Roster.

Please keep an eye out for your name in the weeks ahead.  If you are not able to be at a meeting please organise someone else to stand in for you.

Rotten returns.

Twenty five years ago Marianne Cleret from France came to Warrnambool and thanks to Bill Quinlan did an internship at the Co-op and was hosted by Bev and I for 3 months. She was required to do her internship in an English speaking country as part of her degree. Marianne came to a few Rotary meetings and was warmly accepted. Bore' even has a cartoon of her somewhere in his archives.

Marianne Cleret is now Marianne Depercenaire and has a 19 year old daughter, Eugenie, who wants to do the same thing. If any member can help out or make suggestions regarding suitable work places I would appreciate it very much. She does not require to be paid and can send her CV to anyone interested. She has to do a minimum of 6 weeks and a maximum of 12 weeks between May and July. As you can see the time frame is tight so please give it some thought. 

On the hosting side as a last resort we can step in but given that we are old and boring it would probably be more beneficial to go to a younger family, maybe with teenage girls. 

Eugenie's younger sister (Adele, 16) would also like to do a short exchange to Warrnambool for the month of July during her summer break. She does not need to work or go to school but is quite happy to do baby sitting. If a suitable host family is interested her parents are offering to host someone in return during our summer holidays. A cheap holiday to France for someone. 

Once again we are OK with hosting Adele, but a younger family would be ideal. I know both the girls parents and can assure you these are fantastic people. Marianne's husband, Mathieu, also stayed with us briefly and travels the world (prior to Covid) representing a French wine company. I was once told that Rotary is a bigger network than the Mafia, so let's see if it's true. 

History of Rotary.

What, you may ask, was the expectation on a Rotarian in 1921?  Harlan Horner wrote and article in The Rotarian that outlined his view on what made a good Rotarian.  In 1921 Horner wrote of the ideal Rotarian (sorry about the gendered pronouns, it was 1921!);

·       He is not a ‘it-can’t-be-done-er’.  He is a Go Getter.

·       He is not a sour faced dyspeptic.  He keeps his alimentary canal literally and figuratively open to traffic.

·       He does not have a placard on his desk saying ‘Honesty is the Best Policy’.  He does things on the square day in and day out, every day.

·       He does not have Home Sweet Home knitted over his mantel.

·       He is not a masher, not an ogler about a petticoat.  He respects womanhood.*

·       He does not sit on the sidelines and cuss the umpire.  He gets in the game.

·       He radiates no goody-goody atmosphere; he is not a saint; there are no wings sprouting on his shoulders.

·       He is not – any one of him – all these things; but he is a practical idealist and he aims at his ideals while he keeps his feet on the ground.

*Apparently, in 1921 slang a ‘masher’ was a man who propositioned women whom he did not know.  It has to be said that in 1921 'he respected womanhood', but not enough to admit them as Rotarians or build a public toilet for them.

Ten Years Ago.

Ten years ago, Bob Coffey, Shane, The Compass and our Charter President went on a fishing trip with visiting Rotarian Jethroe from Nigeria in the SS Snoop Dog.  Early in the trip Jethroe fell unconscious.  The boys quickly caught half a dozen tuna before sitting down for lunch to discuss what, if anything, they should do about it.