President Jason van Straalen opened the meeting at 6.30 pm on 9 August 2021.

John Thornton may be able to assist us tonight in singing a chorus of Advance Australia Fair!   

  

No external speaker tonight? Special mystery speaker!!

There were no guests at tonight’s meeting.

  

We have 15 Apologies & Honorary, 10 LOA plus 0 guests hence around 35 people are in attendance tonight.  

  

 

  

Any Rotarian who has news they would like to share regarding Family or Friends?

No news was forthcoming.

  

 

 

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The RAFFLE is going very well. It looks like we will achieve our target of selling 1250 tickets or more.

As the DRAW is at our Meeting next Monday, I will need to get the last few Tix Butts from you this week. Let me know how I can get them off you.

If you haven’t already, please deposit the money into the Club’s Project account (BSB: 016 484 Acct: 100311017).

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The committee is drafting up a “Who we are” document. Stay Tuned. Kevin Jackson is looking into a visit to the new RSLWA building.

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Regenerating Rotary (from our RDU Magazine);

Rotary International has picked our Region (Aust & NZ) to participate in a “Shaping Rotary Future “(SRF) pilot program.

As such, over the following months, the SRF model will be shared with all Rotarians in our Region to initiate feedback & ideas. Clubs will then have an opportunity to vote on whether we should participate in the pilot.

So stay tuned and provide feedback/comments/ideas as you see fit!

  

John Hopkins was the Mystery Guest Speaker! He started by making a plea to members to assist him in getting good speakers for our meetings. He also thought some of the older members could give their life stories again as the Club has changed a lot over time!  Please consider.

 

John gave a talk about his early life and his adventures in mining in the USSR in the late ’80s & ’90s.

 

John Father was in the navy in WWII. His shore leave in Perth resulted in meeting his future wife and hence John. They originally settled in Melbourne but as a good Perth girl, his Mother couldn’t abide by the Melbourne winters. They therefore returned and settled here.

 

He was brought up on a Donnybrook dairy farm which was basic, to say the least. Their house was a Nissan Hut without electricity until he was in high school! He eventually graduated and studied Law at UWA. After graduation was employed at a large firm and specialised in mining law & contracts. This enabled him to build up a network in the mining industry. He eventually went out on his own as an entrepreneur!

 

In 1992 with the break-up of the USSR he looked at mineral operations over there. It was (and probably still is) the days of the KGB. The Rouble was worth $2USD at that time. After meeting a bunch of chain-smoking Russian bureaucrats, he settled on having a look at a gold project in Eastern Mongolia. It was a very rich mine, and they were looking at reprocessing the tailings. After a lot of effort, they flew into the area which was a Military & Gulag area - they crossed six time zones getting there. Many adventures such as nude saunas / Vodka drinking and more vodka drinking.  

 

He went back in 1993 and Moscow was in a lot of trouble at that time. Eventually, they got the job done and listed the company on the Alberta Stock Exchange.  When the Russians visited Australia, they were on ASIO's watchlist as they were definitely KGB agents having been expelled previously for spying. When he entertained the Russians at lunch at Chianti on Collins the ASIO guys were having a nice taxpayer-funded lunch on the adjacent table.

 

This was Part 1 of Hoppie’s Russian / Mongolian adventures!

 

Pres Jason thanked John for his entertaining and amusing adventure talk. He was presented with a lovely Rotary fruit cake!