Happy Australia Day and Gong Xi Fa Cai - Happy Chinese New Year – Year of the White Metal Rat.
The theme for Rotary year 2020/2021
Rotary International President elect Holger Knaack announced the theme for 2020/2021 at the International Assembly for District Governor Elects last week.
It is “Rotary Opens Opportunities”
Some key points from his address:
He wants us to focus on growing Rotary organically and sustainably
Making Rotary stronger so we can face upcoming challenges.
Young people should be the architects of new clubs
Doing more to preserve the environment
Rotary is not just a club you join – it is an invitation to endless opportunities.
The club collects used and/or abandoned spectacles and sunglasses from a variety of sources i.e.: Fareshare, Ventura Buses, Optometrist at Forest Hill Chase, Southern Cross Railway Station/Wilson Security/members. All this is very ably coordinated by Len B, Bruce S and Colin R.
So where do all these glasses end up?
4 boxes of spectacles (399 pairs)and Sunglasses (126 pairs) were donated to Julie Tyers who spoke at our meeting on 15 January 2020 – she runs a Not For Profit in Ethiopia called “Eyes For Africa” which is a cataract project (RAWCS project number 45/11-12)
Over 100 spectacles were given to Past District Governor, Janne Spiers, of District 9820 in the first part of 2019. She recently advised they were being sent to an isolated community west of Alice Springs as part of the Trachoma project.
Regularly donate spectacles/sunglasses to the Taveuni Eye Project (based in Fiji) via the Rotary Club of Boronia
As many of you know, we collect foreign coins from our travellers to pass onto the RC of Forest Hill. I received an email from Ron Brooks giving us an update.
I copied it in full below
Dear Gabby
Have just received the 2.5kg of coins via our Warwick Stott that the RC of Nunawading had collected. Thank you so much. That takes the latest total to 58.4kg. We send off coins in 60kg batches
so my trip to the RC of Rowville Lysterfield tomorrow night should tip us over the edge! That will then make 480kg of coins and notes that have been shipped to UNICEF from D9810 since 2015.
I am not sure if you have heard of the Rotary Give Every child a future centenary project. It aims at immunising 100,000 children in the Pacific: https://everychildafuture.com/ It is a UNICEF project that Rotary has agreed to fund. Funds from the last 60kg I sent off went towards Rotary’s contribution and until 2020/21 that will continue to happen. So D9810 are directly contributing the UNICEF money to a Rotary project within UNICEF.
We had another excellent Bunnings Sausage Sizzle on Monday the Australia Day public holiday. I was initially thinking we may have struggled to fill our Roster. I should not have been worried. My thanks to: Dick Tregear ,Ian Symons, Neil and Vivienne Ibbott, Wendy, Janette,Hank, Graeme Moorfoot, Rob Jackson, Bob Allardice, Gabby, David, and Roger, who all worked tirelessly to feed the hungry hordes in excess or 760 sausages.
Profit for the day was $1,572.10, plus we had donations of $194.60 for our Bush Fire Appeal.
Bunnings have once again allocated us every 3rd Thursday and the weekend before Christmas. Dates are -
