Great to be meeting normally again. Let’s hope it continues.
Please confirm with Eileen if you are NOT coming.
Guest Speaker last week – Cr Steve Holland.
Thanks to Victor for Chairing the evening last week, and to our newly elected Briars Ward Councillor – Steve Holland, for his time. Good to have Laurie attending too.
Steve gave an impressive presentation about his personal background and the challenges he is contemplating as a new Councillor.
Steve grew up locally before attending Peninsula Grammar, then RMIT, where he did a Bachelor of Communications with majors in economics, business and politics. After an initial role with the Victorian Bar Council he established his own business specialising in digital communication, which has developed to service around 50 local small business clients.
His personal interest in politics together with his experience with local business prompted him to stand for Council, recognising that it’s the tier of government with the most immediate impact on people’ daily life.
His first few months he described as a “Whirlwind Experience”. He described a Councillors role as a “facilitator of resolutions” wedged between the community and Council staff. Recognising that eight of the eleven Councillors are new, he is looking forward to preparing the Council’s Four and Ten Year Plans, required under the new Victorian Local Government Act.
Some of the challenges he wants to deliver on in his four year term, included better advocacy with the State Government by Council, ( if we are treated as metropolitan we should have a metropolitan standard of services), Coastal erosion issues (the Peninsula has 10% of Victoria’s Coast and with a 1m sea level rise by 2100 we have some real issues), better connectedness of the community (with better walking and cycling paths) and preservation of the tree canopy, 70% of which is on private land.
Already he is involved in a number of Committees, including Audit and Risk, the Australia Day Committee, and the Association of Bayside Municipalities. It was clear he was on Council to deliver an even better Mornington Peninsula, good as it already is.
We look forward to another new elected Briars Ward Councillor, Mayor Despi O’Connor joining our meeting on March 17th.
This week's meeting – Club Business
With the success of the Art Show, our accumulated funds are now in excess of what we expected. So this week’s meeting will provide an opportunity for members to be updated and comment further on our plans for investing them. Broadly the Board is working towards recommendations that include
- Around 2/3 being spent on local community projects including youth programs. Preferably one or two larger ones that also provide profile, though several smaller ones are being investigated.
- Around 1/3 on International & Foundation and Australian Rotary Health. It would be good to make substantial contributions to both Rotary Foundation and Polio Plus this year. ARH will include $6000 for our proposed PHD Scholarship and $2500 for a further year four our Indigenous Student, Molly King, and hopefully some for Lift the Lid.
That 2/3 and 1/3 split is the guideline members suggested last year.
Our Community Projects are looking like
- The Bathroom at Fusion – the $20-25K budget we guessed is looking realistic
- A temporary Emergency Accommodation service over winter, like was proposed last year when COVID stopped it. $10k
- The Roof over the Long Table - $20k including a $5K grant we received from Council.
- The Healing Garden at the new Community Centre - $5k
- Bushfire Relief – a further $1700 for trees and $5k for the training of 3 people in the use of a Lucas Mill (which was provided by other Rotary Clubs and mills burnt trees to fence posts).
The two other bigger projects still being investigated are the Bay Trail, which we are hoping might constitute our Rotary Centenary celebration, and some independent living units at Fusion.
The Board is meeting prior to the Members meeting to progress these.
So please come to the meeting with your thoughts, questions, challenges and new ideas!
We will formally approve expenditures of $680 for the Christmas Train Trip ($1000 less $320 from Martha Cove Yacht Squadron ) and $510 for the new sign in Main St ($660 - $150 from District). The Lucas Mill training of $5k is also likely to be proposed.
Welcome back to our normal Editor, Brian – next week!
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