Narooma Rotary Beacon 14 December 2017

Bob’s Blog

Hello Everyone

Believe it or not we are nearly half way through the 2017/18 Rotary year. With our AGM this week it is may be time to reflect on our year to date.

Socially the move to the Golf Club has been worthwhile with a good selection of meals to choose from. Our Italian Night and Lift the Lid on Mental Illness dinners were great fun.

Angie has organised informative and entertaining guest speakers and our ‘Rotarian Presents’ nights have been great successes with visits to Rolf’s Patisserie, The Dental Surgery and the Men’s’ Shed along with excellent presentations from Michael and Frank. We also launched our Friends of Rotary initiative and held a successful function to thank our ‘Busking Sponsors’ night.

Our Club visits Narooma Men’s Shed for Peter Hartley’s ‘Rotarian presents’ (unfortunately Bob Antill did not make the photo, far left).

We have conducted five successful markets and catered for the Early Falcons and Narooma Motors car shows. We also organised and ran an outstanding Renewable Energy Expo to keep our community informed.

We have made significant donations to the Foundation, Shelter Box and Australian Rotary Health. We have also made donations to many local organisations such as St John Ambulance. Our Whale Watching raffle made $1,400 to go towards local surf clubs.

Have we made a difference? I think we have.

Board members, please don’t forget the Board meeting 5pm this Thursday.

Have a great week.

Bob

The Week that Was

Rotarian Peter presents the Men’s Shed

Everyone enjoyed our visit to Narooma Men’s Shed, courtesy of Peter Hartley, as part of the monthly ‘Rotarian Presents’ program instituted by President Bob. Peter ‘was pleased and surprised everyone turned up’, adding  ‘I think it was a full house’.

Wal Sheehan explains about Men’s Sheds

Narooma Men’s Shed President Wal Sheehan explained what a Men’s Shed is… ‘it provides a safe and friendly environment where men can make things at their own pace in their own time with other men’.  He said ‘it’s the hands on making things that many really enjoy’.

He said morning tea time is particularly popular and some come just for that. ‘Many  really need a chat over a cuppa; it overcomes the social isolation many men feel, such as after they retire or after losing their wives. It’s men looking after men.’

We split into three groups led by Peter, Wal and Peter ‘Curly’ Carles for a tour of the impressive workshops on site – woodworking, metal working, the potting shed, furniture repair shed and the morning tea room cum MACS Studio. Most were impressed with the quality of the work with several members eyeing off products like the backyard beehive, and the jigsaw table.

In the Men’s Shed impressive potting shed – Angie Ulrichsen, Lynda Ord and Wal Sheehan

Wal said the Australian Men’s Shed Association (AMSA) is the peak body supporting almost 1000 Men’s Sheds across Australia. It was established in 2007. Interestingly Rotary played a key factor in the formation of the Men’s Shed movement in Australia: it is a key community service addressing men’s health.

Back at the Golf Club, Peter was again in the spotlight proposing the International Toast to the Rotary Club of the Bay of Islands in New Zealand which also meets on a Thursday night for dinner. His choice was prompted by his recent holiday in New Zealand. He mentioned New Zealand’s most important historic site is at the Bay of Islands, where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and the indigenous Maori in February 1840.

We welcomed Rod Walker’s guest Geoff Drake from Cobargo to our meeting, as well as our regular guests Iris and Merinda.

Duck Race

Tickets for our Australia Day Duck Race Duck Race tickets will be available this Thursday, should anyone like to take a book (20 tickets). The idea is to try and sell most of the tickets on the street or around caravan parks. A roster will go around this Thursday to sell tickets at the markets, IGA on the flat and at Dalmeny, Woolworths and caravan parks. Please take the time and fill in a couple of spots on the roster. Proceeds from the Duck Race will go to Australia Rotary Health and to top up our Tertiary Scholarship fund.

Frank claims Expo credit as his happy moment

Frank told us last week that roof-top solar installations across Australia in October exceeded 100MW of capacity, and then last month they exceeded 120MW knocking off the previous record set in June 2012. He claimed, ‘Analysis by Eden Solar concludes this was largely due to the excellent Renewable Energy Expo in Narooma organised by our Club’. ‘Thanks to the efforts of the Expo Committee, all-time records are now being broken, and solar is now more cost-effective than playing golf,’ he said. Needless to say he paid up.

Moruya Rotary helps decorate main street

Moruya’s main street is looking very festive thanks to the team work between Moruya Rotary and the Moruya Business Chamber. In the early hours of Sunday 3 December, Moruya Rotarian Rohan Gleeson along with Chamber members Rob Pollock, Puddy Harrison and Col Chesher with two kindly electricians spent hours erecting 13 Christmas decorations on the specially designed poles along one side of Vulcan Street and four at the roundabout. On the opposite side of the street, Moruya Lions Club already had their Santa’s on top of shop awnings.

Rotary provides the public liability insurance (required by Essential Energy) and labour as needed, and the Chamber the decorations (purchased with the help of a $6,000 Council grant every three years) and labour. Most of the tinsel was replaced this year and they replaced the LEDs with bud lighting.

Bega Hospital carers’ accommodation a Rotarian’s dream

The first stage of subsidised accommodation for patients, carers, friends and relatives at the new South East Regional Hospital at Bega opens on Friday. Community Carers Accommodation South East (CCASE) president Lynne Koerbin said the project started as an idea from Janet Brandon when president of the Rotary Club of Pambula in 2012  and then transformed into a community project embraced across south-east NSW.

It was funded by the Federal Government ($450,000), Bega Cheese ($250,000) as well as Bendigo Bank, EC Blomfield Holdings, Bega, Tathra and Pambula-Merimbula Lions Clubs, Bega, Pambula and Merimbula Rotaries, the Eden Lionesses, and the Country Women’s Association of Pambula and  Merimbula Branch. Our  Club also contributed.

Stage one of the three stage project consists of six motel style rooms and estimated to accommodate 1750 overnight stays each year. It will be handed over to the Southern NSW Local Health District to operate.

CCSAE has raised enough money to also fund the second stage.

District Conference 2018

The District Conference is on at Mittagong RSL 23 – 25 March. The District Committee has put together a great programme with some impressive guest speakers, led by retired Governor General Major General Michael Jeffrey. Registration is now open on the District website. The $100 includes lunch and the conference dinner on Saturday night.

The new District in brief

The new much larger Rotary District comes into being on 1 July 2020. It encompasses current Districts 9700 and 9710. Our Rotary International Director Noel Trevaskis believes larger and better resourced Districts are more able to support Clubs as they endeavour to grow and strengthen Rotary.

A Transition Management Team is overseeing its formation. It consists of DG George Weston (9700), DG Steve Hill (9710), PDGs Irene Jones (9700) and Bob Greeney (9710), and the DG of the new District who will be elected in March 2018. The team invites all of us to send them any ideas we have on what the new district should do to fulfil its main role of being a resource for the clubs in doing good in the world.

Assistant Governor positions will go. They will be replaced with the new position of Area Governor responsible for a bigger area covering no more than 15 Rotary Clubs plus any Rotaract or Interact Clubs within those areas. A new Area Governor manual will soon be available on the District website.

The District will soon call for expressions of interest to nominate for District Governor for the new District for 2020/21. The Transition Team sees the DG’s role changing to more administrative oversight of the District Board and programs, with limited travel around Clubs.

More information is in the recent circulars from Noel Trevaskis and Steve Hill.

Cheers Laurelle

Peter Bull, John Rungen and Rolf Gimmel last week

‘Home schooling’, courtesy Peter Bull

Here are some things our parents taught us…

  • My father taught me logic: ‘Because I said so, that’s why.’
  • My mother taught me foresight: ‘Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you’re involved in an accident.’
  • My father taught me about justice: ‘One day you’ll have kids and I hope they turn out just like you.’
  • My mother taught me hypocrisy: ‘If I told you once, I’ve told you a million times; don’t exaggerate.’