Call to order by Ian Cairns who welcomed us back to the WFC after a two week absence.
Acting chair for the meeting, Vice President Mal Price invited Alan Bowes to perform the invocation and toast.
VP Mal Price read President David Brown’s apology for not attending, and welcomed our Guest Speaker, Jo Van de Camp who was expected a little later in the evening.
Guests tonight were
- Visiting Rotarians Graham Robinson (Lakes Rotary Club of Mt Gambier)
- Visiting Rotarian Stefanie Kruger (Rotary Club of Lilydale)
- Aisha and Khyana who are staying with Andrea and were “very excited about their first eating meeting”
Andrew Jeffers, CEO of Wannon Water presented a cheque for $4000 to Tony Austin on behalf of the PNG Project. The grant was awarded as part of the Wannon Water Ripple Effects program and Andrew spoke very highly of the PNG Project. It was evident that Wannon Water holds the work done in PNG in very high regard and indicated that Wannon Water were proud to be associated with the project. Andrew said that Wannon Water were “committed to helping communities and see a perfect synergy with Rotary”.
The grant will be going toward providing water for the school at Popondetta. Apparently, the PNG Government had doubled the cost of water and then shut the water off when the school was unable to pay, forcing the school to close. It is hoped that the next trip to PNG will allow the school to reopen.
Announcements
Anne Adams
- Next Week’s Meeting
- Melbourne Cup evening at the Alan Lane Pavillion
- We will be having a chicken and champagne supper
- We are looking for 2 more people to make a salad.
- Terry will be running his now famous sweep and their will be a fashions on the field competition
- We are looking for celebrity judges so do dress to impress.
- If you are bringing a friend it would be good if you can let me know asap.
- November12th meeting will be our Remembrance Day meeting.
- It will be a very special night with our guest speakers having a very interesting story to tell.
- It will be good opportunity to invite anyone who is particularly interested in WW 1 history.
- November 19th our guest speaker will be Tim Roache who is the Milk Volume Manager at Fonterra
- Tim is a recent recipient of a Churchill Fellowship which supported him to go overseas to investigate payment systems for dairy farmers.
- Tim will speak about his report and his Churchill experience.
- This meeting will be of interest to farmers and to people who are suppliers of goods and services to the dairy industry. That is just about everyone in Warrnambool.
- I would also particularly encourage you to invite anyone you know who may be interested in applying for a Churchill Fellowship oe should be encouraged to apply
- Guests at Rotary
- Graeme Ward and John Beks have I believe put a great list of speakers this year and Chris Stebbing has been doing heaps of work to raise our profile in the media and on line.
- The other action we can all take is to invite a visitor along to share in what we do
- Volunteer Hours and Makeups
- You have all been very good at putting your hours in the book
- Don’t forget though that if you are absent from a Rotary meeting you can claim a make up for every hour worked. The hours can be banked for 2 weeks.
- Claiming make ups will vastly improve our attendance percentages
Chris Stebbing
- Our very first, soon to be famous, monthly bike ride is next Monday, 4th November. Meeting at 10:30 at my place, 39 Clarke St Koroit for a leisurely ride to Port Fairy, lunch, then riding back.
Trevor Williams
- Jars of Motang Honey are available for $8 each
Richard Hawker
- There is a working bee at Camp Quality on Friday 15th November. If you’re available please let Richard know. Some painting, sanding and general maintenance will be required on the day.
Delia Jenkins
- A big thankyou to Svet, Brian, Anne Adams, Allan and Keith for their assistance with the Western District Hospice Art Auction Dinner. The dinner raised close to $10,000
- Clontarf Academy
- The academy encourages young koori boys to stay at school
- They are inviting Rotary members to a presentation on Wed 20th November between 5pm & 6pm at the Warrnambool College auditorium
- A reminder to please purchase your tickets, or at least let Terry know, if you are attending the 90th Birthday dinner, 23rd November.
- Bunnings BBQ on 9th November. The roster has been sent. Please confirm if you are still available.
- Bottle caps. A huge bag tonite, please remember to keep bringing your bottle caps.
Tony Austin
- Tony spoke regarding the requirements to find a new BBQ co-ordinator and provided details of the duties required. There is a lot of behind the scenes co-ordination required to get the BBQ’s happening and volunteers were called to fill the role.
BBQ Committee
- Since there were no volunteers to fill the role of BBQ co-ordinator, VP Mal Price called for volunteers to establish a BBQ Committee which could cover the duties required. The following people volunteered to form the BBQ Committee. Mal Price, George McLeod, Trevor Williams, Terry O’Neill, Cathy Bligh, Gerry Delaney.
Joey
Joey filled us in on his activities since the last meeting.
- He has settled in well with George.
- Delia lent him a surfboard and just today he had stood up and caught his first wave
- He spent some time with Judy & Phillip on the farm and sheared his first sheep
- He had helped at the show gates
- He had visited Melbourne for a house warming party with George.
Alan Bowes
- Alan advised that he had visited with Graeme Ross who is in St John of God Hospital and suggested it would be nice if other members could visit.
Ian Cairns
- Called for volunteers for the Sergeant’s position at next week’s meeting. Thanks to Rachel for volunteering.
Delia introduced our guest speaker for the evening, Jo Van de Camp from Brauer College.
Jo is a passionate teacher and has a keen focus on literacy and numeracy. Jo is a leader of Professional Learning Communities and shared with us some of the strategies that are employed at Brauer College to improve student literacy and numeracy outcomes. She pointed out it is not unusual to have students begin secondary school with difficulties reading and performing their basic number facts and shared examples of special programs that are in place to help move these students forward. Regardless of where they start it is important to get a years academic growth in a year. Jo also shared some of the other strategies that the College uses across all faculty areas to support literacy across the school. It is important that students in Science, Art, PE etc know the specific words used in those subjects and it is not just the English teachers job to focus on literacy. There are also programs to ensure students learn basic number facts which lead to automatically knowing the answers. This frees up thinking space in their brains to learn new topics. The College aims to develop a love of learning in all students and to build their confidence as good readers and writers.
Some key points were:
- Jo is a PLC leader and teaches both English and Maths at the school.
- She is also a parent with her children attending.
- Brauer has achieved “Influencing” status, indicating that their programs are successful in improving the student outcomes at the school.
- Brauer report 6 times per year, with a high emphasis on attitude and effort
- PLC leaders concentrate on
- Improving teacher effectiveness
- Improving student performance
- Presenting teaching methods at staff meetings
- The school’s focus is on Vocabulary and they aim to improve their NAPLAN writing scores
- They believe all teachers are teachers of literacy, not just English teachers
- They also concentrate on teaching students how to speak to each other
- For their literacy program, they use Macqlit and MultiLIT which are evidence based programs.
- They have access to a full time person for Year 10 intervention programs
- For numeracy, they have adopted the Maths Pathway’s program which provides an individualised program for each student based on needs
- The school focuses on a “growth mindset”
- They also use Quicksmart which is another evidence based program which targets 16 Year 7 students at a time and provides a concentrated program aimed to bring them up to required levels
- They have also reintroduced a focus on times tables in Maths
After the presentation, VP Mal thanks our guests and our guest speaker. He also thanked Tony Austin for the huge effort in organising the show gates and all those who volunteered their time. The conditions were very trying at times and a great amount of professionalism was shown by the members.
Richard Hawker won $2 on the swindle.
A reminder that next week’s meeting is at the Alan Lane pavilion. Please try to make a special effort to attend and bring partners and guests to make it a good night. There’s fashions on the field, Terry’s now famous cup sweep and a chicken & champagne dinner.
In closing, Mal offered the following thought. “There’s an old Chinese proverb. Man walking sideways through door at airport not necessarily going to Bangkok”.
Attendance Summary. Members in attendance = 46, Guests = 4, Apologies = 10, Slipped the mind = 4.
