Narooma Rotary Beacon 1 June 2023

Ange’s Thoughts

Guest speaker Rotarian Annemarie Narraway is thanked by Gordon Bentley

The delight of hearing well – the privilege of the gift of sound’ was Annemarie Narraway’s talk last Thursday. Highly qualified as a specialist audiologist Annemarie’s passion is to combine new and innovative technologies to benefit her clients with quality of life. She said that with hearing we make sense of the world and described how intricate and precious the shape of the ear is to capture sound. As an independent audiologist she is able to offer many more options in hearing aids, cochlea implants and other services to us in her state of the art hearing clinic. Technology has come a long way resulting in much smaller and more sensitive devices being available. Annemarie was especially excited and motivated to hear the latest advances after attending a national audiologists conference in Brisbane. Hear Well – Live Well is a perfect name for her business. 

David McInnes describes their recent holiday in North America.

Last Thursday we also welcomed back Rachel and David who shared with us some of the highlights of their fantastic travels around Canada and the USA.

Lady Luck again smiled on us for our market. Such a happy vibe with sunshine, 57 stall sites (big for this time of year) and many happy people enjoying good food and great things on offer. Thanks Chris for managing the market so well and to all our terrific helpers. I was particularly touched when some stallholders mentioned to Chris how friendly and kind our Rotary market is. People notice and that’s something we can all be proud of.

It’s ‘Bon Voyage’ to Ana and Greg heading off to Europe including a cruise around the Mediterranean. Then staying with family who live on an island off Portugal. Have a fabulous time and see you in six weeks.

This Friday, 2 June, is our last Board meeting for this Rotary year. Lots to discuss and decide including disbursements for the Changeover.

THIS WEEK

No dinner meeting this Thursday (1st) being the first Thursday in the month.

Friday 2nd June at 4.15pm: Board Meeting at Narooma Golf Club

The Week that Was

More from last Week’s meeting

Greg Heath’s international toast last week was to the Rotary Club of Henllys of  Cumbran, Wales which he identified as a Club of Action making their community a better place. The Club supported their relatively new Interact Club of Croesyceiliog School where the students asked family, friends and teachers to crochet rosette, hearts, butterflies and other designs for a Random Acts of Croesy Kindness Project. The students then placed these in random locations and attached uplifting notes for those who found the gifts. A very worthy toast.

Annemarie’s talk touched a number of our members who have had that feeling “they may be missing something”. She said she is in the privileged position of being able to bring back people’s hearing. “A hearing aid gives you so much more for such a small inconvenience… and keeps your brain active for longer.” Another take-home message was you get what you pay for, with top of the range hearing aids having 24 channels.

Last Sunday’s Market

Francoise Cleret and Lynn Hastings take a break from BBQ and van duties to chat about plants with permanent stallholder Jerry Raeburn

As Ange has already reported, it was a great market on Sunday. Treasurer Mike reports gate income was $ 1,135.00, the wishing well $167.40 and van takings $639.50, so a total of $1,941.90. This market we didn’t have the expense of meat purchases having had the meat donation from the previous weekend, so a great result.

Market stalwarts Mike Young, Chris O’Brien and Ange Ulrichsen

Out and About

RI Convention concludes on Thursday

Melbourne has welcomed more than 14,000 delegates from around the world for the 2023 Rotary International Convention (27 May-1 June). That includes a number of Moruya Rotarians. The RI Convention is often referred to as a ‘mini-United Nations’ because its global scope and cultural diversity brings Rotarians together to exchange ideas on how to improve lives and bring positive, lasting change to communities around the world.

Rotarians have had a full programme of events including keynote speeches, workshops, and networking opportunities across both the Rod Laver Arena and Olympic Parks and the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC). Rotary’s House of Friendship exhibition hall at the MCEC displayed more than 100 Rotary humanitarian projects. Hundreds of ancillary events have been taking place across many of Melbourne’s other leading venues.

The RI convention is expected to inject more than $91m injection into the local economy, making it one of the most valuable business events secured for Victoria in the past 10 years.

Among major news from the Convention is that the Rotary Foundation has awarded US$2 million to prevent cervical cancer in Egypt.The Rotary-led initiative United to End Cervical Cancer in Egypt’ aims to reduce cervical cancer cases and enhance women’s health in Egypt through targeted awareness-raising and improved access to preventative care. It was initiated by the Rotary Club of El Tahrir, supported by Rotary clubs in Greater Cairo and modeled after President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s Egyptian Women’s Health Initiative on breast cancer. Rotary aims to vaccinate more than 30,000 girls ages 9-15 and provide screenings for 10,000 women in greater Cairo and launch a public awareness campaign to reach 4 million people.

News from ROMAC

Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC) is now well and truly back in operation after the Covid hiatus. ROMAC provides surgical treatment for children in Australia and New Zealand from developing countries from our Pacific region by life-giving and/or dignity restoring surgery not accessible to them in their home country. It is currently supporting the treatment of seven children. Many people visited the ROMAC Information Booth at the Rotary International Convention in Melbourne. Many ROMAC supporters from across Zone 8 visited the Booth as well as many International visitors, many of whom wished they had a similar Rotary program in their countries.

NEXT THURSDAY 8 June

A reminder that Narooma High’s robotics team the RobeRebels will join us on next Thursday 8 June to talk about attending the World Championships for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition (FRC) held recently in Houston.

The 2023 RoboRebels team is five senior students and teachers with a passion for science and technology. They worked after school twice a week and every Sunday since January to design, build and program their 2023 competition robot. For this competition, the team focussed on coding the robot to achieve a specific task: to balance itself on a see saw bridge.

It should be a great night so please ask partners and friends and get back to Gero with numbers.