Monday nights meeting was another good night. There was a few less members than previous weeks and we are mindful that our caterer does like to prepare meals for at least 25 members. Sergeant Stu managed a few fines and then threw a wide loop with a fine for All Black supporters it was good to see that we still have a good few of them in the club.  Our speaker was club member Steve Dunn who has a role as a tutor for Senior Net. This is a local charitable organization with the objective of helping seniors in the community learn to use modern devices. This is clearly a role close to his heart and he would seem to have the right amount of patience and skill to be the right man for the job. This is the week we have all been counting down to book sale week. The collecting has all been done, the sorting team have processed almost 1000 boxes of books. This is well over double what we used to do in our early years and is no mean feat. A big thank you to all who club members who have helped to get us this far. Just to keep us all on our toes we have a salmon run this week as well. Monday night will be a club night and a debrief of the book sale. Mike has also put out the call for club member support to help the Otago Youth Adventure Trust with a working bee down at Berwick on the 12^th and 13^th of October. One of the main jobs will be to try to paint the wardens house so paint brushers and sanders and scrappers would be a good item to bring along and any carpenters there are a couple of repairs to be done to platforms on the confidence course. 

Weds was also the day Ross and his team started to prepare the Winning Post Lounge for the weekend. Thursday with the amazing help from students from Taieri College (in the rain) we transferred over 1000 Banana boxes of books and set them all out on tables. As I’m writing this Its now Friday morning so just a few hours to go.

 

Merv
 

What a crowd, eagerly waiting for the gates to open, and then we're off racing, doors open, everyone searching for the perfect find, the book they've been looking for....

 

The one good thing about a wet start to the weekend it may bring out a greater crowd, people eager to get outside to do something, so coming to our annual book sale could be the perfect solution.

 

Well done to Ross and the incredible book sale & sorting team for all their hard work in preparation for the weekend.

Early Weds morning Merv travelled to Balclutha and collected what he thought was 270 sides of Salmon to cover what was ordered. By the end of the day when most orders had been collected or delivered it was a shock to still have 8 Banana boxes of frozen (starting to thaw)Salmon about 80 in total still left. Apparently Sanfords sent 350 sides. PANIC what to do with 80 thawing fish. Many thanks to the Mosgiel Tavern for allowing is to put all the boxes in their walk in freezer. This solved the first part of the problem. Then with the help of the Taieri Club, Altrusa and our own members by the end of Thursday all were sold. Phew.
 

As we prepare to return home and say farewell to our 'local' Rotary Club, Rotary Club of Burleigh Heads, they have asked for us to share what our club gets up too.  Going through old photos, previous bulletins in preparation for a 5 minute presentation, I'm finding it challenging to share what we do into 5 minutes.  As Rotarians we very rarely boast about our accomplishments as we all work to the "service above self' motto, but we should be proud, pleased and delighted to share with our community how much work we do for our community and what we achieve for our community.  One thing I have really learnt through attending another club is that we all need to openly share and communicate within our community our clubs achievements.