Warner’s Bay Rotary Club Meeting- Monday 4th June 2012, Brown Sugar 6.30pm
Present:13 members (including District Governor elect Peter Raynor and his wife Margaret) and one visitor Peter Rufford.
Apologies: Margaret Mitchell and
Adrian Payne and Toni Gemmell, and Peter and Robin Smith who are still enjoying holidays
Minutes: Kerry Hayes
Speakers:
# Peter Rufford who has moved to Warner’s Bay from Brisbane, was a member of the Ashgrove/The Gap Rotary Club.
He spoke of his story, previous club and expressed an interest in joining our club.
# Peter Raynor (District Governor elect) spoke on a number of topics.
Peter and Jeremy welcomed a new member Julie Butcher to our club. Julie was presented with her badges and paperwork.
She is already an active member of our club, taking on the Social Coordinator role.
Peter spoke of Charles Webster and his “Chuck Duck’s Breakfast” charity, which collects donations to provide breakfast to all pupils of designated schools once per week. A breakfast is being held Carrington Bowling Club on 18th July 7-9am to find out more about this program. Ann Shanks and Christine Johnson-Evans showed an interest in attending.
Peter spoke about the National Youth Science Forum. We have supported this program, which provides a 12 day camp in Canberra for a year 12 student wanting to study Science. The program is run by the Science and English faculty Uni of Newcastle. One student we previously sponsored went on to be invited to attend further study in Russia. This is very competitive program .Cost to attend is $2395, our club in the past has given $750 towards this cost (family paying remainder).
Peter proposed we sponsor two students, offering $750 per student. Belmont and Charlestown Rotary clubs also sponsor two students each in this program. High schools need to nominate students. Info is sent to schools from Rotary.
Peter spoke of the Youth Exchange program. Currently the District has 15 young people. Next year it is planned to have 18 students sponsored ‘out’ and 18 students ‘in’ placed with host families. In our area, Connor Sherwood is being sponsored ‘out’ and Alessia Martinez Vaena (17 year old girl) is coming to us from Mexico. To support this program we need to ask for expressions of interest for a Counsellor (resource person for incoming student to talk to if any probs) and host parents for 6 months. Connor’s parents will host Alessia for 3 months, and our club to host her for 3 months (one family for 3 months or several families for 1 or 2 months – mid August to end of year). Incoming students spend 6 months in our area and 6 months with another area e.g.Cobar. Training days are provided for both these roles (counsellor and host families).
Peter circulated Prohibited Employment Declaration forms which members were asked to sign. This document is for groups who work with children. The document is kept within Rotary.
Peter spoke of the New Deal Association. A gov funded, not for profit organisation based at Mount Hutton, who run a day program for intellectually disabled people. The president Debra Bradley is inviting a Rotarian to sit on the board which meets last Wednesday of the month at 2pm. Liska volunteered to fill this role.
Peter also spoke about our club helping with graffiti removal.
Peter finished his interesting session with a report on his new role as District Governor and his experience at the Bangkok Rotary Convention. Peter officially takes over his new role on 1st July. Part of his duties is to visit all the many clubs in his district. As he will be very busy in this new role, he and Margaret may not be able to visit many of our club meetings. He promised to visit from time to time, and was invited to submit to our newsletter on a regular basis, to keep us in touch. Peter also mentioned that there is a District newsletter that will be circulated, with interesting information on other clubs. He also advised that Terry New of the Rutherford/Telarah club is on the lookout for entrants in club Newsletter competition. Peter will send us info and ‘rules’ of this competition.
Our District encompasses 10 zones, our zone also including the Morisset, Toronto Sunrise and Belmont Clubs.
Toronto Rotary will be hosting District Changeover night on Saturday 30th June at Toronto Worker’s Club. Peter will send out invitations with more info.
There are 531 District Governors worldwide. To have a member of our club elected District Governor is an honour. Members should attend this night if possible to support Peter in his new role.
Peter reported that next District Conference will be at the Glasshouse in Port Macquarie March next year, > 400 expected to attend.
The Annual Rotary Convention in Bangkok was attended by 35,000 people from all over the world. Seminars covered all facets of Rotary. Next year’s Convention will be June in Portugal, 2014 Convention will be in Sydney (Homebush).
Peter suggested someone could take on role to liaise with Brown Sugar with regards numbers for meeting/dinners. Anyone interested in this role to notify Jeremy.
#Jeremy Dawes (president elect) spoke about future meetings, and thanked Peter Raynor and Peter Rufford for their contributions to the meeting. He advised that the “new” newsletter should be out later this week. All members were invited and encouraged to contribute to the newsletter.
Next meeting to be held 6.30pm Monday18th June.