Welcome to Issue 21 of the weekly bulletin for the Rotary Club of Bendigo Sandhurst. Find out about our upcoming events, who our guest speakers are, what we covered during the last weekly meeting and more!
Wed 23 Nov 6pm RCoBS AGM at Bendigo Club, 22 Park St, Strathdale followed by:
6.30 for 7pm Foundation dinner. No morning meeting.
Wed 30 Joint industry visit with RC Bendigo South to Engineering and Technology Centre, LaTrobe University. *See details below
December
Thu Dec 1: RYLA Rotary Club Dinner Night Camp Getaway.
Fri Dec 2: 9am BBQ Food Share Golf Day Belvoir Park Golf Course
Sat Dec 3: RYLA Final day catering BBQ lunch Camp Getaway
Tues 6 Dec: 5.30pm Rotary Foundation fundraiser movie night: The Lost King. Bendigo Cinema. $20. See flyer below or contact Allie
Fri Dec 9 evening. Time TBC. Catering Anglicare Christmas party for volunteer foster carers
Sun Dec 11 CANCELLED: BBQ Christmas Party Race Day
Weds 14 Dec 6pm Club Christmas function. No morning meeting. Foundry Hotel, Stirling Room.
Pay for your own food and drinks. Please bring a generic gift (wrapped) - one gift per person attending for a fun activity. Other entertainment will be included on the night. RSVP to Cathie by 9 Dec.
2023
February
Sat Feb 4 DG Event. Details TBC
March/April
Barham weekend Friday 31st March - Sunday 2nd April. Some onsite cabins available. Need to book early.
Contact Barham Caravan Park 5453 2553
Week
23-Nov
30-Nov
7-Dec
14-Dec
Speaker
Evening
Industry
Visit
Maddy Pieper
AFL Participation
Coordinator
No Morning Meeting
Meeting Location
Bendigo Club
LaTrobe
University
Bendigo Tennis Centre
Foundry Hotel
6pm
Chair
RCoBS AGM
Engineering &
Stan Hendy
Club
Set-Up 6.45am
and
Tech Centre
Julia Grace
Christmas
Welcome
Foundation
(with RC
Ted Gretgrix
Function
Raffle
Dinner
Bgo South)
John Harkin
Industry Visit to the Engineering and Technology Facility- La Trobe University
The combined Industry visit to the Engineering and Technology Facility of La Trobe University with the Rotary Club of Bendigo South will be on Wednesday November 30th commencing at 7.45AM. Members are asked to gather in the Tutorial Room on the ground floor immediately to the right of the main entrance of the Engineering and Technology Building which is in Sharon Street opposite the roundabout. Tea and coffee will be available on arrival. There will be plenty of street parking at this time of day or alternatively parking is available until 10AM in the carpark to the left of gate eight which is the second entrance past the roundabout.
The format of the morning will be an address to explain the workings of the facility for half an hour. This will be followed by a tour of the facility for forty five minutes. Breakfast will be available in the Cafeteria at 9AM for those members able to stay. Myl Duffy has gone to a lot of trouble to arrange for a number of academic staff to explain their research and members will have the opportunity to meet Julie Rudner, Campus Director- La Trobe Bendigo.
Members wishing to stay for breakfast and in case of not being in attendance at last week's meeting should text their food and coffee choices to Jim Rolfe (0407554263). Breakfast options are:
Breakfast wrap-Bacon/egg/hashbrown/relish
2x slices of banana bread with butter & jam
Overnight oats & mini danish
All options $11 and barista coffee or tea ($4)= $15 per person (cash or card)
The RYLA Rotary dinner is on Thursday 1 December at Camp Getaway. As host club we have invited all clubs in District 9800. Realistically, we can't expect many from the Melbourne clubs, other than the ones who are actually sponsoring RYLA participants. It's important though that our club and the other Goldfields clubs support the dinner. It's for members and guests including young people who might be inspired to apply for RYLA in the coming years. If you can be available to come along for what should be an interesting and good fun evening, please do so. The information including how to RSVP is in the flyer below.
Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) - Volunteers needed for the last day lunch.
RYLA runs from Sun 27 Nov to Sat 3 Dec. On the last day (Sat 3 Dec), the catering team want a break from preparing and serving the lunch so that they can be part of the final day festivities. As host club, we are asked to manage the lunch (prepare, serve and clean-up) using the Camp Getaway kitchen. We don't have to organise the provisions. We will need about 8 volunteers from 10am till around 3pm. We are expecting some volunteers from Bendigo Club (maybe 3), so if we could have 6 from our club then we will have it covered. If you can help with this, please advise Stew or Cathie.
President's report
Welcome
Here we are well into November and hopefully Summer is almost here! A relaxed, fun meeting was had on Wednesday morning.
What an extremely interesting speaker Matthew Parkinson from Madcow was and a brilliant story he told. It is people like him we can be very proud to have in our community.
A meeting this week was held with Bendigo Rotary to address final arrangements for the Foundation Dinner. Prior to this, the AGM will take place at 6pm in the Board Room at the Bendigo Club.
Our Cluster zoom meetings have continued for Rochester. A delivery arranged from DIK happened this week with donations of gloves, garbage bags, sanitizer and Mosquito repellent candles. Monetary donations continue and are building substantially.
A reminder that the Rotary Club of Castlemaine has their Truck show next weekend, good opportunity to support them and see a spectacular event.
If you missed putting your name on the list for the LaTrobe Vocational Tour, you can email Jim and put your name down for catering for breakfast.
Ryla Dinner on the !st Dec is still available for acceptances. Please support the club if you are able. Also, to volunteer to prepare lunch on Saturday. Contact Stew for this.
Barb attended a Membership Seminar on Wednesday night so it will be good to hear the outcome.
Have a great week everyone. Take care and be mindful Covid still around.
Members were very impressed with our guest speaker Matt Parkinson from MADCOW.
No chance of Adrian becoming dehydrated!
Guest speaker Matt Parkinson
Guest Speaker: Matthew Parkinson, Community Care Director
Bendigo Baptist Community Care
“MADCOW” is the acronym for Matt’s program, standing for “Make A Difference, Change Our World”, and there is little doubt that their efforts are doing that for a significant number of Bendigo’s disadvantaged and homeless.
Beginning in 2011, supporting Karen refugees by forming a gardening and cleaning service employing 75 staff and 130 volunteers, the business became self-supporting and provided the means to set up the Halfway House in Hargreaves Street opposite the Town Hall.
Matt noted that homeless and rough sleepers are very often the victims of job loss, relationship breakdown or illness, and that most people are only two critical events away from this position.
Also, that drug and alcohol abuse are often the result of homelessness, not the cause.
There are 400 homeless in Bendigo, meaning no permanent address, or couch surfing. At any one time, 100 are sleeping rough. The research shows that one in ten are women, and the age range of men sleeping rough is between 30 and 50.
The Halfway House provides essential services every day. A communal breakfast at 8am every morning, meals for 40 to 50 people daily, 600 meals per month, shower facilities, clean clothing etc.
More importantly, advice and help to locate Government services, and a friendly non-judgemental attitude to alleviate the loneliness Matt describes as one of the toughest problems that the homeless face. Being greeted by name and treated with dignity.
The good news? Through incredible philanthropic donations, the Community Care Centre can purchase the building housing the Op-Shop and renovate it to provide larger and improved facilities to continue their wonderful work.
We thank Matthew for his informative address and wish his organisation well.
On Wednesday November 9, our club members travelled to Huntly CFA.
As detailed in last week's bulletin, the club was delighted to present a PHF to a very worthy Trevor Strauch, a long time member of the Huntly Fire Brigade.
Past presidents John and Rob spoke about Rotary and Trevor's devoted role in the community of Huntly over many years.
He has also made a major contribution on a statewide and national level.
Yasin is from Iran. He came to Bendigo from Iran to complete Yr 11/12 at BSSC. Initially, he was fully supported by his parents in IRAN, however that soon became impossible when his parents lost income due to international sanctions. With support from RC of Eaglehawk, he completed Yr11/12. Since then he has gone on to complete a Bachelor of Biomedical Science at Griffith University in Qld. Rotary clubs here in Bendigo including our club, and on the Gold Coast have assisted him through his tertiary studies. Yasin has sent the following note of thanks, via Lynne Cooper at RC of Eaglehawk.
Hi Lynne ,
Good morning
Hope you’re well .
I just finished my exams and assignment a couple of days ago and waiting for my marks .
I have finished bachelor successfully. And I will graduate in December
Can’t believe I actually got to end of it and I can’t express how grateful I am to you and everyone else in Bendigo Rotary Clubs and Gold Coast Rotary Clubs for helping me to get through this and giving me this opportunity.
I’ll have to prepare for an interview on Thursday for a job .
