Narooma Rotary Beacon 18 June 2020

Bob’s Buzz

Hello Everyone

Once again, this week we will hold a Zoom meeting rather than a regular face to face meeting. It will be our last Rotary meeting of the 2019/20 year, and what a year it has been.

PE Rolf and President Bob at a February meeting

As previously decided four members of the Club agreed to share the president role, Charmaine started out, followed by Ange. My job was to fill in for January to March; however, I stayed put due to COVID -19 and Laurelle’s back problem.

The first half of the year was normal with our regular meetings with interesting guest speakers, our monthly markets and our 3rd Renewable Energy Expo. The markets continued to earn a reliable income for us and the Renewable Energy Expo was a great success.

Of course, 2020 proved to be anything but normal. January began with terrible bushfires that threatened our community. Rotary was at the forefront of efforts to help out at the Evacuation Centre (at the Sport & Leisure Centre originally built by our Club) for the first three or four days of the crisis, along with Lions and other community groups. We fed hundreds if not thousands of people who had to call the Centre home while the fires raged.

After the fires we managed to visit Marine Rescue, Georgie’s Fine Jewellery and BlazeAid at Cobargo before COVID – 19 set in and our normal face to face meetings were cancelled due to the lockdown.

We managed to keep in touch using electronic means to conduct meetings; it was amazing to see members learn how to use Jitsi and Zoom as well as the protocols that form part of an electronic meeting – namely mute your microphone when not speaking.

The Board met for the last time for this Rotary year last week. We discussed the possibility of holding a market in June and decided against it as we are still waiting on advice from our insurers. We donated $1,500 to Australian Rotary Health to assist mental health research and we discussed options for a district grant to assist the bushfire recovery. The Board also accepted the resignation of Geoff Robin.

The Club will hold its Changeover on 9 July at the Golf Club. We will be limited to 28 participants so please let Rod know if you will be attending. Although the Changeover will be small, it is important we make it a great night for Rolf, our president for 2020/21. 

I will send you log in details for our Zoom meeting on Wednesday evening.

Have a great week. Bob

OUT AND ABOUT

From Batemans Bay Club

Bateman Bay club will celebrate its 60th birthday this Thursday at its 7.30pm on Zoom and will have a drink at the ready to toast their history. Maybe we could also toast the Club at our earlier Zoom meeting.

A few weeks ago, the Happy Hub opened in Mogo, next door to Grumpy Sweethearts, with PDG Maureen Manning a driving force as part of the Bushfire Recovery effort. This is being run as a counselling centre for bush fire victims and is being well used by Mogo residents. At present the centre is open Tuesday to Thursday with an on-site counsellor and Internet access. Some bush fire victims do not have even a landline phone yet.

Batemans Bay Club has been exploring changes to the format of their meetings. President Elect Chris Watson reported in a recent newsletter that after a lot of discussion, the consensus was to change their meeting structure to a dinner meeting on alternate Thursday nights and to have flexible meetings such as Zoom or social evenings at a suitable venue (maybe the Community Centre), have fun nights such as trivia, poetry and plonk. The options are extensive. They will have guest speakers at some of dinner meetings and possible on Zoom meetings. The overall feeling though was to have some less formality and to get back together in person as soon as possible. She said as with all changes this would be reviewed to ensure the needs of the Club were met.

Some paraprosdokians

Many Moruya Rotarians were first introduced to paraprosdokians by PP Ken McLeod. Their last newsletter had a few more, courtesy of the Club.

  • Where there’s a will, I want to be in it. 
  • We never really grow up — we only learn how to act in public.
  • War does not determine who is right, only who is left. 
  • To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research. 
  • I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you. 
  • You’re never too old to learn something stupid.