PDG Alan Still opened our meeting, toasted Australia and also for the International toast he went to Rotary District 1990 in Switzerland for the Rotary Club of Berne with 105 members and chartered in 1925.
Irish was welcomed as a guest as was guest speaker Sally and her partner Sam.
President Bernie reported on ROMAC, Golf Day, District Conference, Photographic competition, check the roster for meeting duties, Board meeting next Monday, SCU raffle prizes needed
President Bernie reported:
- Pam still unwell
- Apologies from Judy and Ron
- ROMAC (Rotary Oceania Overseas Medical Aid for Children)trivia reminder for this coming Thursday with thanks to Deb for organising the table. The club will donate $500 to ROMAC on the night.
- Golf Day reminder for 15th March and to 'sell sell sell' those raffle tickets and we will need helpers on the day
- District Conference on 22-24 March at Grand Chancellor in Brisbane, its free to register
- Reminder on Photographic competition
- Please check the roster published in the Reel to see if you have meeting duties
- Board meeting next Monday 11 March at McGrath's office
- Rotary & Sunshine Coast University combined meeting on 22 May: our club is running the raffle and we need donation of prizes
- Police Officer of the year presentation: Bernie to represent our club
Bernie introduced guest speaker. Sally Douglas.
Sally lives at Moffat Beach and was sharing her experience after living in Cambodia for five years.
Sally always dreamed of helping other people and after her hopes of becoming a social worker were quashed by her guidance officer, she did the next best thing, went on a 7 year "gap year". This saw her backpacking around the world.
Eventually returned to Melbourne and enrolled at Uni as a mature age student and studied social work.
Sally also volunteered at Women's Information and Referral Exchange (WIRE). Sally was very passionate with supporting women and after graduating she worked at WIRE.
Her next step along her journey was to teach English in Cambodia for three months which morphed into a five year stay.
Still wanting to help others she also volunteered to help establish a Women's Resource Centre (WRC) where she could draw on her WIRE experience.
WRC grew dramatically and provided emotional support, referral services and informal education so women can make informed decisions about their lives.
WRC started with two staff and grew to 10 and provided a number of programs eg free drop-in counselling and referrals, weekly in-centre workshops, outreach workshops in villages, financial literacy and also paid consulting workshops to local business. WRC is also very proud of its Tuk Tuk used to transport women from villages.
Sally made herself redundant in 2015 but still holds a board position.
After Cambodia, Sally moved to Moffat Beach and started Wellness coaching for woman. Also has a Feed for Wellness program and works from the 4 ingredients kitchen.
PDG Alan thanked Sally for a wonderful talk.
Directors reports (Merv who keeps reminding us he is not a Director but is obviously doing a great job deputising for absent Directors):
- Last Bunnings BBQ made $380 profit and many thanks to all the helpers
- Next Bunnings BBQ is on 27 March, watch this space
- RYDA is also on 27 March and will need 6-8 helpers
- Golf Day reminder which is just over 1 week away
- Inner Wheel dinner on 27 March and payments required ASAP
Not satisfied with taking over the Directors spot in our Agenda, Merv then had way too much time to malign our members with all sorts of stores. He did get one story right and that Mark took Irish out to a high class meal at the fish and chip shop after a delightful afternoon of releasing turtle hatchlings.
Noel won the wine in the 2-up and was going to make sure it got drunk on this occasion.
That's all folks