Clean water is a basic need for human beings. When people, especially children, have access to clean water, they live healthier and more productive lives.
In response to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, The Rotary Foundation has created a channel for members to contribute funds to support relief efforts.
A new report from the Institute for Economics and Peace highlights grave ecological threats around the world — and suggests ways advocates can nurture a more benign environmental future.
Rotary statement on wild polio case in MalawiAs a result of ongoing disease surveillance, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has confirmed a case of type 1 wild poliovirus (WPV1) in a child suffering from paralysis
Situated in different parts of the world, the Rotary Peace Centers offer tailor-made curricula to train individuals devoted to peacebuilding and conflict resolution — no matter where they land.
Two of Rotary's guiding principles are service and friendship.
This week, there will be no Club meeting at Holm Park. Our meeting will be at Buchanan Park on Sunday, doing the right thing in our community by joining in Clean Up Australia.
This is a PROJECT meeting where Service meets Friendship and we get to do something special for our community. Many new Rotary Club meeting models focus on the Project meeting model, so I am expecting a great turnout!
Join us at Buchanan Park, Clyde Road, Berwick, between 10.00am and 12.00pm this Sunday 6th March to do some service and make some friends in support of Clean Up Australia.
Over a million Aussies step up to clean up our parks and public spaces every year, donating their time to improve the environment. This is our chance to join one million other Aussies to show that Rotary cares about our community and our environment by getting down and dirty delivering at least one clean park in our wonderful city!
Cleaning up a piece of Berwick will be satisfying. It's the feeling Rotary brings when we work together for the improvement of the lives of others, while taking a bit of personal development for ourselves along the way! Come along and have a chat about the many other ways Rotary can be a positive force in the community (while we are picking up rubbish of course!).
Everyone is welcome - bring the kids to the park for a play, have a refreshment and some fruit whilst giving a bit back to the community over a morning chat while we get to work.
Last weekend, seven members of our Club made their way, expenses paid to the District 9820 Conference.
The conference was held in a brand new world-class theatre in Traralgon. The venue was so new that the Certificate of Occupancy was still wet from signing when we arrived. The building was superb, and the sound and lighting first rate. Rotary was the first show to test the running of the venue.
The conference's theme was the environment, but there was a strong undertow of leadership thrown in. Past Rotary President Ian Risely presented to the Rotarians at the Leadership Breakfast.
Still, the real show-stealer was our Ripper RIPPR (Rotary International President's Personal Representative), Jennifer Scott. Jennifer's job was to deliver a message from our current Rotary International President Shekhar Mehta, add some inspiration from her own experiences and summarise the conference at the end. Jennifer was certainly a live wire in da house and engaged with everyone she met.
The speaker list was impressive, and the messages delivered contained many calls to action opportunities for the audience to take back to their clubs. My personal favourites were Dr Fiona Wood and Vic Grosjean.
Dr Fiona Wood is Australian of the Year for 2005; Western Australia's only female plastic surgeon; head of the Royal Perth Hospital's Burns Unit; Director of the Western Australia Burns Service, and co-founder of Clinical Cell Culture, a private company recognised in medical circles for its world-leading research in the treatment of burns. In addition, Dr Wood is a Clinical Professor with the School of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Western Australia and Director of the McComb Research Foundation. Fiona delivered a wide-ranging talk beamed in via Zoom from WA, which focused on leadership, what it was and how you handle it when you haven't realised you are doing it. She was a person from a whole different tribe!
Vic, on the other hand, was French. I was fortunate enough to talk to him at a dinner the night before and experienced his quirky sense of humour personally. Vic had a "different" style to presenting his message, which was a little unsettling at first, but he did have an important subject to discuss: plastics in the ocean. You can find out more about Vic here: https://ludovicgrosjean.com/about-vic-grosjean/
The District Conference brings out a wide range of Rotarians into a good-sized group. It is one of the best places to learn about Rotary, learn about your Club and learn about yourself. All while you are enjoying yourself in a relaxed environment.
While I was excited to meet fellow Rotarians, I also thought that this District Conference was one of the best I have been to ever. For me, it hit the nail on the head for entertainment, content, inspiration and connection.
My only regret is that only 16.6% of my Club was there to experience it with me. Well, there is always next year!
Rotarians are known for their passion and ability to bring out the best in young people. Rotarians are experienced in business and have the skills required to push around a few questions to find out if a student is really looking for employment or needs a little polish to bring them towards the front of the queue. Mock interviews are a serious opportunity for students to practice their interviewing skills. They are also a serious opportunity for us to make a significant difference in a young person's life including telling them that they need to lift their game. This project is equally rewarding to the Rotarians that engage as it gives an insight into just how this generation is going. It is an interesting test of mindsets and current social values.
This is a serious project and we need serious Rotarians to make it work. If we can help a clean skin nab a job just by conducting a robust practice interview, then we are truly working in the favour of our community. A Rotary win!
Mock Interviews will be held at Nossal High School on Thursday 31st March and Friday 1st April.
We need 10 - 12 interviewers over two days to get through the 200+ Year 11 students as quickly as possible.
We allow 10 minutes per student and there will be some pre-determined questions to help out the interviewer.
Each student has a fictional job advertisement.
They research the requirements for the job.
They prepare an application letter.
They prepare a resume to maximise their chance of success in the fictional application.
They present at the interview with the relevant documents as if it were the real thing.
After the mock interview, we provide constructive advice to the student on any improvements that could be made.
We complete a very brief report on each student that we interview and give it to the supervising teacher.
More detailed information on times will be provided before the mock interviews.
If you are available to assist with the interviews, please advise Sam McCurdy ASAP. This is a great project for Rotarians to influence and guide the younger generation. Who knows, some might claim they got a job because a Rotarian cared.
Note that you will need to have a current Working with Children check.
Rotary is a pretty high impact organisation in some parts of the world and it would be nice to see our club build on a diversity of interests and skills and be at the forefront of change. At the recent District 9820 Conference, there was a young passionate presenter/Rotaractor talking about plastic, mangroves and our out of control environment.
Today, as the Rotary Conference communicator, I get this email and I realise that we have high impact Rotarians right here in our District.:
"What a great Conference with the theme “Protecting the Environment” Rotary’s “Seventh Area of Focus”.
It started off with a ‘bang’ our own Rotary International President 2017/18 Ian Riseley delivering a passionate speech at the Leadership breakfast on the 4 million trees that Rotarians had planted around the world (green carbon) and what we could do ourselves. Ian (as well as most others) soon found out what “blue carbon” was when Vic Grosjean took to the stage with his passion for mangroves, my eyes were well open then for as a Director of Western Port Seagrass Partnership (WPSP) I have been involved in mangroves, seagrass and saltmarsh in Western Port for the last 12years.
The email gets even better, but only the people who went to the conference will really understand the content.
"Getting back to one of my passions, mangroves etc. in Western Port, we, WPSP, have organised a working bee at Grantville on Thursday 24th March at 10 am we have students from RMIT assisting our scientific team to clean up and monitor and explain what we are doing, what we have been experimenting with and progress to date. I would greatly appreciate it if we could get a Rotary team together to do the same at Lang Lang the following day Friday 25th March 10 am.
Unfortunately, Vic Grosjean is unable to join us as he has speaking engagements (which does not surprise me at all) but hopefully, he will be able to join us on a boat trip in the northern part of Western Port on Saturday 30 April which I am in the process of organising. The boat (Tidemaster) takes only 40 people and preference will be given to attendees at the March working bees.
Working on the mudflats requires a reasonable amount of fitness and wearing clothes and especially footwear that you will not mind throwing away, footwear is best to be old sneakers (or wet suit footwear) NOT gum boots there have been too many sucked off and left in the mud.
We will be recording all these events so that you will be able to put them on your websites (especially when someone does a face plant in the mud!) a point made by the best RIPPR Jenny Scott in her summing up at the Conference, she had looked at ALL our websites in 9820, that we do not put our present and future projects online enough.
Please email me at rjwcox@bigpond.net.au if you can attend at any of the above and I will forward further details of these events.
Regards
Dick
Captain Dick Cox OAM
President Elect/Community Director
Rotary Club of Somerville Tyabb"
Just by our diverse membership in Rotary, we have the ability to delve into areas that are interesting and are needing help with experts by our sides to help us make a differences without fumbling around. It is opportunities like these that can bring younger people into Rotary but also stimulate our own minds into what we can do to repair the world that we will be leaving behind.
All food for thought, but Rotary needs People of Action.
The first of ten dance practice sessions for the 2022 Presentation Balls was held at Berwick College's Performing Arts building on Monday 28th February. Rotarians Andrew Somers and Sam McCurdy were in attendance to set up the audio system and ensure that it operated smoothly during the session.
Over two 1-hour sessions, forty-one couples underwent a transformation from apparently uncoordinated individuals to potential dancers, under the expert guidance of Dance Instructor, Jo Mills.
This year's Balls will be coordinated by a small Rotary Organising Committee led by David Anderson and will be overseen remotely by last year's Coordinator, PP Isobel Caulfield. Isobel is currently involved with volunteer work with BlazeAid 1,000kms away in NSW, helping to set up new fencing for farmers affected by the floods.
The Presentation Balls have been a mainstay project for the Rotary Club of Berwick for decades. They unite us in the Berwick community and create opportunities for us to engage with Berwick College in other projects such as the National Youth Science Forum. It is a project with benefits and needs Rotarians to understand that it is not just a school formal.
So do your best to get involved. I get it that some people don't feel confident, but that's ok. Experience gives confidence and people to guide you gives confidence. Our Club certainly doesn't want to look like amateurs so stick your hand up and have a crack. We will make sure that you have the support you need. We are building for the future! Please contact David Anderson at andersonfam@internode.on.net if you are able to help.
You are invited to save the date for a pre-release screening of one of the most anticipated movies of 2022 – "The Duke", starring Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren
When: Saturday 19 March, 2022
Where: Cameo Cinema Belgrave
Time: 4.00 for 4.30pm start
Cost: $20.00 per person
This is Rotary End Polio Now fundraiser. Let’s get together to enjoy this feel good movie whilst supporting this amazing program to help stamp out polio once and for all!
The Duke is the true story of Kempton Bunton, a 60-year old taxi driver, who stole Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. It was, and remains, the only theft in the Gallery's history
This week as a result of the flooding in QLD and Northern NSW, RAWCS has established a National Flood Appeal to raise funds for distribution to impacted families and businesses.
Let's get focused and try and do some magic people. It is the illusion of being a powerhouse in our community that will bring us to understand that we are a powerhouse in our community. Only we can make the illusion real.
Two of Rotary's guiding principles are service and friendship.
