Outside the Square
Luca Potts, Youth Directors Sandra Doyle and Lynda Ord, Elliott de Frenza, President Michael, Sabine Kildea, Keely Clark, Melanie Miller and Past President Bob Antill.
Last Thursday we had our first meeting of 2017. It is a special meeting as we had the young people attend who have participated in educational events in the past year or received awards from Rotary. We had 29 for dinner.
Sabine Kildea was the first student to address the meeting, as she was awarded our $9,000 Narooma Rotary’s scholarship for a student finishing year 12 at Narooma High School in 2016. Just listening to Sabine’s plans for her future made me feel tired and oh to be young again. She aims to study international relations and law, have a period in Geneva and then to undertake post graduate study in the USA.
Sabine was followed by Keely Clark who received a ‘special one off award’ of $1000 reflecting the determination and attitude she took to her studies and working numerous jobs so she could study paramedics and nursing.
Both Sabine and Keely noted it was their involvement in Rotary’s Model United Nations Assembly held in Canberra each year that had played a very significant part in their development and future plans.
Melanie Miller, our 2016 scholarship winner, then talked about her plans to study Clinical Exercise Physiology at the University of New England this year. She had a gap year following her completion of her HSC. Having lectured at UNE from 1980 to 1990 I had a good chat with her about the campus and the cold of Armidale.
Elliott de Frenza kept us entertained about his experience in December attending a number of Universities and factories organised by Engineers Australia. It was evident that the experience will be a significant benefit to him going into his ear 12 studies.
The last speaker was Luca Potts who went to the Conoco Phillips Science Experience at the University of Technology Sydney for 3 days earlier this year. For a year 9 student it was truly a mind expanding experience.
It was great to hear from these students as it showed that Rotary can make an impact on the lives of students from our community
All of the above was clearly INSIDE THE SQUARE for this week. Tomorrow I am off to Cooma to attend Rotary and tell them about our 1000km walk for END POLIO and a Library in Rang’I Kenya.
I am presently having an EMAIL seminar with a 73-year-old Western Australian who has walked the Bibbulmun Track 4 times. The more I learn the more I wonder what madness drives me.
I have booked my flights (one way as I don’t know where I will end up) and booked accommodation at points along the track so I can collect food supplies that I have to posted over to WA. The logistics of organising supplies when the distance from one small township to another is often more than 100km is quite fascinating and challenging. Being a forced vegetarian (a term I use due to allergy to meat even though I love it) it has also been a challenge to make appetising meals to cover more the more than 50 days I will be on the track.
I will be leaving for WA on the 4 March so you will shortly be all spared OUTSIDE THE SQUARE for some time.
The Week that Was
Last Thursday night was the Club’s first meeting for 2017 and it was at our new venue, the Narooma Golf Club.
Although there were some teething problems with numbers and table arrangements it was a great evening. As is tradition the Club’s first meeting each calendar is dedicated to our youth and last Thursday was no exception.
Michael’s article ‘Outside the Square’ provides an excellent summary of our 2017 Youth Night.
It is worth noting that two other current tertiary scholarship holders were unable to be at the meeting. Carl McEvoy, the 2015 winner, will be at this week’s meeting. Connor Ross, the 2014 winner, was otherwise engaged being sound designer and operator for Narooma Youth Theatre’s performance of ‘?Hamlet’ at Central Tilba.
Chis O’Brien gave a three-minute talk on her experiences in publishing Narooma’s local tourist magazine. Believe it or not Chris has been publishing the magazine since 1994 and is up to edition 90 (actually its more as Chris didn’t start counting for a few years!). Initially Chris starting out publishing a magazine that advertised cars for sale, unfortunately it was not a great success leading her to branch out to local tourism.
It was great to see Lynda Ord back at our meetings after some time away recovering from surgery.
The Winners
Chocolate biscuits Iris
Wine Gloria (guest of Chris O’Brien)
Port Bob Aston
Rhubarb Luca Potts dad
Pen Luca Potts
The Week Ahead
Our speaker tonight is Vic May, Vic is a support worker with SEWACS (South East Women’s and Children’s Services). Vic will tell us a little about himself as well as his work.
When he left school Vic worked in the construction industry for a number of years. In 2000 he undertook further study as well as working in a major detox unit in Brisbane for 2 years. He then went on to run a male only drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic. In 2015 he changed pace and moved to the south coast to work with his brother as texture renderer. In July last year he started working with SEWACS as a male outreach worker.
South East Women and Children’s Services Incorporated (SEWACS) is an umbrella organisation for a range of programs providing safe and supportive options for women and children who have experienced or are experiencing domestic and family violence and are at risk of homelessness as a result of this violence.
More information about SEWACS can be found on their website. Click here to access the site.
A Board Meeting will take place at the conclusion of the normal meeting.
Busking Competition
Sandra and the crew have been doing a wonderful job promoting and organising the Busking Competition. Click here to see the latest Narooma News article.
Ducks from the air
Just in case you haven’t seen it yet below is a YouTube clip of our recent duck race.
