Co-Presidents Report for 31 October, 2024

With no meeting this week, on Wednesday morning, 11 of us repaired to the Comet Hill Reserve area, alongside Lightning Reef Primary School, for a little bit of gardening. The work consisted of mowing around recently-planted
seedlings and shrubs, then spraying these areas so as to minimise the grow-back of weeds. All went well, and we hope this work gives the plantings a good chance of success in the months ahead. Our thanks go to Phil Britten and
Stew Annan for setting up the project, and to those members who were able to be there on the day. Thanks also to Madeleine and Adrian for putting on a very pleasant morning tea for us.
Radio Campaign on KLFM: Linda Barrow has recorded a 30-second recruitment-type advertisement, and this should be on air very soon. As soon as we can be provided with a schedule, we will send this to members so we can all hear the advert in context on air.
At the meeting held on Tuesday, 29 th October, it was resolved to continue to provide funding for student scholarships in Timor Leste. This means that 8 secondary students and 2 university students will be supported by our club for 2025. This means that since 2017, our club has provided significant financial support for worthy students in the Maubisse community to provide them with opportunities that they would otherwise not have access to. It was also resolved to streamline the clubs’ website presence and domain name listings, for the benefit of club members and the public at large. The Club Runner site has improved in relation to features and search engine access, so we are now taking advantage of this development. Members of our tech team will explain this further at our next club forum.
Rotary Community Group: regular meetings occur in relation to lifting the Rotary profile in our communities. Last Sunday, the discussion centred on sharing what each of the clubs are currently doing, and elaborating on what was working, or what wasn’t working, for each club. Such things as re-connecting with former members, establishing Friends of Rotary lists, radio advertising, use of social media, flyers, pull-up banners, utilising existing Community Newsletters, etc, were all discussed. All promotion should endeavour to be engaging and interesting, with a variety of good quality photos that depict active involvement. Also, it’s desirable to cover a broad range of events/activities to appeal to the broadest possible audience. Members of the Group will use further meetings to share information about the effectiveness of what they have undertaken.
Bendigo Health: last week, Liz Commadeur, Ray and Adrian met with Carlie Ryan, from the hospital’s Fundraising and Foundation division. Carlie explained how our recent donation to the Gobbe Wellness Centre was most usefully
and gratefully spent. The Centre has been so valued and successful that shortly it will expand additionally into an adjoining building. She also mentioned that some items of clothing that can sometimes be sourced from DIK would be valued in their Emegency Department.
Bendigo RSL donation: Some years ago, we made a sizeable donation to the Bendigo RSL Sub-branch for a wellness program for veterans and family members to take place at Camp Getaway. Covid put a stop to that, and the funds were held by the RSL until a decision was made as to how best to use the money. Following consultation with the RSL, our donationl will now be a major contributor to an event to be held at the RSL on Friday evening, 8th November. The event is to support ADF members, Federal & Victoria Police veterans, current serving members, and their partners. In light of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veterans Suicide, this initiative holds particular relevance. The keynote speaker will be Shaun O’Gorman, a well-respected figure in the field of mental health and resilience (see his work at The Strong Life Project).
The board was firmly of the belief that this should be a very fine use of our funds. Stew Annan is to represent us at the event, where we will have our club banner prominently displayed and publicly recognised as a proud supporter
of the event.
Co-presidents Adrian and Ray