Around the District with DG Dale

Our last Morning Tea with the DG was filled with a variety of speakers highlighting the breath and impact of community service being undertaken by Rotarians in District 9800:

• Rotary Caroline Springs (Past District Governor Ross Butterworth and Past President Kathy Hall) introduced the Western Emergency Relief Network “WERN” designed to supply good quality second hand furniture, electronic and whitegoods, to people in need, without charge

• Rotary Prahran (President Julia Toplis) introduced the new Rotary Inner Melbourne Emergency Network “RIMERN” based on the WERN model, focused on “residential recycling”, collecting household goods to donate people in need.

• Rotary Melbourne (President Reg Smith) highlighted  the partnership between Rotary Melbourne and Rotary Brighton North’s International Women's Day Breakfast and the 2022 to scale the event online by enabling all Rotary Clubs to run their own  physical International Women’s Day event showcasing the pre-packaged online high profile speakers.

• Rotary North Melbourne (President Sainab Sheik) outlined her Somalian background, journey to Australia, development of the Somalian Women’s Development Association (here in Australia) and  the Somalian based hospital project supported by Rotary North Melbourne and donors from all over the world including Somalians in Australia.

I was also taken by the Melbourne Pollinators Corridor “MPC” project initiative, an 8 km wildlife corridor linking green public spaces along the Birrarung, Westgate Park and the Royal Botanical Gardens. MPC is aiming to have 18,000 indigenous plants in 200 indigenous focused gardens on mainly public land by 2024 with a focus on creating habitats for native bees and other pollinators. To watch the video that explains this perfectly, click here. A wonderful community project with involvement of up to 10 Rotary clubs.

Finally, we heard from Belonging Matters, https://www.belongingmatters.org/ which is a community employment partnership. The program is aimed at finding full-paid employment for those with mental disabilities. It is based on the twenty-year partnership between Rotary in Alberta Canada and Inclusion Alberta. The group running a Pilot project funded by the Department of Social Services that will work with business to develop jobs for people with intellectual disabilities and autism and we are exploring Rotary District 9800 clubs or Rotarian member employers participating in the Pilot program.

The recording and the presentations from this Morning Tea are all on the District Learning Centre and so you can have a look and check any details you may have missed.

The other program I attended over the last week was the Rotary Brighton and partner Young Change Agents online Celebration Showcase - an event for the 18-25 year old budding social entrepreneurs. It was incredibly inspiring to see the passionate pitches from participants, the product of their fabulous ideas and applied learning. The audience for the final pitch Showcase comprised many young entrepreneurs, Rotarians from various District 9800 clubs and community representatives.

The Not for Profit Young Change Agents help youth see community problems as opportunities for development of social enterprises, making it easy for schools and teachers to introduce and embed entrepreneurial and design thinking. A program being explored to be part of our District future Vocational and Service programs.

I have continued to visit clubs online and am looking forward to being able to visit in person now that the Victorian vaccination rules are easing. This week I will be visiting Bendigo, Bendigo Sandhurst, Eaglehawk and Daylesford, with metropolitan Melbourne clubs starting 16^th November . 

I am sure you are all taking advantage of every opportunity, now restrictions have eased, to get together with family and friends. 

Regards,