John Harris thanked all those who helped with the BBQ for the Tradies Night at South West Trades on Thursday 4 June. John Harris and Judy Ross cooked the sausages for the hundreds of tradies who were present and Astrid used her Danish charm handing out sausages. At one stage Astrid returned to the BBQ and requested a special sausage order for a ‘gorgeous boy’ who was inside - Judy and John looked alarmed until Astrid put their minds at rest by telling them the gorgeous boy was 7 years old! 

 

TAFE Awards Next Week

Rotarian Gordon Curran informed the meeting that he and Rotarian Anne Adams, assisted by a TAFE staffer, had interviewed six very good nominees for the 2015 Rotary TAFE award last Thursday. A presentation ceremony will take place next Tuesday night, with TAFE CEO Mark Fidge as guest speaker. Southwest TAFE has provided an additional $750 to the $1,000 Rotary award, which will enable awards to be made to two runner-up nominees of $500 and $250 respectively. Each of our three young award winners will bring two guests, and some TAFE teachers have also indicated their wish to attend. TAFE has kindly agreed to fund the dinner costs of the additional guests. Should be a big night for the club and we look forward to an excellent attendance of Rotarians.

President Elect Steve Giddens talked about planning for the next 12 months. Steve is keen to identify a significant and worthwhile local and/or international project which our club (possibly in partnership with other Rotary clubs) can work on developing over the next 12 months. Steve said it may be a project which is completed in one year or it may be a long term project with a five year plan. Tony Austin who is currently in PNG may return with a suggestion for a suitable international project which our club can embrace. To illustrate his point Steve showed Rotarians a Powerpoint presentation about Bruce Farquharson and his wife Rowena from Hamilton who spent six months doing voluntary work in a PNG village called Tapini Goilala.

Anne Adams, Isobel Siebel and Sharon Stark are all keen to see the development of some sort of Garden Expo which is run annually - at perhaps the race course or around Lake Pertobe - with the hope it would develop into a smaller scale version of the Garden Show held in Exhibition Gardens in March every year.

Ian Cairns spoke of three very real problems with high needs which impact on the Warrnambool community (1) Family Violence (2) the ICE drug problem and (3) Homelessness and its various causes. Ian said there is no short term emergency accommodation - once homeless people could access caravan parks or cheap motels but this type of accommodation has dried up.

Isobel Siebel spoke of the need for a better lift in the Capitol Theatre so that the frail elderly, wheelchair bound and disabled can access the same movies as the rest of the community.

Ron Rauert spoke about the conversion of wood burning public BBQs into Electric BBQs which started as a project in the late 70s and there are now 24 Electric BBQs around Lake Pertobe. Ron said he would like to see a Sound Shell built in Warrnambool, possibly down in the Lake Pertobe area.

Steve Giddens wondered if our club could raffle a trailer load of goodies in the lead up to Christmas - move it around shopping centres and have Rotarians selling raffle tickets. 

 

Steve encouraged Rotarians to put their thinking caps on to see if they can come up with any other suggestions.

6pm at Images Restaurant

in their downstairs function room

Meals and drinks available at own cost from menu

RSVP Edwina on 0414 552 071 or email edwina@qdsystems.com.au 

As some Rotary Clubs are aware, particularly those in District Zone 5, the Rotary Club of Port Fairy has been actively involved in a project to help build a kindergarten / school for disadvantaged children in the village of Mto wa Mbu in Tanzania.  A number of our members have recently returned from Tanzania after helping get the building project underway. This project has been, in part, funded by the Rotary Club in association with the Port Fairy Folk Festival Committee.

 

The building project has been arranged in conjunction with Seif Sakate who grew up in Mto wa Mbu but now lives with his wife, Catherine, in Port Fairy. Seif is obviously keen to help his childhood village develop and runs a number of programs to help raise funds for the children of the village.

 

Seif and Catherine have now organised a Trivia Night to help raise more fund for the kindergarten.  Details are in the attached flyer and Rotarian are encouraged to help this cause and hopefully organise a table at the Trivia Night which is being held at the Star of the West Hotel in Port Fairy starting at 8pm on 12th June 2015. Tickets are $15 per person including a light supper.

 

I hope your Club will consider supporting this worthwhile event.

 

Best regards,