Around 25 members attended the "Bull & Mouth" last Thursday to start our new Strategic Planning process for the 2021-2024 Planning period. Members completed a Member Satisfaction survey as well as a member Audit form, and discussed the new Project Proposal template which will be emailed to members this week. Members are reminded to let others know of any projects they plan to propose at our Planning Event on April 22nd. - to avoid double ups on the night.

On April 1st, Rotarian Tracey Smith provided an update of recent activities at the Maryborough Education Centre. Over the last year, the school has been able to direct funds towards a revitalization of the school grounds: $400,000 is being used to build a "veledrome" for wheel chairs, energy breakthrough vehicles and bicycles, whilst $170,000 has been directed towards playground upgrades for the Year 7-8 students, and for special needs students. See "Read more..." for details.

 

The West Footscray store of Donations in Kind has released its latest list of Containers of donated goods shipped to countries in need. It's great to see the amount of activity from this one Rotary venture, and the number of Rotary volunteer hours going towards this project. It serves as a reminder of how valuable a project is our own Rotary District's Geelong DIK depot.

Members arriving at Peppas for last Thursday morning's meeting were greeted by dozens of rabbit paw prints leading into the building. Yes! It's true! Rotary was privileged to have a visit from the Easter Bunny to its meeting and dozens of chocolate eggs were spread around the room for the delight of members. The "bunny", who is known in Easter land as "Trace", even stayed for the meeting. See "Read more..." for more photos - and you might even spot "Trace" if you look carefully.

Last week's meeting was held on April Fool's Day. Did you know the origin of the day?

On March 25th., Renee Fearn and Lise Egan-Bales from Central Highlands Water gave club members an interesting overview of the experiences of the organization during the Covid period. They explained that CHW used the "Respond-Recover-Thrive" method to deal with the crisis, and at this point in time they are very happy with the outcomes. See "Read more..." for more details.

It is some time since there has been an update on the Maryborough Aeromedical Transfer Station (M.A.T.S.) project.  M.A.T.S. will provide a safe, secure and controlled environment at the local airport for a patient and paramedics before the patient is airlifted to a higher specialist medical facility.

 

Our "Fun Coordinator", Tracey Smith delighted members and guests at last week's meeting with some wonderful activities related to the Rotary month of "Water and Sanitation". First we had a trivia quiz with all questions related to water, and we had to make the sound of a frog to answer, and if correct, we got a choccy frog - there were certainly some interesting frog noises! Then she donned a lab coat and, with lab assistant, Harold, presented us with some fascinating water based experiments. See "Read more..." for details and more pics.

On Thursday, March 19th, around 30 members and partners ventured to the Bull and Mouth Hotel to hear Carolyn Bartholomeusz from the Go Goldfields organization provide us with a comprehensive and balanced account of the current work of the group in Maryborough. Carolyn attended the meeting with her daughter, Audrey.

On March 11th, chair of our Vocational Committee, PE Garry Higgins introduced around 24 members to Windsor Maine, Site Manager of Edlyn Foods in Maryborough. Windsor captured our attention with his challenging message of maintaining integrity in business, and kindness in life. He also gave us some wise advice for our upcoming Strategic and Action plans. See Read more... for details.

Did you you know our club has had four history books written about the club? There was one covering the "The First Thirty Years" up to 1982 written by Hugh Morehead and his team; PP Lindsay Willersdorf and friends did an update called, "10 Years Activities 1982-92"; PP Daryl McLeish wrote "50 Years of Service" in 2002; and PP Brian Thomas produced, "Ten Years of Service" in 2012. Now, a "Seventy Years of Rotary in Maryborough" ebook is being prepared for release next year in 2022.

At our first meeting in March, PP Garry Higgins OAM shared his vision for our club's 2021-22 Rotary year. Garry wants us to consider moving from a service committees based club to a local project based based club so that we might re-invigorate our image in the community and attract new members. See "Read more..." for details.

Around twenty members gathered at the Highland Society last Thursday to celebrate Rotary's 116th Birthday. It was on February 23rd, 1905 that Paul Harris gathered with three other friends in the Unity Building in Chicago and decided to enjoy each other's company and do some good in the world. More pix and info by clicking, "Read more..."

Due to re-introduced restrictions, our club members returned to the Zoom meeting format with only a few hour's notice on Thursday, February 4th. It was good to see over twenty members tune in to explore the topic of the current Rotary month - "Peace and Conflict Resolution" (see below), and participate in the next stage of our running "Annual General Meeting". We congratulate the incoming Executive members for 2021-22: President - PP Garry Higgins OAM; Secretary - PDG Anthony Ohlsen; and Treasurer - Rot. John Williamson.

To celebrate Rotary's "Peace and Conflict Resolution Month" (February) our members listened to an "INK Spot" on Rotary Peace Scholars (see below), watched a short video asking people of 22 countries, "Is Peace on Earth Possible", (available on YouTube if you click the picture") and then moved into Zoom Breakout groups to discuss the same question. See "Read more..."

Incoming Rotary International President Shekhar Mehta urged members to become more involved in service projects, saying that caring for and serving others is the best way to live because it changes not only other people’s lives, but also our own. See "Read more..." for a picture of the new Logo and the actual theme.

On Thursday, January 28th, our club Service and Governance committees fine tuned plans for the second half of the 2020-21 Rotary year - specifically projects that can still continue despite any changes to Covid restrictions. Committee Chairs reported on some of the projects they still have in the can - see "Read more..." for details

Last Thursday, our Community Committee adopted an instant community project in the form of a high definition "Virtual walk" around our fair city that highlights the beauty and some of the attractions of Maryborough. The walk is available to watch by clicking this link to take you to YouTube at  https://youtu.be/AEO4e_Lq3Ro
The Maryborough Rotary Brand is now on the video, and the walk includes a reference to our "Manse" project. See "Read more..." for more details.

 

17 members gathered together in Room 7 at Raglan Street on Thursday, January 21st for our first official "face to face" meeting since the Covid outbreak. The topic was technology, and specifically, how to to make the best use of the Rotary technology options available to members.

Over twenty members gathered at the studios of local radio station, Goldfields-FM on January 14th to hear how the station commenced and operates, and to also hear the prototype program of our club's proposed radio program called "Rotary Rhythms". Click "Read more..." for more details and photographs.