THIS WEEK
Our Club helps Australian Rotary Health Lift the Lid on Mental Illness by hosting a Hat event at the Golf Club in the Seahorse Room. You should have already booked partners and friends in with secretary Rod and encouraged them to wear a hat. President Rolf would like to collect $5 per hat to go towards Australian Rotary Mental Health research.
Our guest speaker is local psychologist Nadine Hills who has called her talk ‘Feeling, Breathing & Living by my Values in Challenging Times’. For over 25 years, Nadine has helped people of all ages face their various challenges and find a way forward through the valleys, up the cliffs, and trudging through the muddy situations that life presents.
“Together we find breath and a way to live their life drawn forward by their values,” she said. “Within ‘the fires’ of life, (including the frightening fires experienced by our South Coast earlier this year, the invisible ‘fire’ of Covid-19, and our own internal and personal emotional ‘fires’) we long for peace and internal ease to appreciate the beauty and magic of life, to thrive within our circumstances and opportunities.”
October is Rotary Mental Health Month. We know one in five Australians experience a mental illness every year, but with the fires plus COVID-19 it is anticipated these figures will increase. An estimated 45% of the population experience a mental illness at some stage in their lives.
Therefore, it is more important than ever that we continue to fund mental health research, especially for our youth.
The Lift the Lid campaign is a National mental health fundraising and awareness initiative that aims to raise funds for mental health research and ultimately improve the lives of all Australians.
The Week that Was
We zoomed
Last week we zoomed. One highlight was a very proud David McInnes mentioning that Rachel was part of the WIRES Mid South Coast team who recently won the South Coast Volunteer Team of the Year.
This well deserved award particularly recognised the team’s amazing efforts during and after the bushfires caring for and protecting our native animals. Theirs really was a huge and devoted undertaking on top of their normal work. Well done our local WIRES team; we are particularly proud of Rachel knowing the difficult tasks she has often had to perform.
From Moruya Rotary
Last week, Moruya Rotarians enjoyed their first normal dinner meeting at Moruya Golf Club since 18 March when no one dreamed the embargo on normal meetings was just around the corner. President Peter Smith summarised what the Club had been doing in the intervening period
He particularly mentioned two projects done by individual members. Steve Young ran a one man show, providing and setting up water tanks in a fire ravaged area adjacent to the Clyde River near Runnyford to aid native animals, mainly kangaroos , from dying of thirst. He identified a need, sourced funding through a Rotary District Program and completed the project. Meanwhile Col Jay is working on the entrance gate to the historic Moruya Pioneer Cemetery used during the mid 1800s; only a handful of headstones still stand. Col is being assisted by Moruya Historical Society.
Out and About
World Polio Day is on 24 October
Just a reminder…When Rotary and its partners formed the GPEI in 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries every year. Because of their efforts , nearly 19 million people who would otherwise have been paralyzed are walking, and more than 1.5 million people are alive who would otherwise have died.
Today just two countries continue to report cases of wild poliovirus: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Eliminating all cases will take even more efforts. Afghanistan and Pakistan face unique challenges, including political insecurity, highly mobile populations, difficult terrain, and, in some instances, vaccine refusal and misinformation.
Rotary is optimistic that polio can be eliminated with sufficient resources, the commitment of national governments, and innovations that improve access to remote areas.
The infrastructure we 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.
NEXT WEEK
Dinner meeting at Narooma Golf Club with guest speaker Jeff Lean on Climate Change, Consumption and Mindfulness. Please invite partners and friends.
On a lighter note
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because the chicken behind it didn’t know how to socially distance properly.
Who’s idea was it to sing “Happy Birthday” while washing your hands? Now every time I go to the bathroom, my kids expect me to walk out with a cake.
My husband purchased a world map and then gave me a dart and said, “Throw this and wherever it lands—that’s where I’m taking you when this pandemic ends.” Turns out, we’re spending two weeks behind the fridge.
I never thought the comment “I wouldn’t touch them with a six-foot pole” would become a national policy, but here we are!