Rolf’s Ramble
It was so good to have the markets back on Sunday after a seven month’s absence due to the pandemic. This return to near normality was greatly appreciated by everyone, locals and visitors alike, everybody seemed to be doing their best to follow NSW Health guidelines with social distancing.
I want to thank all members involved for the market’s success. With fewer members able to be ‘hands-on’ and with the new ‘COVID safe’ approach, we still attracted many stallholders and plenty of visitors. The new set up with Rotarians on two gates welcoming visitors and encouraging them to use hand sanitizer worked well but few, if any, took up the offer of free masks.
A special ‘thank you’ to Andrew Lawson who ran the drink stall with John Rungen for most of the day.
Takings on the day: Gate $650.00, Wishing Wells $564.50, Drinks $88.00.
THIS WEEK
We have a Zoom meeting. Everyone should have received details.
The Week that Was
Last Thursday we enjoyed having dinner and a chat in the Golf Club’s Seahorse Room, especially handy to finalise arrangements for Sunday’s markets. Good to catch up with everyone face-to-face.
Out and About
On our Area Governor Bruce Whiley
Under our new District 9705, Assistant District Governors are now called Area Governors and have new responsibilities. We are in Area Six and our AG is Bruce Whiley from the Rotary Club of Nowra. He grew up in Cowra where his father was in Rotary and his mother in Inner Wheel and Rotary.
After school he spent nine years in the Air Force maintaining transport aircraft, then moved to Orange with his young family and started farming and growing grapes. He supplemented this income by returning to aircraft maintenance and worked for several maintenance organisations in the central west, eventually establishing his own business at Orange. He was invited by one of his customers to join the Rotary Club of Orange North which he says “is a wonderful club”.
They sold the family farm and business and moved to Jervis Bay where he became a member of the Rotary Club of Nowra. Having taken on the role of Area Governor for Area 6, he was looking forward to travelling to the clubs in the area but Covid is not allowing this at the moment. He hopes this will soon change. (Courtesy Moruya Rotary newsletter)
End Polio Day – 24 October
Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a paralysing and potentially fatal disease that still threatens children in some parts of the world. It mainly affects children under five. It can be prevented by vaccines, but it is not curable. Unlike most diseases, polio can be eradicated.
When Rotary and its partners formed the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries every year. Today, we have reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent with just two countries continuing to report cases of wild poliovirus: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because of the efforts of Rotary and its partners, nearly 19 million people who would otherwise have been paralysed are walking, and more than 1.5 million people are alive who would otherwise have died.
Interestingly, the infrastructure Rotary helped build to end polio is also being used to treat and prevent other diseases (including COVID-19) and create lasting impact in other areas of public health.
For more than 30 years, Rotary and our partners have driven the effort to eradicate polio worldwide. Our PolioPlus program was the first initiative to tackle global polio eradication by vaccinating children on a massive scale. As a core partner in the GPEI, Rotary focuses on advocacy, fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and awareness-building.
Rotary members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries from this paralysing disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $10 billion to the effort.
2021 Rotary Convention
Rotary International is obviously optimistic international air travel will return to near normal by June next year with its promotion of the 2021 International Convention in Taiwan 12-16 June. Here’s hoping.
NEXT WEEK: Change of plan
Our efforts to help Australian Rotary Health Lift the Lid on Mental Illness with a Hat event has been moved from next week 8 October to Thursday 15 October at the request of the Golf Club. With the influx of visitors to Narooma for the school holidays, the Club needs the Seahorse Room for the overflow from the Bistro (under Covid spacing rules).
We will discuss next week’s programme at tonight’s Zoom meeting.
On a not so light note
A thought from American social and moral philosopher the late Eric Hoffer:
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. Those who have finished learning usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.