Our guest speaker Tim Drylie will help members explore possible savings on power costs. If you wish to submit your recent power bill, it might be selected by Tim to use as a real life case study in his presentation. Use this link
6th June- Bendigo Maubisse Friendship Group Film night (see link below)
7th July 12 Noon - Bgo Sandhurst Changeover function - Save the date, more details to follow.
28th July- National Tree Planting Day (Save the date for a Club project)
10th August - DIK open day (see link below)
1 - 5 May 2025 Barham Weekend
Phone 5453 2553 to book a site/cabin and say you are from Rotary.
President's report
Co-Presidents Report – 10th May 2024
Changeover: Preparations for our changeover are well on the way. So, please put Sunday, 7th July at 12 noon in your calendar for a lunchtime function. Goldfields Catering will be providing the food. More information will follow.
Rochester visit: The Rochester Club invited us to attend their Thursday meeting to hear the positive sailing challenge experiences of Jakob Gruner and to meet the Malaysian teachers based in Echuca and Rochester.
Our club was represented by Stew, Cathie, Colleen, Toni, Madeleine and Adrian. We were also thanked for our support to the Malaysian Specialist Teachers Program and given a token of appreciation by the Rotary Club of Melawati.
The meeting was well attended and included Rob Foran, AG, who also expressed his appreciation for our support for both projects.
Bendigo Winter Night Shelter (BWNS): With great regret the BWNS board announced the cancellation of the Bendigo Winter Night Shelter for 2024 due to a lack of volunteers.
Donations: As mentioned at our club meeting, we are in the process of identifying worthy projects we can possibly support this year due to the efforts we have made as a club. We welcome suggestions and possible assistance with this.
Co-presidents Ray Carrington and Adrian Schoo
Jakob Gruner speaking on his sailing experience.
Co-president Adrian with Rochester President Bryan Griffiths and Dr. Navin Patel.
Rochester Pres Bryan Griffiths with Dr. Navin Patel, President of the Rotary Club of Melawati in Malaysia.
Thats a whole lot of "Moo"
Our guest speaker this week was Andrew Talbot who manages “KILLARA”, a cattle feedlot near Quirindi on the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales. There are approximately 1.3 million cattle on grain fed feedlots in Australia, which were set up to maintain reliability of supply and consistency of quality, and to avoid the inevitability of droughts affecting the industry.
“Killara” has at any one time between 20 to 30 thousand cattle at varying stages of growth who chew through 380 tonnes of feed daily and require 1.2 million litres of water. This naturally produces 70 thousand tonnes of organic fertilizer annually, which is sold to the garden supplies industry. “Killara” irrigates 300 hectares of corn for stock feed, and still buys 120 thousand tonnes per year of wheat, barley, cottonseed hay, vegetable hay and cereal hay, as they would require 200 thousand acres to grow sufficient for their grain needs.
The feedlot is a member of the Australian Lot Feeders Association who heavily regulate the treatment of cattle alongside the Environment Protection Authority. The cattle are kept in 120 shaded pens, each holding 200 head, and overseen by 45 full-time staff. Andrew feels that the next step will be full time shedding to control the feeding of the animal further and to control methane emissions and remove odour from the surrounding environment. Currently, 70% of their energy is Solar generated, and they are committed to net zero by 2030.
Andrew explained that 60% of grain fed beef stays in Australia, and 40% is exported, principally Japan, Korea, UK and USA, all as processed meat, and none as live cattle. Australia also has very strict regulations regarding the use of antibiotics to treat cattle. He points out that the American standard level of universal antibiotic dosages would not be acceptable in Australia.
The grain fed industry supplies 70 to 80 percent of Coles and Woolworths requirements. Incidentally, Wagyu is fed for 300 days, Angus for 200, also beef prices are on the rise again….!
We thank Andrew for a most interesting and informative address.
Co-president Ray C asked for this email from Youth Director Stu Annan to include in the bulletin for all to see.
Hi Emily,
We met yesterday morning at the Rotary Club meeting. I, John, Presidents Adrian and Ray, and all other Club members found your presentation extremely interesting. We believe there is considerable synergy between the objectives of the Aspire program, and Rotary’s ambitions to engage with young people, and to encourage them to be involved in community support through our various activities.
To help your understanding, there are two broad functions where we engage with young people in the 15 to 20 age bracket:
Community Support. We do a lot of general community support work. This can be directly, or through raising money to help other community support organisations to deliver their programs. We actively encourage and welcome young people to work alongside us on community support projects. Apart from the physical help they can provide, we see it as a way to engender in them, a sense of community spirit and a sense of worthiness through helping the less fortunate members of our community. Our support is broadly based and covers, among other things, refugee families, homeless people, disabled people, financially disadvantaged families, and environmental improvement work generally.
Rotary sponsored youth programs. We sponsor young people to attend enrichment programs designed to help them reach their full potential and overcome barriers. There are a number of programs, all with differing focus and target groups. In relation to pre-university youth, we engage through the high schools to attract applicants to the applicable sponsored programs. Here in Bendigo, the respective schools are linked to 1 of the 5 rotary clubs. This is to avoid us treading on each-others toes. That said, we coordinate closely, so I can be your main point of contact for all the schools. For your reference though, the split is as follows:
The Rotary Club of Bendigo Sandhurst works with Marist College, Victory Christian College and Weeroona College.
The Rotary Club of Eaglehawk works with BSSC.
The Rotary Club of Bendigo works with CMC and Girton
The Rotary club of Bendigo South works with Bendigo SE College, and
The Rotary Club of Kangaro Flat works with Crusoe College.
Having understood the essence of your presentation, we think the Latrobe Uni Aspire program could be a catalyst to increase our engagement with youth in respect of both functions 1 and 2 above. We see a lot of potential for positive outcomes for both our organisations. Going forward, I propose that we coordinate our visits to the local schools so that we can provide complementary messaging. If ok, could you let me know when you expect to be presenting at the respective schools. Ideally, I would like to come along at the same time to steal a bit of time for Rotary. If not though, I would try to follow-on from you without too many days delay, so that impetus can be maintained.
Lastly, it would be great to see you at more of our Rotary meetings. We really enjoyed your company, and it would facilitate better understanding of how we could work together. I’m sure this would help with your development of the Aspire program. So please come along anytime for an early breakfast and lively discussion.
The Lighting Reef Primary School Garden project continues to progress slowly with a small group of students supported by our Rotarians to maintain the garden beds. Project coordinator Stew Annan would like to see a few more Rotarian helpers to spread the workload a little more. If you can spare some time for the project, please contact Stew.
This time of the year we see many of our members leave Bendigo to visit many places within Australia or around the world. It would be great to hear about their adventures when they return, but in the meantime a selfie at a local attraction on your trip would be greatly appreciated. The first one for this week is Ted and Liz enjoying Europe.
I know there are a number of members out and about at the moment so please contribute a photo by emailing it to bulletin@rcobs.com.au.
The month of May is designated as “Youth Service Month” to focus on all Rotary activities that support the development of young people up to the age of 30.
