The evening opened with a warm welcome to our friend Lola Lee and daughter Donna and to Mayor Councillor Ben Blain who came along to update us on progress within the Warrnambool Council. 

 

Apologies from David Brown, Kelly Curran, Brooke and George McLeod, Glen Brotchie and Svet Lineham.

Thankyou to Rotarians who gave of their time at the Noorat Show.  The show appeared to be attended and compared to last year only the main gate had significant technical issues. 

 

The District 9780 Conference is on in Mount Gambier from March 15 to 17^th 2024.  Rachel has kindly agreed to be our “On to Conference” champion.  It is really easy to book online for attendance and it is important to try and book early for accommodation.  Some of us have already booked at the Commodore.

 

We collected numbers for our joint Christmas Party with Warrnambool Daybreak held this coming Sunday 26^th at 1130am to 3.00pm at the RSL.  Even if you haven’t indicated you want to come you are still most welcome so let me know on 0414454527.  We can offer a ride if anyone needs one. 

 

Just a reminder to purchase your Christmas hams via the Geelong Rotary offer – see recent email. 

The “Say NO to Domestic Violence” walk was on today (Friday) and Anne Adams, Sharon Kenny and I went on the walk and then ran into Kathy Bligh and Ann Body on the green.  Fortunately, Sharon had a cap to shield her from the rain, unfortunately Ann had the very small umbrella, which worked for her, and I got drenched.  It was however an important event to attend, and a possible outcome of our attendance is that the organisers of the even have recognised that their involvement with Rotary may be very beneficial to their worthy cause.

 

The AGM was held at this meeting and office bearers elected for the next year.  These include:

  

Congratulations to the incoming Board and in particular to Kelly Curran for stepping forward to lead the Club I’m sure she will do a wonderful job as will the rest of the Board.

Following the AGM, I had the pleasure of presenting Chris Stebbing with a Paul Harris Fellow for his contribution towards Programs of the Rotary Foundation.   Here is a link to an outline of the Foundation programs - https://www.rotary.org/en/our-programs

 

I then had the pleasure of inducting Lola Lee into our Club.  Judy Ross has kindly agreed to mentor Lola.  Lola comes to us with extensive experience both in business, work and in life including being a seasoned grey nomad.    We look forward to having Lola as a fellow Rotarian and have our sights on her daughter Donna who would clearly make a great Rotarian. 

 

Councillor Ben Blain Mayor of Warrnambool was our guest speaker this week introduced by Anne Adams.  It was interesting to hear from Ben about some of the directions and plans the council have for Warrnambool.  We asked him to think about how our club could be of benefit to the community over and above what we are already doing.   I am sure we will be meeting with him or his representative sometime in the new future to discuss ideas.    

I don’t usually acknowledge Robbie’s weekly contribution ever week for running the Swindle but that doesn’t mean that it goes unnoticed so thankyou Robbie for our weekly Swindle. 

 

Kelly Curran and I are off to PETS (President Elect Training) this Saturday at Mount Gambier.  Hope to see you at the Christmas party on Sunday.

Have a great week. 

 

 

President Janet