March saw this year’s run of great weekly meetings continue. Our first speaker was 2018 attendee at the National Youth Science Forum (NYSF) and now Year 12 student as St Margaret’s, Penny Crothers. Penny thanked the Club for its support and shared her experiences at NYSF. We wish Penny all the best in her scientific endeavours in the future. 

We also heard from Club member Angie McPhee, who has recently returned from climbing Mt Kilimanjaro. And speaking of those who have taken on great feats of human endurance, we heard a fantastic presentation from Dr Scott John, who recently completed the 800km long Camino de Santiago trail in Spain. 

At the end of the month, our guest speaker was Professor John Pearn, a world expert in a number of areas, including the topic of his presentation, Polio. The presentation included a history lesson of a great Australian, Sister Elizabeth Kenny, a bush nurse who pioneered many treatment techniques for children with paralysis caused by Polio and other illnesses. We also received an update on the latest Polio new case figures. 

In March we also awarded our annual Ivan Holm Award, which is presented to a student from Skillstech at Eagle Farm, and is named after a former principal of the school and Club member, Ivan Holm. Congratulations to this year’s recipient, Brendan Voss. This is an award we really look forward to presenting every year, and we again thank Skillstech for their assistance in identifying a worthy recipient.

Further information on the above, including photos are of course on our Facebook page, and I encourage people to take a look and share our posts with their friends and networks. The best way we can continue to do good work is to encourage others to join Rotary, and to increase community awareness of who we are and what we do!

The board has also recently resolved to make some donations to Rotary and other community projects, including:

 

• USD100 per member to the Rotary Foundation.

 

• Five restored laptops have been ordered through another great Rotary program, Computers 4 Learning, to assist a local not for profit organisation, the Victims Support Unit (VSU). The VSU provides vital assistance to victims of crime, usually unfortunately of the most violent type. Most of the people working with VSU are volunteers, who, up to now, have been extremely under resourced, and so we hope this donation will allow them to continue to do their great work. We will be presenting the laptops to VSU at a Club meeting in early May, where a representative of VSU will present to the meeting on how they assist the victims of crime before, during and after their time in Court.

 

• A donation of $1,000 has been made to a Rotary Australia Works Community Service (RAWCS) project for disaster relief in PNG. Speaking of RAWCS, thanks to the great work by Club member and PDG John Leddy, we are continuing to seek support partners for our Low Cost Shelter Project. 

 

During April, we will not only have even more great speakers and meetings, we will be continuing with preparations for other Club events, including the 2018 Rotary Art Spectacular, which is now really taking shape. Please look to support the show by sponsoring, volunteering on the roster, and/or attending the opening night on Monday 14 May. Tickets are now on sale!

 

We will also be going to the district conference in April at Maroochy RSL. Those members who wish to go should ensure they register soon. 

 

Until next month, yours in Rotary Service.