Eight of our members travelled to Ararat on Wednesday April 15th to join with Rotary club members from Ararat, Beaufort and St Arnaud in welcoming District Governor Christine to our area. Christine outlined her work as Governor and some of the changes to be expected in the latest round of Regionalization decisions. Presidents or representatives from each of the clubs also provided an overview of what has been happening in their respective clubs. Click “Read more…” for more photos and details.
REPORTS AT THE ARARAT MEETING
Beaufort - Past President George
- Collect attendance funds for local Footy games
- Provide Sausage Sizzles in street to keep a local presence
- Run the Lake Goldsmith Steam Rally
- Run the Local Beaufort Art Show - Queen's Birthday Weekend
- Provide the Beaufort Book Sale
Maryborough - President Terry
- Several members reinspired by attending District Conference
- Distributing free books to Grade 4 Students at local schools
- Upgrading Sign-Board at "Brian Dowie Conservation Park" near Carisbrook
- Next Gen Satellite Group starting their project to add flags to graves of all ex-servicemen at local and Carisbrook cemeteries
- Working with RARE to send truckloads of obsolete furniture to overseas countries like PNG and Uganda
- Assisting Goldfields Reservoir Action Group to get more water into Goldfields Reservoir
- Working with local PROBUS clubs
St Arnaud - Past President
- Rotating Presidents every 2 months
- Have 12 members now paying 220 pa
- 4 new members this year
- Toy drive at Christmas provided gifts for 350 kids
- Held a BBQ to thank Fire fighters
- Revamping "Clean Up" signs on highway
- Cemetery clean up to clean vegetation and get moss off stones - mainly Chinese graves
- Supported "Saints and sinners" bike ride
- Promoting Murals on local walls by artist Carl Tourney - starting on St Arnaud RSL wall - focussing on work of paramedics
Ararat - President Carolyn
- Provided an Australia day BBQ
- Donated money and time to local Food truck to provide meals for those doing it tough
- Earn funds by manning Footy gates
- Sent students to NYSF
- Sent students to Defy the drift
- Assisted with Youth projects by providing a bus for students to attend Science and Engineering Challenge
- Provided Toy donations at Christmas
- Value These "Group 7" meetings
District Governor Christine Dufty
- Our District is shrinking - 50 clubs to 45 by the end of this Rotary year
- Geelong club has run out of steam - Voting at end of month about their future
- Rotary has changed due to regionalisation - some of the possible changes are…
- The number of Districts in our region will reduce from 15 to 10
- 1500 is the minimum number for a district so our District 9780 will probably cease to exist in July 2028
- However, in the new planning we will return to some of the practices that were valued in previous decades - e.g. DG's will visit individual clubs.
- Given the increased size of the new Districts, DG's might need to be appointed for 2 years to have the time and funds to visit all their clubs
- Increased costs are another issue facing all clubs - our typical competitors, Lions International are reportedly only charging $100 for annual fees in some areas - that's what's happening in Nhill. Rotary clubs are needing to charge around $300 or more to cover costs. It may mean that Rotary clubs, like Lions, need to use funds from activities where they work for fees to cover membership costs.
- Even so, our District is highly regarded in the world of Rotary - maybe one of the reason that PRIP Jennifer Jones was the official Rotary representative at the recent conference.
- The Rotary Foundation is also highly regarded - it has been rated as one of the top 5 charities in the world for the past 16 years. People are giving generously and recently a member from Ballarat became a member of the Arch Klump Society for contributing over US $250,000 to the Foundation