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From the Editor Good afternoon to my fellow Rotarians, well its great to see the weather on the improve as we all welcome the first Day of Spring, a bit of warmth and the buds starting to bloom. With our current Lockdown Restrictions entering into its fourth week , I for one will be watching the "plan out of lockdown media release" this coming Sunday, with the hope we can soon be back to some sort on normality and an optimistic outlook we will soon be conducting business face to face in the near future. Guest Speaker - Mr Wayne Jenkins from RORP Last Wednesday evening our club participated in a Peninsula Cluster Meeting, via ZOOM. The Guest Speaker for the evening was Wayne Jenkins from the Rotary Club of Mt Martha. Wayne’s presentation was on the Rotary Overseas Recycled Playgrounds, and with that it was great to hear that Wayne is our District 9820 RORP Representative. For those who are not too familiar with RORP its objectives are very simple, to dismantle (harvest) playgrounds within our community and relocate them to disadvantaged schools and communities into overseas countries in need. The concept of RORP was instigated by Mr Peter Cribb from the Rotary club of Flemington Kensington many years ago and has now progressed into a sector within Rotary that encompasses a wide range of management policies, safety guidelines, repair and maintenance projects, transport and logistics associated with shipping and delivery and also liaison with International Rotary Clubs. RORP, which began as Slides for Sri Lanka as a small single project, has now grown to big for a single club to manage. With a growing interest from a large number of councils and clubs across Victoria, clubs in all Victorian Districts has now been joined District 9800. The basic idea is to source a playground within the community, from such locations as schools and/or local council parks, send in a team to dismantle the playground, transport it to a “ Rotary “ storage area for repair, packaging and delivery to a Port Authority within Australia for placement in a shipping container to delivery via sea to a pre- arranged designated country. From start to finish the exercise is both financially and asset savings undertaking to all parties involved. As Wayne informed us, the cost that Rotary charges to under take a harvest of a playground is $750.00 whilst the same undertaking by a private contracted company can be anywhere in the scope of $2,500.00, and one vital aspect to consider is that nearly all commercially harvested playgrounds’ end up in Landfill. The RORP project has a number of very valuable Program Partners that assist in the overall scheme, such as Play Australia, Arena Gardens PTY LTD, Adventure + and CIVILISED Construction and Landscaping, all of which along with a very dedicated team of Rotarians all work in collaboration to make this project come to fruition. Since the concept of RORP four years ago there have been some 36+ playgrounds harvested and relocated overseas to Dili, Timor Leste, Sri Lanka, Colombo and a number of other disadvantaged counties. The RORP team consists of some 14 active Rotary Members working at near full time, along with a vast array of volunteer members, to keep this project progressing and also growing for the future. Well done to Wayne and big thanks for his very energetic and informative presentation. Some images of the playgrounds that RORP has re-located to overseas communities to bring happiness and fun to local village Schools Great News ' The Eradication of Polio from Africa " By now most us have heard of the great news that came out of the report from the World Health Orgainisation (WHO) and also the e-mail sent out to all members from our RI President , last week about the eradication of Polio from Africa. After a three decade campaign against the disease that once paralysed some 75,000 children on the continent every year we can now very clearly see light at the end of the tunnel. This achievement is truly a major step forward in ridding this terrible disabling and at times deadly disease from our planet. There are now only a few pockets of the disease still prevalent in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I read a statement from Dr Matshidiso Moti , the WHO's Director for Africa who said " future generations of African children can live free of Wild Poliovirus" . This is a wonderful achievement and all Rotarians and great people such as Bill and Melinda Gates , just to mention a few, can be proud of our efforts to stamp out this terrible affliction, and hopefully to very soon see it completely gone. Our Next Club Meeting This coming week, tomorrow evening, Wednesday 01st September 2020, commencing at 6:00pm, our Club welcomes " back to the podium " one of our own members in Nicholas Lynch as our Guest Speaker. So if you are free please log-in and join the meeting> Meeting ID: 927 056 436 Password: 294331 President’s Report – August 18th 2020 The first day of Spring! You beauty ! Upcoming meetings This week (Sept 2) on Zoom we have Nicholas Lynch speaking on “Doing the Usual Business Unusually”. It’s at 6pm on Zoom…. To get an insight into what Nicholas will be talking about, it would be good if you can look at this article and the embedded video. The following week (Sept 9) we have Ian Johnson from Tanti Social Enterprises, and Homeground explaining what they are all about. Recall we recently contributed $1000 towards a freezer for them. On September 16 our Committee Chairs will give an update on what their Committees are talking about. The 23rd is a Board Meeting and the 30th is a Social Night….details to come …. This Saturday Night September 5 @ 7.30pm - a Music trivia quiz Being conducted by the Rotary Club of Frankston this will be conducted on Zoom. https://us04web.zoom.us/j/703546388 Meeting ID : 703546388. Display your knowledge of 1950- 1970’s Music, Musicals and music themes. The cost is $10 per head, $20 per family, payable to: Frankston Rotary Service Account BSB 633 000 Account No. 147 486 880 All proceeds raised will go to their project to raise Funds for the purchase of an ambulance for a village near Siem Riap in Cambodia. Our Board Meeting the previous week You should have received the Minutes. Committee Chairpersons are currently discussing with their Committees what are likely project, in different restriction scenarios, for the next year or two. They are also looking at additional members for their Committees so if you would like to be involved please ask them. They might also ask you! Our Club meeting on September 16 will give each Committee Chair the opportunity to give us all an update. Each of the Committee Chairs has a Financial projection that lists all known committed and possible projects at the moment. Hopefully that will help Committees talk about what their priorities are for this year. A possible Rotary Health PHD Scholarship. You will have also read in the Minutes that the Board has considered and recommended an Australian Rotary Health PHD Scholarship be undertaken for the next three years. ARH is of course very important to this club. The PHD Scholarship is a substantial commitment, $12,000 per year for 3 years (maybe 3.5). We can nominate the broad area of the PHD but do not participate in selecting the candidate. The Sponsor enjoys naming rights. I know Bowel cancer is a topic of concern to several members and as my own father died of it I am willing to contribute half of the financial contribution, for the club naming rights to be shared with his, on this topic. Members may also want to make a direct contribution or it will be funded out of funds the club will raise. What do you think ? The end of Polio in Africa You should have received an email last week from RI President, Holger Knaack, declaring the end of polio in Africa and asking us to recommit to ending polio. “To finish this fight we need to continue raising $50 million each year for PolioPlus. The eradication of wild polio in the African region shows us that polio eradication is achievable, and shows how our hard work, partnerships and financial commitment continue to propel us forward, even during a global pandemic”. Regards Ross |
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