Co-presidents report, 11 April, 2025
We enjoyed the usual fellowship at our club meeting and thank Cathie and Allie for presenting a draft club structure that was followed by a lively and constructive discussion to determine how this could work best for our club. It’s a good idea to periodically look at how our club is structured and whether a bit of tweaking might lead to better ways of how we organise ourselves and how the club functions.
Easter markets and BBQ. This big event for us is coming up at the end of next week. Our club members always put in a big effort to make this signature project successful and pleasurable, and no doubt, this year will be no exception. It’s a great opportunity for us to promote Rotary in general and our club in particular. We have been in touch with the Bendigo Advertiser and arranged to provide the newspaper with copy and photos prior to Easter in order to promote the markets and our staging of them. We also have flyers that can be handed out to promote Rotary and our club in particular on that weekend.
The Lougoon family starred in the Age newspaper last Monday. This was a great historical story of this family’s continuing, decades-long involvement with the city’s Easter Fair. Our club is a proud supporter of this annual event that attracts so many people to our beautiful city, and our markets are an important beneficiary of this community celebration.
Donations In Kind informed clubs that 339 rolls of brand new ex school uniform material, wrapped in plastic, is available. Any combination of rolls can be collected, but only full rolls. Contact Colleen D’Offay@rotarydik.org to order.
Rotary’s Malaysia Special Education Teachers programme. On Thursday night, a few of our members attended a presentation by Angie Kloft and Ben Ridge, 2 local teachers who visited Malaysia for two weeks earlier this year, where they passed on their Special Education knowledge and expertise to teachers, parents and carers over there.
Angie and Ben outlined the work they did in Malaysia and provided an update on the eight Malaysian Special School teachers who visited our local Special Schools in April/May last year. Our club, along with others from our cluster, supported those teachers at that time. Angie is a Leading Teacher & Behaviour Coach from Bendigo Special Developmental School and Ben Ridge is the Assistant Principal, Echuca Twin Rivers Specialist School.
Before conducting training seminars at several Malaysian schools, they were major presenters at a 2-day International Special Education Symposium held in Kuala Lumpur. We are pleased our club has had a degree of meaningful involvement with this excellent international program, and hope it continues successfully in years to come.
Co-presidents Adrian and Ray
