Ange’s Chat
What great news re the Busking! Our Narooma Busking Championship is now back on track for Saturday 30 May 2020. That’s thanks to the impressive turnout of over 50 sponsors and other interested people who joined us last Thursday to determine the future of this successful event.
Bob Aston was a maestro facilitator, supported by his clearly defined PowerPoint presentation. Sandra Doyle gave a terrific heartfelt appeal about how precious this event has been for our town while John Rungen spoke about the importance of adhering to tasks and not falling behind.
Within the hour, we had six volunteers come forward from the audience to join four of our members from the old team to form a wonderfully committed new team headed by Coordinator Di Riley who is Chamber of Commerce Vice President. Well done everyone. Special thanks to the outgoing team members – Sandra Doyle, John Doyle and Lynda Ord – for their superb work and dedication. Rotarians Chris O’Brien, John Rungen, Lynn Hastings and Laurelle Pacey continue in the new team along with Jen French. Truly a win/win for Rotary and our wonderful community.
This Sunday is of course our monthly markets. Thank you to everyone who will help out on the day.
Rod Walker has sent out an email advising us of the Annual General Meeting to take place at 7.15pm, Thursday 12 Dec. He has attached nomination forms for Board positions for 2020/21 and urges members to respond as soon as possible.
THIS WEEK
We welcome Carolyn Wells who will tell us the Inside Story of the Sapphire Coast Producers Association (SCPA). SCPA is much more than a farmers’ organisation and operates across the south east from Batemans Bay to Eden, Cooma to Canberra. Carolyn is SCPA’s vice president.
The Week that was
Busking Championships stay in Narooma
What a great outcome last week! Strong community support has ensured Narooma will host the 2020 Busking Championships AND in association with our Club. When Sandra Doyle said, “We can’t let it go from Narooma”, she also summed up the general feeling of everyone there. Bob’s excellent presentation placed the situation clearly before everyone with the three options we faced – let it go, some other organisation take it over, or others from outside Rotary take on the vital organising roles.
The result was six new people volunteered to join Rotarians in a new committee to bring about the 2020 Championships, coordinated by Di Riley. The committee’s first meeting is Monday night. The new committee consists of coordinator Di Riley, Averill Berriman of ABC Property Sales, Therese Aston, Shannon Chambers of Easts Holiday Parks, Dee Cramb of Sea Salt Café Dalmeny, Cherie Cunninghame of NAB, Jen French, and Rotarians John Rungen, Chris O’Brien, Lynn Hastings and Laurelle Pacey.
BowelCare Results 2019
Our BowelCare coordinator John Rungen received the Annual Report for Rotary’s 29th annual bowel care awareness programme this week. It highlights the importance of this programme which is available for everyone regardless of age. The Australian Government’s free National Bowel Screening Programme is only available for people between 50 and 75, yet the BowelCare results showed that 70% of the 1174 positives were in the under 50 and over 75 age brackets, particularly over 75. Note that not all positives will end up being the result of bowel cancer but indicate a need to follow up.
Some interesting figures:
- only 84% of the 16,872 kits sold were tested, showing not everyone got around to using it
- overall 8.3% of those tested were positive
- About 60% of those tested were women
- 55% of those tested were over 75 with 9.6% of those testing positive.
- 10.4% of those tested under 50 were positive
The 2020 programme will run from 1 April to 31 May. The kits will increase in price from $15 to $20. The BowelCare Australia programme is supported by Rotary D9685, 9710 and parts of 9675, 9670, 9650, 9640 and 9700. It uses the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) manufactured by Clinical Genomics.
Out and About
Life Education
Moruya Rotarians Rohan Gleeson and Col Jay help drive the Happy Harold’s Life Education van from between schools, all part of their Community Service. Last week they moved it from Narooma Public School to St Bernard’s Primary School at Batemans Bay.
The Life Education programme motivates and empowers children so they can draw on their own knowledge to make safer and healthier choices throughout their lives. Life Education was the vision of the late Rev Ted Noffs 40 years ago in response to the explosion in illicit drug use he saw at Kings Cross and the impact it was having on families. Since then seven million young students across Australia have participated in the programme, thanks to widespread support including from many Rotary Clubs. In 2018, Life Education worked in over 4,200 schools and pre-schools sharing their program with more than 710,000 students.
Dates for your Diary
Wed 26 February: Race Day Presentation at the combined Rotary Birthday Dinner, Moruya Golf Club
Thursday 5 March: Cinders Trivia Night with Rotary Moruya, hosted by Narooma.
6-8 March: District Conference Uladulla
It’s at the new Dunn Lewis Function Centre in Ulladulla. Check out the Conference website for the great line-up of speakers. The logo promotes the Roaring 20s dance night to the music of the Royal Military Band from Duntroon. Early bird tickets end 31 December.
This is the last D9710 conference before we become part of the new and much larger District 9705 on 1 July which will encompass D9710 and D9700.
NEXT WEEK
Economist extraordinaire and Moruya Rotarian Andrew Elek will talk about the reasons behind the trade wars, particularly between the United States and China, and what the future may hold. His impressive career includes being a Visiting Research Fellow at the ANU’s Crawford School of Economics and Government, working extensively in development economics in South Asia and the South Pacific, Senior Economist with the World Bank, and having a central role in establishing APEC in 1989. More recently he has published papers on the G20 and the Belt and Road Initiative.