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CONTENTS:
DG Highlights
Upcoming Events
New Members for March
Conference Update
Just For Fun Ideas
Working Smarter Not Harder
Aquabox Update
Rob Rides Australia
Rotary Action Group Forming
The Rotary Foundation
The Online Grants Application Tool
The Kerang Art Show
The Torquay Motor Show
 
Contact the Editor
Karen McCarthy (If you have any comments or questions, please contact the editor)
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Upcoming Events
District 9780 Conference in Maryborough
Mar 20, 2015 – Mar 22, 2015
 
RC Millicent 2015 Photographic Art Show
The Millicent Civic and Art Centre
Mar 27, 2015 – Apr 06, 2015
 
Ride the Bellarine
Eastern Gardens
Apr 19, 2015
 
District Training Assembly
May 03, 2015
 
Russell Hampton
Sage
DG Highlights, March, 2015
Until we celebrate the new range of themes in our next Rotary year, March is celebrated in Rotary circles as "Literacy month" - and we thought that would be an appropriate time to explore a new way of producing our DG Newsletter - but more of that later. In the new set of themes, Literacy month will be celebrated in the month of World Literacy Day - September, so we might get two reminders this year, but that is probably a good thing. The promotion of Literacy is a very obvious cause for Rotary to champion because the lack of basic literacy skills is such a key factor in the cause of so many injustices in our world. When people gain adequate literacy skills, they are empowered to have a fighting chance of changing their lives for the better, without them, they are obvious targets for exploitation. And the problem is so widespread. UNESCO estimates there are over 800 million illiterate adults in the world and around two thirds of them are women. Millions more are functionally illiterate without the reading and writing skills of everyday life. So what can we do about this situation?
Well, our district clubs are already doing many great things in their own communities. Many clubs like Hamilton, Horsham East and Maryborough are providing books for babies to encourage parents to read to children from an early age - one of the simplest and most effective ways of improving Literacy. Other clubs have members offering to read to students in local schools. And then there are things clubs are doing overseas - a number of our clubs are gathering Primary school level books and sending them off to the Donations in Kind Centre in Geelong from where they are shipped to overseas communities in need. Others are using Rotary grants to help provide school buildings, furniture and resources for schools in developing countries. Then there are awareness raising activities to raise the profile of the importance of literacy such as the local spelling bee competition run by Kerang Rotary. I encourage clubs to use their newsletters during this month to highlight some story about literacy, or maybe include a picture like the black and white one we're using at the very top of this story. By the way, that picture comes from a great web site of such pictures produced by the Rotary Club of Sweetwater in Texas. Go to:  http://www.sweetwaterrotary.org/RotaryMiniPoster.cfm  And that brings us to the change of format for our District Newsletter. Thank you for the positive responses to our DG newsletter, and we appreciate those, but the format did have some drawbacks. It is quite ink intensive when it is printed out, so some people have been reluctant to do that, and some have found it difficult to read script on coloured backgrounds - even it it does look "pretty". Furthermore, our district has a subscription to the Clubrunner program which has a Bulletin creation and distribution process built in - the process we're using now to produce this newsletter. The beauty of using it is that any story created for the newsletter can be automatically included on our District web site - and visa versa. What persuaded us to make the switch at this time is that we now know that in our next Rotary year, our newsletter will definitely be in this clubrunner format, so we thought we could trial the system in our last few months, get some feedback and make any necessary tweaks for the new team before DGE Jane takes over in July. So, any constructive suggestions would be appreciated sent to either current Secretary, Derrick, or next year's secretary, Tony Stewart. We look forward to seeing you at Conference in just a week or so. Remember the Conference now starts at 8pm on Friday. Continue to enjoy the Rotary Journey - DG Geoff.
Support for Victims of Cyclone Pam
As I write, our thoughts are with the people of Vanuatu devastated by Cyclone Pam in the last twenty four hours. Some emails seeking support have already been sent directly to some members in our District without necessarily going through the recognized channels, but we now have advice that the recommended method for clubs or individuals to donate with tax deductible status is through RAWCS.
Advice from RAWCS Ltd’s National Project Registrar and Director, John Roberson, is that a RAWCS National Project for Cyclone Pam is being registered.  This will enable coordination with NZ and Vanuatu authorities via established channels and will draw upon the most highly skilled in their fields from across Australia.  The project is expected to be able to accept tax deductible donations via the RAWCS website’s Projects page by Wednesday.
The RAWCS Projects page is http://www.rawcs.com.au/ProjectSearch.php.  Search country: Vanuatu.
No doubt, Shelterbox, Disaster Aid and Aquabox will also be employed in the coming weeks and months in this area. If necessary, we will provide further information in coming District Mail outs to Presidents and Secretaries.
 
 
New Members for March
Across the District we are welcoming new Members. This month there have been quite a few new inductions and a correction to last month's inclusion.
RC of Wendouree Breakfast: new member Judy Gribble was welcomed into the club on the 4th of February.
RC of Charlton: new member John Shaw was inducted into the club on the 5th of March.
RC of Portland: new member Adriano Nascimento was inducted on 9th of February, and John Pye was inducted on the 16th of February.
RC of Port Fairy: new members Jude Dawson, Bill Moore and Peter Smith were inducted on the 23rd of February.
RC of Maryborough: new member Tony Coyle was welcomed on the 12th of February.
A correction to last month's welcome: Rtn Karen McCarthy transferred to the RC of Maryborough from the RC of Ballarat South after moving up to the town of Maryborough, and was inducted into the club on the 12th of February.
Conference Update
Only a week or so to go and our District Conference will be upon us. Here are a couple of last minute updates to the programme.
Now Starting at 8: Our Friday night program will now commence at 8pm to allow visitors to arrive and have a relaxed meal before going to the Conference venue.
Restaurants Available Early: A number of local restaurants have agreed to open early at 5.30pm to allow Rotary visitors to have a meal with them and be out by around 7.15pm or so - time enough to get to the Town Hall and register. Of course, if you arrive before then, it would be good to go and register early to avoid any rush.
Register From 3pm - Special Treat for Early Registrants! The registration desk at the Town Hall will be open from 3pm. The first hundred or so registrants will get a special treat in their conference bag!
World Class Gallery Exhibition: If you have even more time, we encourage you to visit the local Art Gallery, adjacent to the Town Hall, which currently has a world class exhibition of amazing quilts, heading off to Birmingham, England, after being on display in Maryborough. The exhibition is staying open especially until 7.45pm for Rotarians. It will also be open on Saturday and Sunday.
Tru Foods Golf: Attendees are also reminded that they are welcome to participate in the "Tru Foods" Golf competition at the Maryborough Golf Course on Friday, March 20th - contact Secretary Derrick for more details.
Winery Tour: On Sunday afternoon, we are conducting a Winery Tour to the Blue Pyrenees Winery and others, heading off at 2pm. A bus will be available, but participants may also follow the bus in their own cars.
Just For Fun Ideas
Rotarians who have been reading this column will be pleased to know that we have two of Australia's top experts on fun speaking at our Conference. Patricia Cameron Hill and Dr Shayne Yates will be leading a highlight session entitled,  "Light Up with Laughter" and apart from being a highly entertaining session will include dozens of ideas that can be used in our clubs - just one more reason to register for the Conference if you haven't already done so. Well last month, we suggested some fun ideas to apply to the special days of the year - this month, we continue with some ideas for next month, April. Start planning now!
April 1st (April Fools Day) - Have members come dressed in crazy costumes - best looking "fool" wins a prize.
April 3rd-5th (Easter) - For a fun perspective, have an Easter Egg hunt for members, or conduct an Easter Egg hunt for disadvantages kids in your local community.
April 11th (Barbershop Quartet Day) - Now there's a challenge! - the best approximation of a Barbershop quartet wins a prize at your meeting.
April 15th - MicroVolunteering Day - No I haven't heard of it either - look it up on the web and celebrate it!
April 16th - Wear Your Pyjamas to Work Day - Another challenge! Well, why not to Rotary?
April 19th (Paul Harris Birthday) - Have someone research and tell the story of Paul Harris at your meeting; or show the video of the the actors acting out the first Rotary meeting - see Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLz_DJEmp8k
April 22nd - Jelly Bean Day - OK, that's easy - Jelly Beans on each table, competitions for who can throw jelly beans up in the air and into their mouth, or someone else's mouth etc.
April 22nd (Earth Day) - Have a speaker talking about how we can best look after our planet, or have a club picnic in some beautiful spot where you can soak up the beauty of where you live.
April 27th - Morse Code Day - Give everyone a copy of the code and have competitions as to who can work out a message being played in morse code on a small electronic keyboard, or "beeped" by someone's voice,  or on a real Morse Code doover - if you have one.
April 30th - Poem in Your Pocket Day - Every member comes with a poem in their pocket and you give a fine to those who don't have one, and have some members read out their poems - be prepared to stop them if they start with, "The boy stood on the burning deck..." (old sick joke!)
Working Smarter Not Harder
APPLYING CREATIVE THINKING TECHNIQUES TO FUNDRAISING
Clubs groups often feel they lack "new" ideas for fund raising or fun activities. However, some simple creative thinking short cut principles can be applied to any situation where new ideas are needed. We will just mention three ideas here, but there are many others. Remember that all creative thinking is essentially the process of combining an existing known idea with another known idea to produce a new idea.
Technique 1: Idea Generation /"Brainstorming"
The purpose of idea generation is simply to generate a large quantity of ideas regardless of quality. The assumption behind "Idea Generation" is that useful, relevant and innovative ideas will be discovered in the pool of generated ideas. Aim to produce a large number of ideas. Ideas should be suggested without ANY evaluation by anyone! Do it in an atmosphere of play and fun. Record ideas visually on a whiteboard or butcher's paper. Participants quickly suggest ideas that relate IN ANY WAY to the topic – without judgement. The idea is that participants feed off recorded ideas as well as suggesting new ones. The process continues without pauses - just ask people to keep coming up with ideas no matter how silly the ideas might be.
Actual example (from a past workshop) of ideas suggested for the topic of "FUND RAISING" showing how ideas are developed from existing ideas:
Sell sausages on a barbeque/ Sell gourmet sausages/ Sell barbeques/ Sell your selling of sausages - outsource/ Sell other stuff/ Run an auction of people’s junk/ Clean up people’s junk and sell it/ Sell junk food/ Sell food that’s not junk – a “Health Inn” etc. etc.
Technique 2: Reversal
This technique takes existing ideas and participants try to turn the idea on its head or think up the reverse application of those existing ideas. This idea can be used along with "Idea Generation".
Examples of Actual "Reversal" techniques being applied to a "Fund Raising" Brainstorm:
Sell stuff/ Stuff selling/ Give stuff away/ Sell stuff that’s been given away/Give away stuff that’s been sold and charge for it/ Charge people for giving away stuff/ Sell sausages/ Give away sausages/ Charge people for not eating sausages etc.
Technique 3: Applying Random Ideas
Instead of reversing an idea to come up with a new one, you can apply a completely random idea to an existing idea. This can also be done during "Idea Generation", or applied to a list of ideas that have been previously produced. You can get random ideas from absolutely anywhere e.g. Give people some books randomly obtained from library shelves, and have them flip open to a random page and apply the first idea on the page to the base idea OR Have participants look in their purse or wallet and apply whatever they grab first to the base idea (the mind boggles!) Have people look around the room or out the window and apply the first thing they see to the base idea etc. etc. Here's an example:
Random Ideas Being Applied to a Base Idea
With the base idea of "Sell stuff and services" - here's how the random ideas worked...
(Notices whiteboard marker) Sell whiteboard markers (Notices poster of animals) Sell services for animals e.g. dog washing, dog walks, dog minding, dog holidays etc. (Takes out Fuel Card from Wallet) Sell Rotary Fuel Cards (Notices dust on window ledge) Sell services for cleaning dust from rooms etc. etc.
Using these three creative thinking techniques either separately or in combination might produce hundreds of ideas within the space of 20 minutes - as many ideas as you have scribes to write them down - that's why you need two or three scribes. Of course, of those hundred ideas, there might only be three or four ideas that are worth exploring further - but those three of four ideas would probably never have emerged in the traditional "thinking up ideas" exercise. Besides, a creative thinking session is usually riotous fun - especially when people apply the random contents of their pockets or purses to an idea!
After the session, appoint a team to examine the best recorded ideas to extract those with the most potential. Critical, logical thinking then needs to be applied to these to produce a short list of possibilities to present to club members. Of course, it is always wise to relate any fundraising suggestions to a particular project being employed by a club, and it's wise to balance the likely income against the amount of effort to be expended.
Aquabox Update
Thank you to people who are still raising funds for Aquabox. A special "Thank you" to the Rotary Club of Nhill who ran a raffle at the recent event celebrating the work of the Rotary Club of Kaniva in this District. That effort raised over $150.
The current total for the district is just under $26,000,  with more donations still to go on the balance sheet for our district. Meryl James.
 
Dirty Water: A report published in 2002 predicted that between the years 2ooo and 2020, failure to provide adequate clean potable water (along with sanitation) will be regarded as possibly the greatest failure of the 20th century. The paper examined different scenarios of activities in the international water arena and provided  three estimates of the overall water related mortality likely to occur over the two decades. With no action taken, 135 million people are expected to die from water related causes. Even if the Millenium Goals announced by the United Nations in 2000 were achieved (which is unlikely given current commitments) - between 34 and 76 million people would die. How close are we to those Millenium goals? We'll let you know next month.
Rob Rides Australia
Rob Lewandowski from Tasmania has set off to ride around Australia in an attempt to break by three days the 37 day record in the Guinness Book of Records. PDG Tony Castley from D9685 saw an opportunity for the END POLIO NOW campaign to become involved and raise both awareness and funds for the program. Although this ride has already begun, there are plenty of opportunities for Rotarians to be involved -  from Bordertown, along the highway all the way to Ballarat, through Geelong and ending up in Melbourne on the 3rd of April, according to Rob's schedule. There is also time and opportunity to get members of the public involved to support Rob on his record breaking attempt. Rotary clubs along the route could really make this into an event to be remembered - a wonderful way to "Light Up Rotary". Towns along the route have already planned on becoming involved, with DRFC Greg Marlow and the town of Tennant Creek preparing to join Rob as it passes near the town in the Northern Territory. Please promote this event within your clubs, groups and towns to show Rob as much support as possible. Bike riders can join Rob on the road ( 30kph ) and everyone can donate a few dollars so that this ride can raise valuable money to eradicate Polio! Please check for more accurate details on Rob's progress with the Facebook link:   https://www.facebook.com/rob.rides.australia?fref=ts
 
Rotary Action Group Forming
Much of the world is not aware that clubfoot deformity is the most common skeleton birth defect around the world, affecting nearly 200,000 children every year, with the majority born in low-resource countries. Two Rotary districts in Iowa are promoting the low-tech, low-cost and highly effective Ponseti Method (Pictured right) In 2006, the University of Iowa formed the Ponseti International Association (PIA) which is now active in 60 countries around the world. Most recently, the Association developed programs in Nigeria, Peru and Pakistan with the help of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Now the PIA seeks the help of Rotarians in all 535 Rotary International Districts to form a Rotary Action Group which will ramp up the efforts to help children born with this deformity.  The application for approval will be going before the Rotary International board when it meets in June. For further information please go to www.endclubfootnow.org. Once you have seen what is needed, and how you can help, please take the information to your clubs, and ask if they can help either financially or in people power. Do you know an Orthopedic Surgeon who might possibly want to help?
The Rotary Foundation
It's that time of year again when it becomes necessary to remind Rotarians about EREY, and other opportunities provided by our own foundation, "The Rotary Foundation" (TRF).
EREY stands for “Every Rotarian Every Year”. For a mere $2 a week (Less than the cost of a cup of coffee, and loose change these days) you can support “The Rotary Foundation”. As this foundation belongs to all Rotarians, we should take ownership of it as we do get to choose to some extent where our donation goes. Rotarians can choose from the Annual Fund, Permanent Fund and PolioPlus Fund. But be aware that for tax purposes, contributions must be made out to “Australian Rotary Foundation Trust”. All contributions should be sent through PP Peter Simons (District 9780 Fundraising Chair) or through the RI office in Parramatta, Sydney with a copy to PP Peter Simons.
Centurions donate $100 AUD annually, or to be a Sustaining Centurion, $100USD (approximately $125AUD) depending on the rate RI has published at the start of that month. RI does this to make it easier to work out the amount due, whereas if they relied on the daily exchange rate it would be a very complicated process for all concerned.
If EVERY ROTARIAN was a Centurion, the district would be raising $190,000 annually. Just think of the projects our district could do with that sort of money coming back to us (It takes 3 years for funds to be available to the district). That amount is not including any other donations made to the Foundation.
Another way of donating is to become a Paul Harris Fellow (PHF) by donating $1000USD, and asking for the recognition of the donation, or accumulation of several smaller donations that add up to the same amount. There are many layers of PHF all with different types and numbers of gems on the badges. These all depend on how much more than the $1000USD is donated.  A Paul Harris Society member is one who donates $1000USD annually, yes you read correctly, "annually", whilst one is in a position to do so. The Paul Harris Fellow is not an award and was never meant to be one, rather it is a recognition of contributions made to TRF.
To recap: Anyone can contribute to TRF, not just Rotarians. All contributions are tax deductible if made to "The Australian Rotary Foundation Trust". Contributions go to PP Peter Simons or via Parramatta- please CC Peter into all communications. If going through the US, it cannot be claimed at Tax time in Australia. There are several ways of donating to the Foundation and you get to choose where your money goes to a certain extent. Further information is available from Peter by emailing him at: peter.simons@simonsAL.com.au or visiting http://portal.clubrunner.ca/50058/SitePage/rotary-foundation  
New Online Grants Application Tool
On the 9th of March 2015, a new look and functionality for the Online Grant Application Tool was launched. Users will have an expanded access to the tool. The landing page will consist of three tabs: 
*Action tab shows grants that require action
*My Grants tab shows grants with which you are associated
*Search tab allows you to search for grants sponsored by your district, or a club in your district.
*Club Presidents, District Governors, District Rotary Foundation committee chairs, District Grants Subcommittee chairs, District Scholarship chairs, District Stewardship chairs, and secondary project contacts will be able to view and edit global grant applications and reports in draft status, and view them after they’ve been submitted.
*All Rotarians will also be able to view district grants sponsored by their district.
Watch for information about additional changes to the financing section of the online application to align with the Foundation’s funding model that will go into effect on 1 July.
Kerang Art Show
The Kerang Rotary Club Annual Art Show is on again for your enjoyment and buying pleasure.
 
Where: Kerang Basketball Stadium: Cnr Maxwell and Scoresby Streets, Kerang
When: April 3rd, 4th and 5th
The Official Opening is on Friday April 3rd from 7 to 10PM
The event includes supper, a program and complimentary wine
Cost:   $15 Friday, $7 Saturday 4th April (10am-7pm) and Sunday 5th of April (10am - 3pm)
Torquay Motor Show
On Sunday 8th February 2015, the 8th Annual Torquay Rotary Motorshow was held.
The sun struggled early on a cold morning, but around lunch time, and along with the success of the show, it too shone.
Some 6,000 people turned up to admire over 360 vehicles entered in 27 prize winning categories.
 
A team of 17 judges crowned Elwood’s Chris Webb the overall winner with his 1953 Jaguar XK120.
To top off their most successful Motorshow ever, in excess of $20,000 was raised to assist local, national and international projects.
 
Keep the date clear for next year's mammoth motor show - Tuesday  14th February 2016 on the Torquay foreshore.
All for the love of cars! What a Valentine's Day! Girls take your fella's to this, and they will love you forever - maybe?