Bob’s Blog
Hello Everyone
Welcome to another busy Rotary Month. This Thursday we welcome PDG Phil Armstrong as the DG’s Representative.
Next Thursday we will raise funds for mental health research with our ‘Mad Hatters Night’. Please bring along your friends and partners to help us raise money for this important research and most importantly wear a hat.
More dates for your Diary: On the catering side, we have a busy schedule with the early Falcons Rally on the 15th October, the Narooma Motors event on the 21st, and our normal markets on the 22nd.
There are some great stories in the current edition of the Rotary blog Rotary Voices – Stories of Service around the World (https://blog.rotary.org). The stories about our work to eradicate polio are especially inspiring. I also enjoyed the article by Quentin Wodon, past president of the Rotary Club of Capitol Hill, Washington DC. He listed three lessons he learned as President of his Rotary Club. They were:
- Prioritise and focus the Club’s energy on one or two goals each year
- Invest in the local community; while international projects are important and a vital part of Rotary, local projects are more likely to attract new members
- Serve your members; clubs should respond to the needs and preferences of their members first.
If you get a chance, please read the article.
Have a great week everyone.
Cheers Bob
The Week that Was
Last week Peter Bull toasted the Rotary Club of Puebla in Mexico; Puebla was recently devastated by an earthquake. Puebla, population 5.8 million, has three Rotary Clubs. Puebla R C has 35 members, none of them women, and all Paul Harris Fellows. Their major fundraiser is an annual beauty pageant and they fund a rehabilitation centre.
Daiva takes us inside AWL
It was good to have Daiva Ceicys back with us and especially talking about the Animal Welfare League, a great passion of hers. While many of us may be familiar with AWL’s good work locally finding new homes for dogs and cats, Daiva gave us an insight into AWL at a State level. AWL is a NSW organisation, although similar organisations with different names exist in other states. It works closely with the RSPCA particularly to lobby at the state level for the welfare of animals, e.g. in greyhound racing and puppy farms. It is also involved in investigating instances of suspected cruelty to animals, again with RSPCA.
On the local level, AWL is best known as a rescue organisation taking in animals and finding them new homes, sometimes for people moving into retirement villages. Daiva said they usually have lots of cats and kittens, but not so many dogs. Any animal acquired through AWL comes vaccinated, desexed and microchipped, and prospective new homes are checked. All of this comes at a cost, financed through fundraising, mainly through the Tail Waggers Walk and the AWL garage sale. She said AWL desperately needs new foster carers until new homes are found for the animals. One of the local AWL’s proudest achievements was having NATA Oval fenced for a dog park; they are now lobbying for something similar in Batemans Bay.
Narooma Rotary Exchange student 1972-1973 returns
Narooma Rotary’s first exchange student Bonnie Ward (now Kreutter) returned to Narooma from her home in New York for a reunion of her class of 1972-1973 at the weekend. She asked me to please pass on her regards to Narooma Rotarians and to say how she is forever grateful to the Club for the extraordinary year she had here. Ron and Joan Constable were her host parents and she has made several return visits to her Narooma family over the years. Bonnie was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Holley in New York.
Our Renewable Expo
We now have flyers available for our Renewable Energy Expo in November, thanks to the expertise of our very own graphic designer Rachel McInnes. Banner and posters coming.
Cheers Laurelle