Chair for the meeting was Michael Stephens and he opened the meeting with Rotary Grace and toasts before inviting acting president Graeme Whitmore to the podium to address members.
Graeme welcomed guest speaker Ali France and visiting Rotarians Jeanette Harris from the Buderim club and Roy Wiffin, visiting from Sugar Land, Texas.. He also reported that there had been some good news on the sporting front with the Reds and Broncos both scoring wins. The Maroons have a big game on Wednesday to try to avoid a wipe on the state of origin. Attendance was light with 4 members being overseas and a couple of members being stolen by another meeting in the same building!
There being no spots, members were able to enjoy fellowship before the guest speaker.
At 13:20, Chair Michael invited guest speaker Ali France to the podium.
Ali began her presentation by musing on the topic of the 2018-9 presidential theme - "Be the inspiration". How does one be the inspiration? Does one do inspiring things? Does one try to to inspire others with words? Or does one simply try to better oneself and let the inspiring look after itself?
Ali then went on to tell us a pretty inspiring story of her own, relating how as a young mum she had lost a leg when struck by a runaway car in a shopping centre carpark, how this somewhat unexpectedly to her led to a period of depression and PTSD and most importantly caused her life to be ruled by fear. She only started to overcome her fears when she faced them head-on and started taking risks. For example Ali was afraid of drowning and did not swim well, so she chose the sport of outrigger canoeing. More to the point, she excelled at it, representing Australia with honour in competition for the handicapped and open competition as well. For the future, Ali is taking on the challenge of volunteer work and contesting the seat of Dickson at the next Federal election.
Michael Stephens won the raffle, but could not find the joker. The Jackpot approached $1500.
Acting President Graeme closed the meeting with the singing of the national anthem at 13:45.
