We had an informative and fun-packed meeting last Thursday with a "love" theme for Valentine's day. Our members always enjoy, and do a great job of singing, whether it be the national Anthem or "All you need is love". A good song for Peace Month, as well as Valentine's day!!
Thank you to Jenny Bacon for sharing her interest and passion for textile art. We were in awe of her talent and the pieces she showed us. We look forward to seeing the display at the Art Gallery in the near future.
Be sure not to miss our Peace Night next week, when we will look at the meaning of peace in our own lives, the community and the world, as well as celebrate Rotary's Birthday. Something worth celebrating!
Thank you for volunteering to work at the BBQ at Ballarat Swap Meet next weekend. It is another good fundraiser for our Club.
It is only 5 weeks to our District Conference, so make sure that you register soon! Also, be prepared to be inundated by information and requests for help from now until then. A huge thank you to the Committee who have worked and are still working so hard to make it a success.
We are all called to "Be the Inspiration".
Since last Thursday was Valentine's Day, our club celebrated with a video of "All my Lovin'", roses, chocolates and sweets on the table - thanks to President Meryl and Tracey, and a spirited sing a long of "All You Need is Love"..jpg)
Members were fascinated by Textiles expert, Jenny Bacon, last Thursday, as she shared her story of the Golden Textiles Exhibition about to be staged in Maryborough - during the period of our District Conference. The exhibition of textile art from our Goldfields region has toured European and American locations over the last four years, and has a significant following amongst those interested in the art form. Members were very impressed by the examples of quilts that Jenny displayed during her talk.
PP Thea presented President Meryl with a Certificate of thanks from Goldfields Education and Learning Centre (GELC) for their use of our club's BBQ trailer recently, and for the Scholarship we provided at the end of last year.
PP Derrick gave the International toast to an Indian Rotary club which is the home club of a friend he made at the recent International Cricketing Fellowship event in Melbourne. He then went on to share the saga of our Club Shed. After we complained about a annual lease for our shed land in the thousands of dollars, the Administrators have come back to us with a much more reasonable annual lease amount of $104. However, there was a clause in the contract that seemed to suggest that after a year, the shed building (which our club built) would become the property of the Shire! Derrick and Rod Brown are continuing meetings with the Administrators to sort this all out and will come back to members with a suggestion once all the facts are known. Watch this space.
For last Thursday's Inkspot, PP Garry Higgins OAM shared his visit to the first Melbourne performance (for this year) of YouTube phenomenon, Jordan Peterson. Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist and Professor at Toronto University who has recently released the top selling book in the Western World, "12 Rules for Life". It is estimated that YouTube Videos relating to him number around 5 Billion hits (although no-one is counting) and he is regarded as the most well known intellectual in the world. Garry was impressed that over 5000 people, mostly young men (25 to 40) and a significant number of young women were in the audience to hear Peterson talk for two and a half hours about what are in essence, Rotary values. Peterson is adamant that we must speak the truth in all things, and instead of complaining about our woes (which we all have), endeavour to fix our lives and our families, and do some good in the world. Peterson will apparently be on "Q&A" this Monday night, but simply type, "Jordan Peterson youtube" into Google, and you can watch him in action.
Around 50 members and guests from the four D9780 Group 7 clubs heard reports from each of the Presidents last Thursday. As always, it is great to hear about the different ways each club serves their local community and the wider world. We had hoped to also hear from Nobel Peace prize winner, Dimity Hawkins, but unfortunately she was unable to attend due to illness. Instead, those attending enjoyed two short videos showing Dimity in action, and another one celebrating the reason why Dimity got her award - a world wide treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Pictured are the four presidents: Bo Munro (Ararat), George Kirsanovs (Beaufort), John Launder (Stawell) and Meryl James (Maryborough).
Around 60 people attended our Trivia with a Twist event last Saturday night, and a good time was had by all. Whilst we had hoped for more attendees, we anticipate making over $600 for the Youth Committee to put towards their various projects. Thank you to the Youth Committee members and especially Tracey for organizing the event, many thanks to our sponsors and thanks to our members who organized tables or attended on the night. Pictured is the table that won the "best dressed" prize - an energetic group of "Village people" in uniform!
As members will be aware, one of the spin offs from our hosting of this year's District Conference is the Activity Challenge championed by Rotarian Peter Haywood. Peter and his wife, Bronwyn plan to ride over 2000km around our District in the 9 days before Conference to raise awareness of the need for us all to be more active in our lifestyles. Our club is sending out the challenge to all other clubs in the District to add up the total amount of time their members spend being active in those 9 days leading up to the Maryborough conference, and the most physically "active" club will win a trophy to be presented at the Conference. The total number of hours will be divided by the active members in each club to determine the winner. Pictured are some of our club's members getting psyched up for the challenge. "Activity" can be anything that demands physical exertion and movement such as scooting, weight exercising, playing croquet, riding your bike, playing bowls, walking or jogging, yoga, swimming, dancing, mowing the lawn, active housework, shopping etc.
Service and Governance committees met for the first time last Thursday and clarified plans for the 2nd half of this Rotary year. Pictured are Mallee (Youth) and Alison (International) giving their reports.
I am in the process of making digital copies of Maryborough Rotary History so that we can store records "in the cloud" and also have access to resources for a future history volume e.g. our 70th anniversary in a few years. I am wondering if any members or past members have digital copies - particularly Microsoft Word files - of the following annual reports for the whole club: any year up to 2010, 2013, 2014, and 2015. In other words I only have digital files of reports for 2011. 2012, 2016,2017 and 2018.
PP Garry Higgins was named as a recipient of the Order of Australia medal in the Australia Day Honours list for his significant community work particularly related to the #SayNO campaign. We send our Congratulations to Garry for this thoroughly deserved honour. He is pictured here at the Australia day gathering with District Governor Anthony, President Meryl and the convener of the submission, PP Graeme Rogan.
We had a good team of members and friends available to serve pancakes to the (less than) masses at the Australia Day event on Saturday. Numbers of community members attending seemed to be down a little on previous years, but the pancakes still tasted great! Thanks to those members and friends who were able to help us out.)
We regret to inform members and friends of our club that PP PHF Bob Osborne OAM passed away in the early hours of this morning (January 27th 2019). Bob was a huge supporter of Maryborough Rotary, and a larger than life character and contributor to the wider community. He joined Rotary on April 30th 1981, and was the only member who has been President on two separate occasions, the first in 1990-91, and the second in 2012-13. He was our Club Probus representative for many years, and a champion for the Bowelscan program and Shine On Awards. Just recently, our club nominated him as a Shine on recipient for the upcoming 2019 awards - unfortunately, he will not be there to receive that recognition. Bob was a significant contributor to the Rotary Foundation and last year, was presented with a Major Donor recognition. Bob served on numerous local, district and even National committees for a variety of sporting and humanitarian causes. His contribution to our world has been significant, and he will be sadly missed.
Over 20 Rotarians and guests visited the CFA Headquarters in Maryborough last Thursday, and heard a fascinating account from Group Officer, Rob Ipsen on how the CFA operates in this area. This was the first of our planned Vocational visits for 2019. A big "thank you" to John C, Terry, Brian and Noel for sweltering over a hot barby in over 40 degree heat to provide our meal.
A large attendance of members and guests was enthralled by Detective Sergeant Andrea Turner last Thursday as she spoke about the challenge of Family Violence in our area. She shared the disturbing news that despite progress being made on this front in every other area of the country, Family Violence cases are rising in the Central Goldfields area.
Two members from the Avoca Community Bank (Maryborough Branch) and St Arnaud Agency of the Bendigo Bank, Manager Peta Dodson and Zoe spoke to our club members last Thursday about the community work being done by the Bank in our area and shared their enthusiasm for continued co-operation with our club - our club currently banks with the Bendigo, has recently raised money for the Queeensland Drought with the group and they will be a Bronze sponsor at our District Conference.
President Meryl inducted new member, Rev. Heather Blackman into our club last Thursday. Heather comes to us from the Rotary Club of St. Arnaud and we wish her well as she shares her skills here in Maryborough.
Rotary International President-elect Mark Daniel Maloney explained his vision for building a stronger Rotary, calling on leaders to expand connections to their communities and to embrace innovative membership models. A member of the Rotary Club of Decatur, Alabama, USA, Maloney unveiled the 2019-20 presidential theme, Rotary Connects the World, to incoming district governors at Rotary’s annual training event, the International Assembly, in San Diego, California, USA.
As some members will know, someone has stolen many of our Family Violence signs from around the town - including this one at the Hub and the signs at the entrance to the town. The Shire Council will soon make a statement to the Addy about being very disappointed (as we are) by this costly act of vandalism, and the fact that the Police are looking into the issue
We have now just about finalized our Bulletin Subscribers list i.e. the list of non-members who receive our Rotary Club Bulletin each week. This current bulletin (January 14th) is going out to those 30 or so people as well as to active members who automatically receive it as part of being a member. If you are NOT a current, active member of Maryborough Rotary, and you DO NOT want to keep receiving this bulletin each week, there is obviously still something amiss with our subscriber list - so my apologies! Please contact PDG Geoff at merylandgeoff@bigpond.com and I'll ensure you don't receive any more - no questions asked. If anyone receiving this bulletin knows of someone who WANTS to receive our bulletin and is not currently receiving it, again, please let me know.
Members and friends enjoyed a great night at the Maryborough Croquet Club last Thursday. Thank you to AG Martin for arranging the night, and to Croquet player Graham for assisting. More pictures by clicking "Read more"
Around 120 Rotarians, friends and followers converged on the Town Hall on new Year's Eve to rock in 2019. We expect to raise over $1500 from the event for our Youth Projects. Thank you to President Meryl for doing most of the organization, to Rotarians who helped set up and clean up the hall, and to the non-Rotarian members of the band who played for a reduced rate on the night.
A dozen or so members and spouses enjoyed a relaxed start to 2019 at the home of PP Garry and Julie Higgins last Thursday.
