Last Thursday, we held our December Board meeting which will effectively be our final meeting at the Highland Society for this year. Next Thursday, we meet at the Bull and Mouth Hotel for our Christmas Party. The main items of business for our Board meeting were to hear reports about the latest plans for next September's Grand Final Weekend Bike Ride, the combined report on our Energy Breakthrough activities, a report on the collection of no-longer-required hospital equipment to distribute to “Donations In Kind” and the “Purple House Project” and a decision to run with “Square” as our chosen method for point-of-sale activities in the future.

At last Thursday's Board Meeting, we were delighted to induct and welcome back two past members of our club: Marion Martin and Austin Taylor. PDG Anthony Ohlsen performed the induction ceremony in the absence of President Martin. Marion will join the Foundation committee and Austin will be part of the Fundraising committee.

Our club was recently awarded a Bronze Champion Award for the 2024-25 Rotary Year by the “Shelterbox” organization for our ongoing and generous support of the charity. See “Read more…” for the accompanying letter.

On Thursday, December 4th, club members listened to and discussed a videoed talk by Joshua Bengio, one of the pioneer scientists of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a developer of ChatGPT. Bengio shared his deep concerns about the unrestricted development of AI programs that have their own “agency” or independence, and he demonstrated that such programs are already capable of lying to preserve their autonomy. His team is advocating for a more controlled Scientist AI Solution that limits the agency of AI programs. We also had a live demonstration of Google's recent AI interface, “Nano Banana” to show what AI can do with our own photographs. 

Last week, President Martin Mackay and our club's Book program Coordinator, Alison Teese presented each Grade 4 student at Carisbrook Primary School with a book as part of our ongoing Book Week program. 

Rotarians Lowen and Adrian have just decorated the Bristol Hill Tower with orange lights for the 16 Days of Activism running from November 25th to December 10th. That should certainly get people's attention!

Seventeen members gathered at the Highland Society last Thursday to start the review process of our club's involvement in this year's Energy Breakthrough. A small committee involving members from both the Next Gen and Trad Gen groups will meet in the near future to prepare a plan of recommendations, but Thursday's meeting enabled participants to share what worked and what didn't work for them when working on the Rotary Food Stand. Overall, the comments were very positive, and we were delighted to hear that overall, a profit of around $10,000 was achieved from our five days of involvement. Once again, a big “THANK YOU” to all those members and friends who helped us out.

Our weekly meeting on November 18th was spent finalizing the set up for our Food stand at the 2025 Energy Breakthrough. Members from both the Trad and Next Gen Clubs worked together to set up the biggest and most comprehensive food stand we have had in the several decades of involvement with the event. We served Greek wraps, Kebabs, pancakes and fruit, tacos, quesadillas, sausages, hamburgers, steak sandwiches, bacon and egg rolls, corn chips, donuts, fruit cups, coffee, tea and hot chocolate to the public at set times from Wednesday evening until Sunday afternoon with assistance from partners, friends and members from our associated service groups. Thanks to everyone on our large roster of volunteers for your assistance - particularly those who had multiple, multiple hour shifts!!! This pic was from Saturday around 11am. Click “Read more…” for more pix at different times.

At our November Board meeting on November 13th, we confirmed the place, date and time of our Christmas Break-Up meeting (see below), we confirmed the time and place of our first meeting for 2026 (Jan. 8th at the Lion's Goldfields Res. Barbeque site), and the place and date of our January Social Event (Jan. 29th at John and Alison's home). We also heard reports from our new Bike Ride planning committee and our Satellite Club, and fine-tuned planning for the coming week's Energy Breakthrough. Members are reminded that we meet on TUESDAY evening this week to set up our Breakthrough site.

Last Thursday, our Public Image Chair Max Berry provided members and guests with fascinating overview of the history and major issues facing Rail Freight operators in Victoria. Max comprehensively covered topics such as the Importance of commodities to Australia, how those commodities are moved through Victoria, the main operators and marketers using Rail freight, the current status of Rail Freight in the state and the likely future facing the industry. It was a great talk, enjoyed by all. Click “Read more…” for more pix of the night.

Koko Patience Samuel (left) is a community health worker trained in maternal and child health care through Together for Healthy Families in Nigeria, a Rotary Programs of Scale grant recipient. She’s also part of a vast, but sometimes overlooked, workforce in public health. Around the world, millions of community health workers provide essential frontline care in low- and middle-income countries. They’re not medical professionals, but they can perform basic health interventions and advise people on topics including maternal and child health, nutrition, vaccination, and family planning.

Members received a special treat last Thursday when Maryborough Education Centre students, Naomi Henderson and Renae Neilson, provided an impressive report on their experiences at the recent “Defy the Drift” program held at Longerenong Agricultural College. The program is a District 9780 Rotary program designed to introduce country students to the many meaningful employment options available which enable them to continue living and working in rural areas. By helping to pay some of the costs involved, our club assisted Naomi and Renae to attend the event. Click "Read more… for more pics

Our Board and other members met for our October Board meeting on Thursday the 16th. We decided to continue the practice of combining our Board meetings with the third regular meeting of each month, we confirmed our decisions concerning changes to our Constitution and Bylaws, confirmed two new members (both past members) - Austin Taylor and Marion Martin and heard reports from our Governance committees. 

No, this isn't our leadership team - but at last Thursday's meeting, whilst we celebrated Australian Rotary Health Hat Day (hence the hats), we held our Annual General Meeting and confirmed most of our responsibility positions for the 2026-27 Rotary year. We will again have four Presidents over the year - Terry Allan (Jun-Sep), Shane Dellavedova (Oct-Dec), John Williamson (Jan-Mar 27) and Max Berry (Apr-Jun). Many thanks to each of these Rotarians for committing to this joint role in our next year. Secretary will again be Thea Allan, but we still have to finalize the Treasurer position - anyone interested? So the door opens (see the pic) on another Chapter for our club!

“Lifting the Lid” is the current name given to Australian Rotary Health (ARH) Hat Day (October 10th) when Rotarians support the work of this great Rotary Program which provides funds for Mental Health Research. Hats protect heads, and ARH helps to protect mental health in Australia where one in every five people suffer from some kind of mental illness. At Thursday's Rotary meeting, members wore silly (and not so silly) hats to celebrate the work of ARH, and by paying for the privilege, the dozen or so of us raised $215.00 for the cause. Thanks to all members who contributed.

At the October 2nd. meeting, President PDG Anthony inducted our second President for 2025-26, PP Martin Mackay. Martin will serve in the role until the end of December, and then Rotarian John Williamson will take over from January until March 2026. Congratulations Martin on taking on this role, and Congratulations and “Thank You!!!” to PDG Anthony for leading our club from July until now. Without Anthony taking this initiative at this time last year, our 73 year old club would quite possibly not be operating now - which is a timely reminder that next Thursday, at our Annual General Meeting, we need the names of a Rotarian or Rotarians who will lead us in 2026-27. Please think seriously about this and inform President Martin if you are willing to take on the leadership role next Rotary year.

Members are invited to participate in a community wide expression of activism against gender-based violence during the 16 Days of Activism program from 25 Nov to 10 Dec 2025 - initiated by the Zonta Club of Central Goldfields.

Possible activities could include:

• Displaying signage or create a display window in orange
• Check out the orange lights display around Maryborough – council buildings, hospital, Bristol Hill tower
• Wearing Orange during 16 Days of Activism
• Attending Orange nail salon in High St, Maryborough on Thursday, 27^th November
• Attending Goldfields Reservoir Parkrun on 6^th December at 8am
• Visit ‘R’ for RESPECT garden bed in Phillips Gardens
• Hold a morning or afternoon tea featuring orange food
• Storytime, book club
• Art & craft
• Visit Calico Ceilings -Women of the Goldfields Painting exhibition at Central Goldfields Art Gallery Sat 6^th December
• Other – please specify how you might get involved

We need to advise Zonta of our involvement by Friday 17th October 2025 to enable marketing of all activities. Rotarians, please pass your ideas to PP Garry Higgins OAM.

Click “Read more…” to learn more about 16 Days of Activism.