Members and Guests
The club meeting this week is at Ingham for our Annual Cane Knife Debate.
Back to the Cutheringa Bowls club the following Thursday night
Visting Rotarians and Guests are always welcome
The Rotary Club of Mundingburra was proud to provide a Peace Pole to St Benedict School at Shaw which was installed at a special ceremony at 9am on the 22nd of November with the help and support of various students and staff at the school..
The peace pole is the first one installed in the Townsville area to our knowledge and provides a message of Peace in the local area.,
The Pole is displayed with the words "May Peace Prevail on Earth" and is endorsed with a different language on each of its 4 sides.
St Benedict's pole contains, English, Latin, Spanish and Punjabi as selected by the school.
Planting a Peace Pole is a way to bring people together from many sectors of the community. Every Peace Pole dedication ceremony is a unique outcome of the shared experience of those who plan the program, as well as those who attend.
Hopefully, the club may be able to provide more poles for other local schools to spread the message of Peace, which is becoming more adnd more important every day.
An Introduction to Homeopathy
Members and Guests at our meeting on the 16th of November were given a presentation on Homeopathy by Dr Asha Kiran..
An interesting topic on something not well known in Australia but apparently well known in large areas of Europe.
Bit t to involved to cover in this notice, however, others might like to Google it to see more about the topic.
Thanks, Asha for your presentation.
Once again members enjoyed a fun night of fellowship with our annual Melbourne Cup Phantom night call meeting.
Our caller of many years, Tony Wode was overseas and sent us his replacement, his brother Laurie. Laudie did a really great call, so it will e interesting to see if his call of the race turns out to be factual on the read event this coming week. Regardless a good payout went to those who had the good fortune to win those houses in the calcutta.
One normal highlight is the fashions on the field, which was a bit restricted this year as not as many dressed up for the occasion. Never the less we had a male and a female winner.
A donation of $500 is being paid to the Family Emergency Accommodation Centre on Laurie's behalf fopr coming and doing the Call.
What an amazing club visit to the Townsville St James Cathedral. This historic building is magnificent to see and learn about.
Lorraine Kennedy took time out of her night to provide us with a personal tour of the Cathedral and explain how the building came about, and also the various buildings and alterations until we got to the wonderful church it is today.
We ended the night in the Cathedral gardens enjoying a pizza meal.
Well worth a visit.
Another very entertaining speaker from the Townsville Toy Library, Nikki Dunn provided an overview of the wonderful work they are doing in our local community. They provide a very popular and necessary facility for the Townsville area.
Due to a major flood event in 2019, they had to find other accommodation, most of which has only been temporary, however recently the local Townsville Council provided them with an excellent facility in the suburb of Vincent on a 5 year lease. They are very appreciative of the new building and location however they are attempting to raise some funding to allow them to provide some more safety and also better access to the rooms.
The floods caused the loss of all the toys that they loan to those in need, however, the support of various groups has allowed them to rebuild most of the things they need for a Toy Library. They currently hold around 2500 different toys so the community response has been very good.
Thanks Nikki for sharing this community asset with us and we hope to be able to assist in some ways to work with your organization on your items of need.
Members and Guests at our last meeting were given a very interesting talk by two Ladies from the JCU Medicine Volunteer Department.
In order to assist Doctors in training, JCU operates a small program in which members of the community register to be a volunteer to assist trainee Doctors doing their training by virtue of role-playing some nominated issues that a patient may have. The roles are non-invasive and cover a wide range of events during the year.
The program is voluntary and they understand that some times and dates are not suitable in all cases so they like a range of volunteers to ensure they can get suitable people when required.
The link below provides a more detailed explanation of the program which is vital for the training of our future doctors. It is also possible for volunteers to register for other more invasive role-playing however this is a separate part of the program and only applies to those that specifically advise they would like to participate in that type of assistance.
The presentation was well received by everyone and appreciated that our community is providing assistance to our future medical needs.
Club members were provided with an excellent overview of the Critical Minerals resources that are available in Queensland, and more specifically within North Queensland by Scott Stewart.
We are blessed to have very large areas with what is fast becoming valuable minerals that are necessary for the variety of things that are being developed to enhance our future living needs as environmental aspects change.
Most of the minerals mentioned were not the common types we are used to, but are being sought by various countries for the provision of future power needs.
We learned that a number of projects are being undertaken to value-add these products rather than just sending them overseas in their raw state. All of which will add to future opportunities for our communities to grow.
An excellent, and non-political, presentation by Scott Stewart, a former member of our club highlighting how North Queensland is likely to grow.
The Rotary Club of Mundingburra is holding a special Trivia night on Friday 9th June to raise funds for a very special and important Project called Flourishng Women being run by medical professional members of our Townsville Community to assist women in developing countries with special health needs.
The Trivia night is being held at the Holy Spirit Hall Cranbrook and is open to all. Bookings are necessary via phone 0406 381 572
Flourishing Women's Vision is listed below as,
Creating a world where women live free of pelvic floor trauma, without the humiliation and shame associated with prolapse of their genitourinary organs, urinary and faecal incontinence and fistulas as a result of birth trauma.
For more information on this very important project, Google Flourishing Women
Members and guests at a recent meeting of the club had the privilege to hear about one of the very hardworking and dedicated work being done by the Family Emergency Accommodation Townsville (FEAT) team in our city.
The Speaker was Mandy Thompson, CEO of FEAT, who provided an outline of the organization's charter, the work they do, and how they are funded, which all highlighted the importance of this team of dedicated people trying to make life easier for people in our community.
The services they provide can be summarised as:
- Information, referral & advocacy
- Crisis intervention
- Referral to crisis housing & shelters
- Emotional support
- Support to sustain tenancies
- Link to a range of broader assistance
- Support services for children
However, a better explanation would be, the provision of long-term housing(when available), Homeless Services, No Interest Loans to those in need.
Most funds come from the Government, however, other groups in the community also provide valuable assistance with fundraising and support, especially the Sisters of Mercy who have supported them for many years.
Mundingburra Rotary has provided some financial assistance to the organization and are looking at other ways of support.
The following Web link provides a more detailed outline of the wonderful work they do for our community https://feat.org.au/
Thanks, Mandy for a great presentation and for allowing us to understand more of the work FEAT do.
A major project of Rotary International is to assist with the goal of stopping Polio around the world.
Below is some of the information on the progress todate.
What is polio?
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a paralyzing and potentially deadly infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of 5. The virus spreads from person to person, typically through contaminated water. It can then attack the nervous system.
Our goal
Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years. Our goal of ridding the world of this disease is closer than ever.
As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we've reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979.
Rotary members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $10 billion to the effort.
Today, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it’s crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio-free. If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.
By the numbers
$3 average cost to fully protect a child against polio
430 million children in total vaccinated in 39 countries in 2017
$100 million cost to conduct polio surveillance worldwide
The club guest speaker last week was Sandra Richards who spoke of the important work going on with a company she is associated with, QPLUS, in turning waste wood and plastics into products that save polluting our environment.
Interestingly the company is based in Townsville and is working with other groups to encourage other likeminded groups to assist with making our planet a better place.
Sandra indicated plastic waste from farms has always created a problem for farmers, do they bury it, burn it, or find some other way to store it, however the new facility in Townsville can turn it into products that can be used in both commercial and private ways to replace chopping down trees. These products could be a simple as decking boards for household decks, to railway sleepers & fence posts, plus multiple other products.
The club had the pleasure of Helene James from the City Council as a guest speaker for our meeting telling us all about the way the council works with the community on various activities – actually a large list overall.
(Club President Ryan Lacaze presenting a certificate of thanks to Helena.
The club also made a donation of $100 to Australian Rotary Health for Mental Health research in appreciation of her talk to us.)
An enthusiastic Helena gave an overview of the team she is part of and then explained a number of their roles and the projects they are working with jointly with various community groups. These included the following, as they have too many to list separately,
Service Above Self
West End, QLD 4810
Australia