.), Greg and Cathy Every (Beaumaris R.C.), Cassie and Rosemary (Helen’s family from Canberra), Michaela (friend of Julie Reid),  a guest of Sue Loeliger, Jonas, and Jenny Le Marshall.  My apologies if anyone has been missed.
• Larry performed Invocation and Tony performed the Loyal Toast.

• Wednesday 23 November – Club AGM
• Wednesday 30 November – will be an evening meeting at Cilantro commencing 6.30pm.  This is a fellowship meeting and partners and friends are welcome.
  - we have a special speaker in John Le Marshall who is an eminent meteorologist and has been involved in NASA . An invitation has been sent to all clubs in the District via the Districts Highlights.   Please RSVP to Greg O'Shea for catering purposes.
• Wednesday 7 December - will be at Flight Deck in Moorabbin airport. Meeting will commence at 7.30am instead of 7am. After the meeting. members are invited to tour the museum.
• Sunday 11 December - The end of year get-together will be at Packer Park in Murrumbeena. This will be our last meeting for 2022. Santa Claus will visit us at the picnic so children are most welcome.

By Ryan Hyland

Rotary International President Jennifer Jones appeared on the main stage at the star-studded Global Citizen Festival on 24 September to highlight Rotary’s commitment to eradicating polio and announce an additional US$150 million pledge toward that end.

By Arnold R. Grahl

The detection of poliovirus, and even cases of polio, in places where it hasn’t been found for years has demonstrated once again that eradicating a human disease isn’t easy, especially in the final stages.

In recent months, an unvaccinated man in the United States was paralyzed. In the UK, poliovirus was detected in sewage. In Malawi, a child contracted polio. And Mozambique announced its first polio outbreak in 30 years.

By Ryan Hyland

Rotary International and the U.S.-based nonprofit Ukraine Friends have agreed to collaborate to provide resources, organize logistics, and distribute funds for high-impact projects that help Ukrainians affected by the war with Russia.

Zone 8 Rotary Regionalisation Pilot Project

• Linda was our chairperson for this evening’s club meeting at Cilantro.  Larry conducted invocation and Ron conducted the loyal toast.  Glenda joined the meeting via Zoom.
• Club members enjoyed a lovely 3 course meal served by first timer apprentices – an enjoyable night for all who attended.

• Rotary International and disaster relief charity, ShelterBox, announce three-year partnership renewal
• Humanitarian alliance supports people who lose homes to conflict and disaster
• Partnership enables ShelterBox and Rotary to support more people, in more places, in more ways

From the RI website here.

by Ryan Hyland

Rotary’s goal of ridding the world of polio is within reach, global health experts said during the 2021 World Polio Day Online Global Update on 24 October. The 30-minute program, “Delivering on our Promise of a Polio-Free World,” provided encouraging information about the progress and remaining challenges in the fight to end polio.

by Aidan O’Leary Illustration by Viktor Miller Gausa

“There’s something about the whole idea of eradicating polio that grabs the imagination,” says Aidan O’Leary. “Most people talk about making steps toward achievements, and it’s almost always into the never-never. Eradication is a zero-sum game; anything short of zero is failure. You keep getting closer and closer, but ultimately the only number that actually matters is zero.”

We believe that exemplifying and embracing diversity,  equity, and inclusion (DEI) should be a part of everything we do at Rotary.   

To ensure we live up to that ideal, the Board of Directors and our DEI Taskforce acted to strengthen the DEI statement originally adopted in 2019.  The result is in a new commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion:

(taken from rotary.org here)

The call went out from New Zealand, and Rotaractors in places as far away as Denmark, Jamaica, Mexico, and Uganda answered. Over 30 days in October and November, they took part in relay races, practiced yoga on the beach, danced, and did pushup and squat challenges, raising awareness — and about NZ$7,000 — for a project to vaccinate 100,000 children in nine countries and territories against three deadly pathogens.

“They were inspired by our story to say, ‘We want to be involved in this. We want to help see these illnesses erased,’” says Becky Giblin, a member of the Rotaract Club of Auckland City, New Zealand