By Henry Drury
An upbeat President Maureen Le Scoul in discussion with your correspondent emphatically remarked: “Rotary has had many changes since inception. Do you think a little thing like a 5-month lockdown could ever hold us back? Not on your Nellie!”
This quaint expression meaning ‘not on your life’ originated from ‘not on your Nellie Duff’, Cockney rhyming slang for ‘puff’ meaning ‘breath of life’. So, on 26 March 1987, to the great boon of the increasingly ethnically mixed Altona community, the breath of life (read charter) was given to Altona City Rotary. By the way, in 1844 German settler Robert Wrede somewhat romantically named the unspoilt bay side locality Altona after the main fishing port of Hamburg.
The club, among its diverse projects, lays emphasis on Youth. Its recent annual major fundraiser was the Charity Golf Day, which over the last 11 years has successfully raised $109,000 for Very Special Kids, an organisation caring for kids with life-threatening conditions.
Teachers in the various schools in and around Altona are encouraged and supported with Teacher Awards in such categories as curriculum development, on-line teaching, first-year teachers mentoring and inspirational educators.
Altona City is part of the team that includes other Rotary clubs, Toastmasters and Wyndham City Council, which organises and sponsors Wynspeak. This is a highly competitive public speaking competition open to Year 7–12 students from all schools in the Hobsons Bay locality.
Fundraising has been difficult in these COVID times, but BBQs are re-emerging, with club member Past President Charlie Montebello notching up his 50,000 snags turned. Amazing!
Now for something quite unique… The club’s cycling group has run classes in bicycle safety for the local Vietnamese Association, which has some members who arrived as boat people in the 1980s. Those of us who have survived crossing the road in Hanoi have witnessed a rather different way of doing things.
And as for many clubs, Zoom held the club together through the pandemic, but as President Maureen predicts, “It is a win for us to be ‘hybrid meeting’ in the future.”