Hello all. Our guest speaker this week was Dot Smith, local coordinator for Back Packs 4 Victorian Kids. It was very interesting and heart-warming to learn of the several ways this organisation is able to provide practical assistance for people, especially children, who are in need of help for any number of reasons. It may well be that some of the items that Donations In Kind comes across would be of assistance to this program, so we will explore this potential connection further.
The Federation Picnic day is fast approaching, always on the last Sunday of August, this year on the 25th, at Malone Park, Marong. It is always a good day, with plenty of fellowship and an opportunity to see some great trucks, tractors, cars and motor bikes – some fully restored – others still in various stages of restoration. Please contact Kevin Reade as soon as possible to let him know if you can help out at our barbecue on the day.
The Knitting Program for Timor Leste continues apace. We have quite a number of bags of knitted goods stored in John and Barbara Cannons’ shed, in Kangaroo Flat, aka the gateway to Bendigo. We expect most of these bags will shortly be packed up into about 3 or 4 bales at the premises of Quality Wool, in Bendigo East, and then taken to the Donations In Kind warehouse for future transportation to Timor Leste. It usually only takes around 1.5 hours to make up the bales, so we will put out a call for a small number of volunteers to help at the appropriate time.
Spoiler alert – at our meeting on 4th September, our guest speakers will be Ron and Deb Payne. They will give us their impressions and recollections of the time leading up to, and during, Ron’s term as our District Governor in the Rotary year just completed. This should be a very interesting presentation indeed, and we hope as many members as possible can attend in person to hear of Ron and Deb’s experiences.
This is where it’s at now … Last weekend, I (Ray) and Toni were in Melbourne, visiting one of our daughters and her family. On Sunday morning, we went to see one of our grandsons play in his under 11 soccer match. We were standing on the sideline with other spectators, and his teams’ coach. Suddenly, one of our grandsons’ teammates close to us on the field stopped running and then walked off. The coach said to him, “Why did you stop when you were right where the ball was, and then walk off the ground?” The boys’ reply was “Well, my watch rang, and I wanted to see who was phoning me”…
We hope you enjoy a good week, and we’ll see you on Wednesday.
