We had our first “free range” meeting for the year. Although it is a lot easier to get the meeting business done at the top table, I quite enjoyed the meeting.This week I finally got around to presenting Ricardo with a thank you gift from the Club for his great work as President last year. We gave him a leather satchel with an engraved message “Ricardo Balancy - Thank you - Rotary Club of Berwick”. Ricardo thought the bag would be very useful and he is intending to bring it next week to show to members.
We heard all about Beth Johnstone’s travels around Canada and her love of working there. We also noticed a distinct Canadian influence in Beth’s diction that wasn’t present at her last visit. Beth is a former RYLA participant and Graham’s daughter.
Graham gave us an update on the new rules of Rotary Insurance. We are now required to complete a Project Activity Advice (PAA) form for every Rotary event/delivery outside our meetings at Holm Park. It is a single page form that needs to be returned to the District Insurance Officer before each event. A Certificate of Currency will be provided as evidence of insurance cover for the event.
A blank PAA form will be given to all Directors and Coordinators to copy and fill out before their events so that we can reduce the burden on Graham a bit. I hope you will all assist where you can.
Sharmaine gave us an update on the Youth Exchange Program from the District YEP Committee’s perspective. We learned there are seven youths heading overseas - 6 girls and 1 boy. Tara is our candidate. Anywhere Travel is the organisation taking care of the Youth Exchange Students travel arrangements.
Clare attended the second orientation day on 19th August in Warragul. She was very impressed with the maturity of the YEP students and mentioned that one of the 16-year-old girls is having flying lessons. Clare felt that Anywhere Travel were very well organised and would ensure the students would reach their destinations safely.
Ricardo gave a report on the meeting he attended on Tuesday with Diana Gomez-Fullaway, Gaetano Fina and two people from Casey Council. The meeting was held to discuss our Carols event. Ricardo was very pleased with the outcomes from the meeting and praised his two Rotary associates for taking on such a large project, being that they are relatively new to our organisation.
Adwin gave a very passionate presentation on how Rotary can help the environment by initiating a plasma gasification trial in Casey. He is hoping to convince the Council to install a pilot module in the City of Casey and if so, he will approach the supplier of the module to set up a free trial version.
A reminder to members to please bring children’s and teenage books for donation to CNCISS. We received a laundry basket full this week. Thank you to all who contributed.
We are trialling a new rostering system for meeting duties. If a member is listed for a meeting duty but does not attend the meeting, their name will appear in the roster the following week.
That’s it from me for this week.
Over and out.
