We had 28 in attendance including visiting Rotarian Louise Keogh from Warrnambool Rotary club. Louise has been a very, very involved Rotarian and a most worthy and deserved recent recipient of a Paul Harris Fellow award put up by both Warrnambool and our club. Congratulations Louise, and as some wag enquired during the meeting, any chance of getting our good man Shane along to as many of our meetings as you attend?!!.....

 

Members will recall how impressive young Jan Fieldler was at our meeting last week, and it was no surprise when Penno announced Jan had not only been successful in his application to be an outbound exchange student, but had come in the top couple out of 19 applicants at Ballarat over the weekend. Congratulations to Jan, and well done to his counsellor Greg Alison. Jan was successful in his request to go to his father's native Germany, and we look forward to watching his progress leading up to his departure at the end of the year.

We are all thinking of Sam Baulch following his heart valve operation, and hope to see him back and around town very soon.

 

The ever active Bulletin Editor and dentist extraordinaire advised of a year potential club social event at a computerised minigolf range, followed by drinks at nearby "Rafferty's Tavern"….. only to be told the minigolf venue has shut down! General consensus was that just heading to Rafferty's might be the best shot anyway. Stay tuned.

 

With President Lewis still trying to out-swim crocodiles in the Kimberley, President Elect Tim Goodall took command of the meeting and advise we have 51 confirmed for the Changeover Dinner at Lava Street Cafe on Saturday 29 June. We need to firm up definite numbers, so if you intend coming and haven't yet formally responded, please get onto Tim immediately.

Tim also advised that our inbound Swiss exchange student “Margeline” (sp?) Is due to arrive on 25 July, living first with David and Louise Jellie, followed by the Goodalls. He also let us know that the District Governor will be visiting our meeting on 16 October.

 

Our ex- inbound Mexican exchange student Aquiles Orduna contacted this writer during the week whilst actually sitting in one of his first Rotary meetings in Mexico as a new Rotary member. He floated the idea of some sort of joint project with our club, so again, stay tuned on that front. I suggested he see what sort of ideas they come up with, and we can have a look at them. That would indeed be a remarkable lap of the Rotary world wheel.

 

Thanks to Robert Coffey for providing a detailed outline of issues surrounding the $200,000 left over after the completion of “Rotary House”. Energetic discussion took place, and members were very grateful for Rob's report and gauging of the members views.

 

The recuperating Fines Session process continued with Les McGrath delivering it devastatingly lucrative one, testing the club on "Knowledge of Rotary". One could sense the ripple of tension through the room as soon as he announced the topic. But once again Davies distinguished himself. Who on earth knows that the first Rotary project was a public toilet? Is there no end to his talent and knowledge? What is the first place Rotary pin has been? Again, was it Davies who correctly answered that it was the moon? Apparently Buz Aldrin was a Rotarian, and left a bit of litter…. The best fine from the floor came from Penno on Matt Northeast for wearing the wrong glasses to Rotary….. an assertion Matt immediately rejected!... Okay, there must have been some other reason he was wearing Hutto’s name badge…

 

Finally, in a “never before” moment in footy tipping history Robert Coffey went back through the cards and agreed Gary Askew had diddled Les McGrath by one chip early in the season. That brought him level with this correspondent, but fortunately Les then got 5 to my 6 last week, thus restoring the proper order of things at the top of the leaderboard.

 

Robbo