Ange’s Chat

All was revealed to us by Carolyn Wells about the inside story of SCPA ( Sapphire Coast Producers Assoc) last week. SCPA is all about supporting the grower and inspiring locals to buy produce here where we live. An amazing organisation, established in 1992 to support and promote sustainable food production and regenerative agriculture in the South East region of NSW. It now has a flourishing and vibrant network so vital in this age of Climate Change. It supports local growers to engage with ecologically sound production practices.

With over 2,900 subscribers to their online newsletter, SCPA plays a pivotal role in providing marketing and networking opportunities. Current SCPA Projects include Bega and Tilba Produce Markets, Bega Valley Seed Savers, SCPA Workshops by experts to benefit producers to enhance biodiversity and learn useful farming skills. 

A very popular initiative has been on building and cultivating community with neighbourhood food swaps. In addition climate smart farming Workshops administered by SCPA are being piloted in Wapengo, Quaama, Brogo and Bemboka.

Food Security is so important in our region as weather conditions impact and SCPA is playing an impressive role to safeguard our community’s food source.

Have a great week – Ange

RAWCS 2019 Bushfires Appeal

Rotary Clubs have been invited by District to donate to one or several of the following RAWCS Projects: Our Board made a decision to donate $500 to each at this stage.

• Qld Bushfire Relief Appeal
• NSW Bushfire Farmers in Need Appeal
• Taree & Mid Coast Bushfire Relief Appeal.

Rotary Market 24/11

Thanks to everyone for a very successful market. Chris O’Brien said it would be a big one and it was! We had 82 stalls and 58 stallholders. LP Duo from Tuross entertained us with easy listening music and there was a definite a holiday buzz already in the air.

The van returned $463.30, The wishing well $123.05 and the gate $1445.00

The Christmas market is filling up fast and Chris doing a great job expects about 100 stalls on Friday 27 Dec. It will be all hands on deck!

Dates for your Diary

• Thursday 12 December 2019 – BOARD MEETING & AGM
• Thursday 12 December 2019 – Primary School Presentation Assembly
• Friday 13 December 2019 – High School Prsentation Assembly
• Sunday 15 December 2019 – Carols by Candlelight NATA Oval
• Thursday 19 December 2019 – Christmas Party at the Inlet, 6 for 6.30pm
• Saturday 21 December 2019 – Interviews for Tertiary Education Scholarship 2020
• Sunday 22 December 2019 – Eurobodalla Rotary Clubs Christmas Race Day
• Sunday 26 January 2020 – Australia Day Celebrations, Presentations & Market
• Wednesday 26 February 2020 – Race Day Presentation at the combined Rotary International Birthday Dinner, Moruya Golf Club
• Thursday 5 March 2020 – Cinders Trivia Night with Rotary Moruya, hosted by Narooma.
• Friday, Saturday & Sunday 6-8 March 2020 – District Conference Ulladulla

Tonight’s Speaker

Tonight’s speaker is Andrew Elek, Andrew is a member of Moruya Rotary and economist extraordinaire he is going to give us the low down on tradfe wars and the role the US and China play. I recoken it will be pretty interesting given the latest media interest in China.

Andrew has worked extensively in development economics in Asia and the South Pacific, including as a Senior Economist with the World Bank.

From 1985 to 1987, he served as Chief Economist in the Economic Planning Advisory Council of the Australian Government. From 1987 to 1990 Andrew was head of the Economic and Trade Development Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

In 1989, he was the inaugural chairman of APEC Senior Officials, with a central role in the establishment of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation process.

From 1990 to 1994 Andrew was a Senior Research Fellow at the ANU, then became self-employed, thinking and writing about international trade policy and international economic cooperation. He has published many policy-oriented papers, including on APEC and the G20.

Andrew was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1991, for service to international relations.

From ‘The Conversation’

Please bring along your friends and family to hear Andrew’s fascinating presentation. Please let Charmaine know if you plan to bring a guest.

Ange’s Chat

What great news re the Busking! Our Narooma Busking Championship is now back on track for Saturday 30 May 2020.  That’s thanks to the impressive turnout of over 50 sponsors and other interested people who joined us last Thursday to determine the future of this successful event.

Bob Aston was a maestro facilitator, supported by his clearly defined PowerPoint presentation. Sandra Doyle gave a terrific heartfelt appeal about how precious this event has been for our town while John Rungen spoke about the importance of adhering to tasks and not falling behind.

Within the hour, we had six volunteers come forward from the audience to join four of our members from the old team to form a wonderfully committed new team headed by Coordinator Di Riley who is Chamber of Commerce Vice President. Well done everyone.  Special thanks to the outgoing team members – Sandra Doyle, John Doyle and Lynda Ord – for their superb work and dedication. Rotarians Chris O’Brien, John Rungen, Lynn Hastings and Laurelle Pacey continue in the new team along with Jen French.  Truly a win/win for Rotary and our wonderful community.

This Sunday is of course our monthly markets. Thank you to everyone who will help out on the day.

Rod Walker has sent out an email advising us of the Annual General Meeting to take place at 7.15pm, Thursday 12 Dec. He has attached nomination forms for Board positions for 2020/21 and urges members to respond as soon as possible.

THIS WEEK

We welcome Carolyn Wells who will tell us the Inside Story of the Sapphire Coast Producers Association (SCPA). SCPA is much more than a farmers’ organisation and operates across the south east from Batemans Bay to Eden, Cooma to Canberra. Carolyn is SCPA’s vice president.

The Week that was

Busking Championships stay in Narooma

What a great outcome last week! Strong community support has ensured Narooma will host the 2020 Busking Championships AND in association with our Club. When Sandra Doyle said, “We can’t let it go from Narooma”, she also summed up the general feeling of everyone there. Bob’s excellent presentation placed the situation clearly before everyone with the three options we faced – let it go, some other organisation take it over, or others from outside Rotary take on the vital organising roles.

The result was six new people volunteered to join Rotarians in a new committee to bring about the 2020 Championships, coordinated by Di Riley. The committee’s first meeting is Monday night. The new committee consists of coordinator Di Riley, Averill Berriman of ABC Property Sales, Therese Aston, Shannon Chambers of Easts Holiday Parks, Dee Cramb of Sea Salt Café Dalmeny, Cherie Cunninghame of NAB, Jen French, and Rotarians John Rungen, Chris O’Brien, Lynn Hastings and Laurelle Pacey.

BowelCare Results 2019

Our BowelCare coordinator John Rungen received the Annual Report for Rotary’s 29^th annual bowel care awareness programme this week. It highlights the importance of this programme which is available for everyone regardless of age. The Australian Government’s free National Bowel Screening Programme is only available for people between 50 and 75, yet the BowelCare results showed that 70% of the 1174 positives were in the under 50 and over 75 age brackets, particularly over 75. Note that not all positives will end up being the result of bowel cancer but indicate a need to follow up.

Some interesting figures:

• only 84% of the 16,872 kits sold were tested, showing not everyone got around to using it
• overall 8.3% of those tested were positive
• About 60% of those tested were women
• 55% of those tested were over 75 with 9.6% of those testing positive.
• 10.4% of those tested under 50 were positive

The 2020 programme will run from 1 April to 31 May. The kits will increase in price from $15 to $20. The BowelCare Australia programme is supported by Rotary D9685, 9710 and parts of 9675, 9670, 9650, 9640 and 9700. It uses the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) manufactured by Clinical Genomics.

Out and About

Life Education

Moruya Rotarians Rohan Gleeson and Col Jay help drive the Happy Harold’s Life Education van from between schools, all part of their Community Service. Last week they moved it from Narooma Public School to St Bernard’s Primary School at Batemans Bay.

The Life Education programme motivates and empowers children so they can draw on their own knowledge to make safer and healthier choices throughout their lives. Life Education was the vision of the late Rev Ted Noffs 40 years ago in response to the explosion in illicit drug use he saw at Kings Cross and the impact it was having on families. Since then seven million young students across Australia have participated in the programme, thanks to widespread support including from many Rotary Clubs. In 2018, Life Education worked in over 4,200 schools and pre-schools sharing their program with more than 710,000 students.

Dates for your Diary

Wed 26 February: Race Day Presentation at the combined Rotary Birthday Dinner, Moruya Golf Club

Thursday 5 March: Cinders Trivia Night with Rotary Moruya, hosted by Narooma.

6-8 March: District Conference Uladulla

It’s at the new Dunn Lewis Function Centre in Ulladulla. Check out the Conference website for the great line-up of speakers. The logo promotes the Roaring 20s dance night to the music of the Royal Military Band from Duntroon. Early bird tickets end 31 December.

This is the last D9710 conference before we become part of the new and much larger District 9705 on 1 July which will encompass D9710 and D9700.

NEXT WEEK

Economist extraordinaire and Moruya Rotarian Andrew Elek will talk about the reasons behind the trade wars, particularly between the United States and China, and what the future may hold. His impressive career includes being a Visiting Research Fellow at the ANU’s Crawford School of Economics and Government, working extensively in development economics in South Asia and the South Pacific, Senior Economist with the World Bank, and having a central role in establishing APEC in 1989. More recently he has published papers on the G20 and the Belt and Road Initiative.

Ange’s Chat

Last week the Board resolved the dilemma of both the annual Duck Race and the big holiday markets coinciding on Sunday 26 January, Australia Day. The Duck Race requires a lot of commitment by members to get the ducks, sell 1000 tickets, man the event off the bridge and return the ducks to CRABS. All things considered it was just too much for us to cope with, along with the markets.

The Board decided not to hold the Duck Race in 2020. The community can be reassured that the ducks will take off again the following year.

This Thursday we anticipate about 30 community representatives, sponsors and other interested parties, will join us to discuss how we might keep the Busking Championship in Narooma. Bob Aston has kindly agreed to facilitate this meeting and will put forward several options, hopefully leading to a firm commitment from our community to take on the coordinating role of this important event. The night will begin with the Busking meeting, followed by dinner. Not everyone will stay on for dinner.

THIS WEEK

This Thursday the focus is on trying to see if we can keep the Busking Championship in Narooma. Bob will do a PowerPoint presentation.

The week that was

Discussion last week showed that members were pleased with the way the Renewable Energy Expo went and the feedback received from both exhibitors and visitors to the Expo. Frank said many of the exhibitors are preparing quotes as a result of inquiries at the Expo. It was also a great turnout of our members on the day. The Board decided that the Club would not run the Expo in 2020, but possibly run it again in 2021.

Our BBQ team helps Betta Home Living

Some members took the van to Betta Home Living to provide a barbecue lunch on Saturday for Betta’s special celebrations. Our very able team consisted of Lynda Ord, Sandra Doyle, Bob Aston, John Rungen, John Doyle and Ash Stanley. Lynda reports, “It was quiet but fun, and really good PR for our Club”. Many of the Betta staff bought sausages, while some of our members ended up buying goods from Betta. Great effort team.

Annual General Meeting

Rod Walker has sent out an email advising us the Annual General Meeting will take place on Thursday 12 December at 7.15pm. He attached nomination forms for Board positions for 2020/21 and urges members to respond as soon as possible.

Out and About

Carols Sunday 15 December

We will again take the van to Carols by Candlelight on NATA Oval to provide a BBQ dinner. Carols start at 7pm so presumably we will be serving from 6pm. Any volunteers?

Moruya’s Cup luncheon a winner

Last Tuesday’s Moruya Rotary Melbourne Cup luncheon held with the Moruya Jockey Club was a big success. Moruya’s bulletin praised the efforts of organising members John Spencer and Fred Power and the Jockey Club’s generosity and support which resulted in “a truly memorable meeting, in a wonderful venue giving a first class view of the big race”. They had 92 people – 64 Rotarians and guests and 28 Jockey Club members and guests.

Amazingly 63 people won prizes – 51 won cash, eight won Fashions in the Field and four won lucky door prizes. Moruya Club made about $1,200 for their charity account, including a percentage rom the Calcutta and sweeps, with more to come “when the framed Jockey’s trousers are auctioned at the races”, presumably the Christmas races. The Jockey Club has suggested a repeat event in two years’ time.

NEXT WEEK

Carolyn Wells will tell us the Inside Story of The Sapphire Coast Producers Association (SCPA). SCPA is much more than a farmers’ organisation and operates across the south east from Batemans Bay to Eden, Cooma to Canberra. Carolyn is SCPA’s vice president.

Ange’s Chat

Our Renewable Energy Expo last Saturday proved a big hit with exhibitors and the public alike. Thanks to everyone who helped. It was another great Narooma Rotary initiative. Special thanks to the A-Team – our Expo Coordinator Frank Eden, Iris Domeier, Team Manager Bob Aston and journalist extraordinaire Laurelle Pacey.

About 370 people came through the door and were delighted with the latest range of solar technology and information provided by local experts and installers. The Robo Rebels from Narooma High created considerable interest with their junior and senior robotic exhibits, and both science teachers were delighted with the exposure the Expo gave the students and the work they’re doing and the public’s response. The vibe was great and exhibitors are already asking about next year’s event.

Eurobodalla Shire Mayor Liz Innes opened the Expo. I took her on a tour of exhibits and she said how impressed she was by our event, even expressing interest in converting the Council fleet to electric vehicles. Many of us had joy rides in Vin’s Tesla car. What a thrill!

The SHASA raffle was drawn at the end of the day. The three lucky winners can redeem their prizes for solar installs from an expo exhibitor. The raffle was also raising funds to install a solar system at Moruya Women’s Refuge to help with their power costs.

At last Thursday’s meeting it was my pleasure to present Frank Eden with a Paul Harris Sapphire Pin, this time for his personal contribution of US$1,000 to The Rotary Foundation allowing the Foundation to do more good in the world. I also expressed our appreciation to Frank for his ongoing contribution to our Club and our community.

On the Busking meeting: All sponsors, service organisations, school representatives and many others have received a hand-delivered letter inviting them to join us on Thursday 14 November at the Golf Club to thank them for their past contribution to our Busking Festivals and to discuss the future of the 2020 Busking Festival. Let’s hope we get a great response.

THIS WEEK

5pm Board meeting at the Golf Club. This has been brought forward by a week to free up Thursday 14 November for the Busking meeting.

This will be followed by a normal dinner meeting.

THE WEEK THAT WAS

Last Thursday we enjoyed an enjoyable dinner meeting where we finalised arrangements for the Expo. The highlight of the meeting was Ange presenting Frank with a Paul Harris Sapphire pin (see Ange’s chat).

Ange reported she represented our Club at Quota’s Changeover with a high tea at Club Narooma on Sat 26 October.

The Expo

Our Renewable Energy Expo last Saturday was a great success attracting over 370 people (see Ange’s Chat). Exhibitors seemed to have been kept busy with genuine inquiries. Most people attending seemed to be there with a purpose and their feedback generally was they appreciated having direct access to so many local experts and installers all in the one place.

Our survey showed that about 55% visitors were Narooma-Tilba locals, while three-quarters of the rest came from Ulladulla to Bega.

Out and About

Rotary Christmas Race Day Committee

The combined Rotary clubs of Eurobodalla’s Christmas Rotary Races at Moruya Jockey Club are on Sunday 22 December. This year we are raising funds for a joint Yumaro and Meals on Wheels Community Bus. The three Clubs’ presidents are on the committee and have been meeting regularly; the next meeting is Wednesday 27 November 5pm at Moruya Golf Club. Michael O’Connor has been doing a grand job selling tickets for the Race Raffle on the Club’s behalf.

From Moruya Rotary

Sadly Moruya Rotary Club has withdrawn its support for the Local Drug Action Team in the Eurobodalla, including its role as ‘grantee’.

A little of Bay Rotary’s history

Bay Rotarian Hugh Scott recently outlined to fellow Bay Rotarians the history of Nelligen Park which is owned by the Bay Club through Nelligen Recreation Park Limited. Many members were unaware of how it came about. In 1975 Mrs Adelaide Neate offered the 6.6 ha block to Rotary for $15,000 and the Club was only too happy to accept. The Nelligen Cup Sports Day continued to be held there, which was then known as Adelaide Neate Rotary Park. The Club obtained a further loan to carry out improvements and establish a toilet block, shelter shed, and amenities/kitchen block etc, now a caravan park. It is because of past Rotarians’ forethought that the Bay Rotary Club can use income from the Park for their Rotary projects.

NEXT WEEK:  Busking community meeting

We’ve invited Busking Championship sponsors of both prizes and ‘hot spots’, school representatives, service organisations, volunteers and other community members to meet with us on Thursday 14 November to discuss the future of the Narooma event and to see how we might work together to keep it in Narooma. It’s also an opportunity to express our appreciation to them for their past support. It’s 6 for 6.30 at the Golf Club; a finger food rather than a sit-down dinner.

We’re looking for people outside Rotary to take on the organisation of this event, with assistance and guidance from Club members. More details tonight.