Rebekah Abblitt is the Community Engagement Officer for headspace Box Hill. Rebekah is also the President of Lightbox Productions and a woman of many hats, overseeing the production, direction, choreography, costume design, and production management.
headspace Box Hill has a team of dedicated and passionate youth health professionals who support clients. These include youth mental health practitioners, peer practitioners, community engagement workers, adolescent health nurses, alcohol & drug workers, and GPs and private practitioners.
In the 2026 Australia Day Honours List, past-member Bruce Atkinson was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service in a particular locality or field of activity or to a particular group. The full citation is here.
Listed here are some of the Order of Australia award statistics for 2026 and how they involved Rotarians or those with Rotary Awards.
For AM appointments, out of 160 awarded, four have Rotary listed as part of their portfolio. They were from three States ie 1 x SA , 1 from NT, two from Vic. One of those awarded from Vic was our own Bruce Atkinson, and the Rotary Clubs of Mitcham and Nunawading were mentioned.
With the OAMs we did significantly better in numbers. Rotary was mentioned in the listings of 32 appointments. They were distributed this way: NSW had the most with 8. Qld and WA had 6 each Vic were next with 5. Then came NT, SA and ACT with two each Finally came Tassie with one Rotary awardee.
Out of the 32 OAMs that mentioned Rotary about 8 listed significant Rotary involvement.
Rotarians do great work and, as we know, don’t look for praise or fame. But it’s important to get acknowledgment for Rotary for its community work and excellent achievements, both locally and internationally.
It would be good if more Rotarians were acknowledged in coming years so perhaps District 9815 or our clubs should be on the lookout every year for those giving significant service and doing good in the world - and nominate them.
