Photo LtoR: ADG John Clue, President Trevor Williams and DG Ray Herbert

President Trevor Williams introduced DG Ray Herbert who had met with Board members prior to the meeting.

Ray advised that he was in awe over the number of projects which our club is involved which reflect the needs of the community, i.e. Camp Quality, Rotary Lights, Standing Tall, grave restoration, Rotary House, Eisteddfod, Science & Engineering Challenge, RYLA, RYPEN, Youth Exchange, Rotaract, Father of the Year, Alternative to Schoolies, to name a few.  Ray commended our club in identifying and continuing these projects.
Our PNG project in partnership with other Rotary clubs is great example of an international project where we try to meet the needs of the communities in PNG.
A Peace & Conflict resolution scholar is coming to a club meeting.  Peace and conflict resolution is best seen in the Youth Exchange programme. Peace scholars program  would like to fund a Peace Scholar. In Queensland Uni the programme has a student from Rowanda, Marie Paul Munya Barenzi, and this has been made possible by money raised in San Diego .
There is a lot of flexibility now how to run Rotary meetings i.e., e-clubs.
Attendance has been changed.
Rotary now monitors engagement clubs have with the community and records non monetary engagement. Rotary then can show this value to prospective benefactors of how much Rotary does for community. And hopefully make good partnership. This will be introduced by RCW soon...
Making a Difference is this years theme for the District Conference in Mount Gambier (April 6-8).  James Morrison will be the entertainment on Saturday night and Marie will be a guest speaker at the conference.
James Morrison has started a School of music in Mount Gambier, which is his home now.
DG Ray asked resident Trevor Williams to bring along to Conference details of a project in which our Club has made a difference to our community. 

The DG thanked our Club for making a difference in the community. 

Partners Project

Last year the Club supported the Partners Project of providing nursing scholarships to indigenous Australians. The project raised approximately $26,000 which is managed by Rotary Health and has provided 8 scholarships.

This year the Partners Project is "End Trachoma 2020". Australia is the only developed world country that is still infected with Trachoma. Trachoma is the world's leading cause of infectious blindness, with bacterium Chlamydia Trachmatis creating swelling under the inner eyelid, resulting in scaring and scratching the cornea. The infection is transmitted by contact whether by person or insects. 

The World Health Organisation has developed a SAFE program: Surgery (inturned eyelashes), Antiobiotics, Facial Cleanliness, Environmental improvement. The project is being led by RC Melbourne to coordinate all efforts in a single project. The partners in the project are: Commonwealth Government; Fred Hollows Foundation Australia; Vision 2020 Australia; Indigenous Eye Health - University of Melbourne; National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation; Ngaanyatjarra Health Service; Sopaid.

The project has the support of RI President in 2017-18 Ian Riseley. Funding has already secured 3 years for a coordinator Lien Trinh, a former D9800 Rotary Global Grant Scholar, now a qualified experienced optometrist/health professional. All Australian Rotarians will have the opportunity to support and participate in the collective realisation of the project by 2020.