President John Murdoch opened the meeting at 6.30 pm on 15 May 2023. John Thornton led the singing of the National Anthem, which was above standard because of the number of ladies present.

 

WELCOME to our Guests: Nick Shmakov (guest speaker); Stephanie Kelsey, a visiting Rotarian from Bishops Waltham in Hampshire; Marion Cahif, Susie Davis, Denice Goh, MJ Lindquist, Cherry Martin, Shelley McGrath, Carolyn Murdoch, Christine Smith, Jomay Verrier.

 

Answered correctly by Anthony McGrath.

 



 

Charitable Trust (Russell Hawkins) Russell said that the Charitable Trust had received suggestions for charities and donees, and he asked for a continuation of the suggestions for other organisations as the time for distributing funds was coming up.

Also, by popular demand, the wine orders will include a Chardonnay; please place all orders with Russell or on the sheet.

 

Community Service (Anthony McGrath) Anthony advised that the next Community Service meeting would be Wednesday, 17 May at Little Way at 0830.

 

Youth Service (Kim Smith) Kim spoke about last week's very successful Science and Engineering Challenge at the Showgrounds. He gave thanks for the work of the organisers, Richard Gorham and Michael Bisset, and all the volunteers, especially from the Club. Richard summarised the event, saying that 38 schools participated with over 1,100 students. He has received great feedback from many teachers. The aim of the Challenge is to encourage STEM study with an eye to entering a related profession.

 

President John also spoke about the Science and Engineering Challenge and the success it was. He thanked all the Club members who volunteered and our friends and family who also gave their time.

Rotary International Convention in Melbourne 27-31 May. 

 

• Craig James and David Miller were fined for being on the same table last week at the Science and Engineering Challenge when neither’s profession involves STEM.
• Graeme Sansom was fined for having a crook knee.
• Bob Davis was fined for his overseas trip.
• President John Murdoch was fined for successfully running the Flight table at the Challenge and making the longest flying plane for the week.
• Kim and Christine Smith were fined for cycling into Fremantle without a visa.

 

Nick Shmakov obtained a Bachelor of Computer Science degree from UWA in 2006. He has been at Res-Q IT for 15 years since its founding. Nick spoke about what scammers are after, which in essence, is money and identities. Their methods are convincing by using psychological techniques, urgent, a little confusing with requests for information or money. They have numerous ways into wallets, such as investment scams, asking for small payments for semi-legitimate products and direct money transfers. Protecting identities is very important. Information is gleaned from social media, such as through ‘innocuous’ quizzes. Basic protection against a phone scammer is to be calm, cautious and being compliant, as in having all the basics of protection in place. Nick suggests that if not needed or used, get rid of the landline as this provides more information to scammers.

If a scam has occurred, ring the bank, write down the type of event it was with as many details as possible, speak to an IT professional and report it (see the link below). Password managers are fine overall. Whilst some managers may have been breached to some degree, it has not been to the inner, critical information. Passwords should be a minimum of 15 characters long with upper and lower case with numbers and special characters included. To contact Nick, please call (08) 6555 6500, and his email address is nick@res-q.com.au For more information about Nick’s topic, consult these links, which are from the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), Australia’s authority on cyber security practices.

https://www.cyber.gov.au/protect-yourself/securing-your-accounts/passphrases - about making secure passwords, choice of password managers.

https://www.cyber.gov.au/learn-basics/explore-basics/recognise-and-report-scams - about recognising and reporting scams

 

If cautious of clicking links as above (good!), then type in cyber.gov.au into Google and select ‘learn the basics’ at the top of the page.

Richard Gorham        Welcoming members and guests 

Ivor Roberts              Table duty 

Richard Ranshaw      Registrar 1

Peter Panek               Registrar 2

David Miller              Introduction of guest speaker 

Geoff Cahif                Pass the microphone

                                  Meeting Notes