On Wednesday, some forty five members and friends of the Rotary Club of Berwick
converged to the Holm Park function centre for yet another excellent meeting full of Rotary information and fellowship.
Sue Whiticker from Safe Steps was our guest speaker and her presentation focused on the vital work that the Family Violence Response Centre is doing each day to help vulnerable women and children escape domestic violence.
Warning: The following article covers the essential parts of a presentation given by a trained professional to the members of the Rotary Club of Berwick. Although care has been taken to remove the more sensitive aspects of the presentation from this article, some of the information may cause distress to some readers. Please do not read if the topic of family violence is one that might cause you personal distress.
Sue Whiticker is a Crisis Support Advocate at Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre. Although she only joined Safe Steps 12 months ago, she has actively worked in the sector for the last 17 years across different organisations, including shelters and prisons.
Safe Steps is the Central Response Service for all family violence in Victoria, and covers all metro, regional and country areas throughout Victoria.
At the club meeting on Wednesday, our Rotary Information Coordinator, David Collyer,
spoke about the Rotary Theme for September – Basic Education and Literacy.
The goal of Rotary is to strengthen the capacity of Communities to support basic education and literacy, reduce gender disparity in education and increase adult literacy. These goals are achieved in there ways – 1. Rotary Scholarships; 2. Teacher Training; 3. Adult Literacy.
Did you know that 775 million people who are over 15 are illiterate, that’s 17% of the world’s population? Rotary’s strong support for literacy and education based initiatives has extended into the 21st Century. Today, Rotary Foundation provides funding for projects that engage and involve the local community and focus on creating a sustainable impact. In 2014-15 alone, The Rotary Foundation awarded 133 grants in the area of education and literacy, totalling US$8 million.
Each year for the past 59 years the two Rotary Clubs in Mount Isa have collaborated to host the Mount Isa Rotary Rodeo, the biggest Rodeo in the Southern Hemisphere.
When PP Mark and Isobel visited Mt Isa in August, little did they know that they would be in for an action packed 3 days. Over 700 volunteers from the local community and Rotarians from all over Queensland help run the event each year. With nearly $5m dollars raised over the years, the rodeo is definitely worth visiting if you are up that way. As a Rotarian you might even be called upon to lend a hand!!
It's amazing too - all the tickets I sell, I am usually asked by the buyer "Sandi, please make this the winning ticket?"
Guest Speaker Sue Whiticker rummaged around amongst the tickets and pulled out Geoff Double's ticket - !again! - he had a chance last week to pick the Joker.
From the deck of cards he took the Ace of Diamonds. So the Joker is still in there waiting. There are 28 cards remaining.
Joker's Wild is a fun session and members look forward to walking away with the jackpot each week!!
Good luck all for next meeting when we have Joker's Wild.
At the back of the Rotary Club Handbook there is a heading Acronyms. If you don’t have one of these handbooks or are new to reading about Rotary, these acronyms can perhaps cause confusion.