Welcome to this week's Musings. Thanks to Kemi and Sparkey for joining us via Zoom, and good to see new members Bernie, Tania, Rob O and Yvonne enjoying the evening.The meeting was another beauty, with our speaker Dr Vivienne Nicholson (Oral Historian with Telling Tales Project https://tellingtalesprojects.com.au) illustrating the powerful benefit of giving senior Australians not only a voice to tell their (always interesting) stories, but also providing the opportunity to present them in a theatrical setting to a live audience. Benefits are wide ranging, including confidence building, social engagement and overall mental health benefits.
Vivienne described the work of the Telling Tales Project with stories of a select group of people, and two really struck a chord with me. Firstly John Atkins, born in England in 1919, loved the concept of flight as a boy and got his wings when he was 17 at the beginning of WWI, participated in the Dunkirk evacuation, learned to land on aircraft carriers in 1941, was shot down and wounded later in the war, after the war married and moved to Australia, and presented his story at the age of 96! Secondly, I loved the story of Adele Meredith: born just after the war in 1946, her mother previously was chosen by the SS to be part of the Lebensborn (Fount of Life) program. She and her mother came to Australia in 1950 where Adele was separated from her mother, and subsequently spent time in orphanages in Essendon and Abbotsford. She was then fostered to a Maltese family where the father played harmonica - and as a farewell gift gave Adele his harmonica. And that started a lifeline involvement as a musician in blues bands, and Adele is known now as the Harpin' Momma! And she was reunited with her mother in 1984 and was with her for the last months of her life. All the stories were equally moving and inspiring. Thanks Vivienne.
We acknowledged the passing of Yvonne Brown, the wife of our dear departed founding member Les Brown - sadly Yvonne was the last link to the original group of members that charted our Club on 2 November 1956.
I was pleased to advise the Board, via an e-Meeting, who accepted the official Nomination of Patrick Docherty as President Elect, filling the casual vacancy caused by Vijay Susarla's withdrawal from the position. Patrick was a terrific President in 2017-2018, and will bring his unique style to 2021-2022. Fabienne and I have promised to give him our full support, and I ask all members to do likewise. In our Club it's a big ask to do a second Presidency, so thank you Patrick for stepping up.
Another reminder to fill-in the Art Show Volunteer schedule without delay, indicating those (very few, hopefully) days where you are NOT available. The Committee Roster team will then allocate you to a fair number of Shifts, taking into account your abilities and areas of interest.
And finally thank you for putting up with all the emails from me as we sort out the bulletin distribution problem. I am now confident that The Camberwell Rotarian is going to at least 90% of members and I am working directly with the handful of non-recipients to fix the last 10%. Bear with me, and remember the problem was in no way the fault of our Editorial team of Josie and Kemi.
That's it from me, have a great week in Rotary.
