President's Address

Another year has come around and many have had taken time to enjoy family and friends.  As always it has been a busy time for us finalising memberships, updating MY Rotary and ClubRunner to ensure our club gets credit for the work we have done and rewarded for our achievements moving forward.

 

Along with the good came sad news this month of our dear member Moses Kalanzi who remains in hospital suffering head and facial injuries amongst other problems following a brutal attack.  Our club pulled together and created a GoFundMe campaign to help pay his hospital bills and support his wife and children during this difficult time.  Like many campaigns when someone is first injured or becomes ill everyone rushes to assist but 2 weeks down the track and they forget that our help is still needed.  It is important we have someone step up to manage the GoFundMe page and circulate the information as far and wide as we can.  Everyone should be sharing and caring and it is time for someone else to step up to help with the social media side of the campaign.

 

This year our focus is on walking the walk so we will start the year with our first international project to train swimming teachers in Thailand and Cambodia.  We are ramping up the 2nd Dip program to help other countries create a pool of resources to share with learn to swim programs when they are needed.  We also have a team working on and evaluation 3 WASH projects and a learn to swim program in Uganda.  It seems Uganda is very active and continuously pushing to get projects delivered for their local communities.  Let us all look in our own back yard and present our projects team with ideas for programs that can roll out over 2023 / 2024.

 

Finally, I presented a new structure to our Leadership team to help provide backup for every position when we are busy or unable to deliver on time.  I hope to share this idea with the members at our first general meeting for the year.

 

It looks like we are off to a flying start and Walking the Walk.  Lets continue to share and grow and take responsibility for our part in this great organisation.
 

Charter President Eve Fraser

The Swimming Gift
 

Fundraising has kicked off for this Project which will see all Year 4 children learning to swim, wherever they are being educated in the world.  We now have a QR code and can receive funds directly through PayPal into our account.  If everyone did 1 talk with a local Rotary club every month and that club donated to our cause we would have many children in the pool right now learning to swim.  Lets Walk the Walk and take responsibility for our part in raising funds and ensuring every child can swim before the finish primary school.  It won't happen if we sit on the side lines; step up and lead from the front by approaching your local Rotary club and asking them if you can do a presentation to their members about our cause based club.  You will be surprised and how generous they can be.

 

 

Our program for Chiang Mai, Phuket and Cambodia is just a few weeks away. We have applied for a district grant to pay for the qualifications for this project.  Lets hope we have done enough to get our 2nd district grant since charter.

The 'Triple T' Teacher of Swimming & Water Safety program will run with the CPR in Thailand and Cambodia.  There have also been requests for specialist training for 'Learner with a Disability' and the 'Babies & Toddlers' courses.

 

Thank you Brendon from Swim Australia for helping us deliver more courses whilst we are away.

 

We are currently working with 5 Rotary clubs and 5 swim schools across 3 locations in 2 countries.  The logistics are intense but we are working our way through slowly but surely.
 

 
We are forging ahead with the multiple projects connecting with the 2nd dip to address the barriers to participation in swimming lessons.

a. We are working with suppliers to provide swim nappies for a special school in SE Queensland Australia

b. Swimwear, goggles, caps etc are being sourced for the Asia Mission in February 2023.

c. Equipment is being sourced including CPR charts for pools in Thailand and Cambodia.

 

This program has been a great asset to the training program for the Asia 2023 project. A huge thank you to Shawn and Rhiannon for picking up the pieces to make this happen when we lost a few participants at the end of last year.  We have adapted the program to meet the needs of different communities and are now preparing a visual program to use when we are away.

 

The open water challenge Solstice Swim takes place on
25 June 2023. GWSDPRC is the beneficiary of this
fundraising event by the RC Alexandra Headlands.  We are now forming a committee to develop this program to make a difference to the local community.  It is early days but over the next month we need to ramp up and not miss this opportunity to access funding to support children who struggle in mainstream classes.

 

President Eve did club presentations this month at the

RC Mooloolaba and the

Global Nurses & Midwives RC. 

 

She was also invited by RC Beenleigh to participate in a sausage sizzle at the local Bunnings store and raised a further AUD 137 shaking a tin at the stall. 

 

On Australia Day she was invited to attend the celebrations with the RC Buderim and collected another $250 towards our community projects.  More funds are still to come in but I think it has been a very successful month for our club at least in Queensland Australia.

 

Please let President Eve know if you are doing any presentations over the next 3 to 6 months. 

 

President Eve will be attending the DG dinner at RC Mooloolaba on 6 Feb and doing presentations to the RC Chiang Mai International on 21 Feb and another to RC Patong Beach on 28 Feb 2023

 

It would be great to see others adding to this list and showing everyone the fellowship of Rotary by joining their meetings.

 

 

We need someone to step up and help run this social media side of this campaign.  Please notify the editor Stacy or MP if you think you can help in some way.  

 

 

 

We wish our member, Mariam Mungai, a very happy birthday on the 28th, and good wishes
for her year ahead.