Welcome to the May edition of our Bulletin.
May’s activities kicked off with a shift at Donations in Kind, where we assisted in filling shipping containers bound for Papua New Guinea and other locations full of medical and education supplies. There has become some urgency at DiK, with them being required to vacate their Durack premises before 30 June. I understand DiK is hopeful of reaching an agreement on a new location shortly, but I can imagine the job of transporting everything on site to a new site will be a mammoth task. At this week’s board meeting, we resolved to donate $1,000 to DiK to assist what their great work.
The Club’s biggest event, the Art Spectacular, finally kicked off (after 11 months of planning) on 12 May, with a number of members and friends of the Club working with our friends and colleagues from the Rotary Clubs of Brisbane High Rise and Stones Corner to set up for the Show, now in its 39th year. The art on display looked spectacular and the opening night, thanks to Pam’s organising, was another success. I will report on the final figures from the Art Spectacular when they come to hand.
With the Art Show dominating much of the Club’s attention in May, we still enjoyed our usual fellowship at our weekly meetings. The first meeting this month, we welcomed Susan Pickering from the Victim Support Unit. The VSU provides a vital volunteer service assisting victims of crime as they prepare for Court, as well as other in and out of Court assistance such as the preparation of victim impact statements. For too long this group who works in a shoestring budget, often had to share a single laptop around several volunteers, not allowing them to do their work efficiently. Thanks to our friends at another awesome Rotary project, Computers 4 Learning, we were able to purchase 5 refurbished machines and donate them to VSU.
At the end of the month, we welcomed QUT student Pierce Braithwaite, who recently attended the Rotary Youth Leadership Award seminar (RYLA), sponsored by the Club. RYLA is an intensive week long training conference for 18 to 26 year olds, teaching them leadership, team building and life skills. It has been empowering the leaders of tomorrow and inspiring positive change in the Community for many years, and something our Club is proud to be involved with. Pierce came to our meeting to share his experiences, and the change from the young man we first interviewed before he want to now is obvious.
Our other guest speaker this month was Club member Garry Fenner who provided a job talk, or, as he put it, a “This is Your Life” story of his upbringing, work career and life in Rotary. Job talks are a great way to get to know our fellow members.
Our monthly board meeting was held on 28 May 2018, and we have resolved to make end of year donations of $17,000 across a number of projects, either within Rotary or to organisations with a strong Rotary connection. This includes a $5,000 pledge towards the Low Cost Shelter project, something that PDG John Leddy is working very hard behind the scenes to secure funding across our district, and around the world to enable us to build as many shelters as possible in the Heather Kinross Village in Bangladesh. We have also pledged $3,000 to the End Polio Now campaign, and will make donations to Australian Rotary Health, Rotarians Against Malaria, Shelterbox, the Umoja Orphanage, Interplast, Operation Cleft and ROMAC. This is of course on top of the thousands of dollars in funds raised by the Club and distributed to various charities and Rotary programs during the year. Well done everyone!
June will see my final month as President of your Club, and boy has the past 23 months gone so fast! But there is still work to be done (and fun to be had) before I hand over the reins to our incoming President, Rutian. Our changeover night is on Tuesday 3 July at RQ, and I hope to see many of you, your partners, families and friends there on the night. I also remind everyone of district changeover, which is at Old Petrie Town on Sunday 17 June, and I wish incoming DG Wendy Protheroe all the best for her year as Governor.
Firm dates of 10 September and 20 October have been set for the 2018 Golf Day and Swimathon respectively, and we are in the process of beginning to put these events together. The Golf Day, in particular, is not far away, and we hope to begin to secure sponsors shortly.
Until next month, yours in Rotary Service.
