Central Spoke 05.06.2023 (Jun 04, 2023)

Jungle Jim's coconut wireless.

It’s been a tough few weeks… we can come together for much needed social time on Thursday night for Bowling and Bojangles. Consider it a family dinner and come, one club, all invited, everyone wanted. Thanks Bob for organising!

I promised a Convention reflection - Have you heard about Global Citizen? I hadn't until the convention last week, which means I am now ‘old’. Rotary is partnering with them in a big way (to me it seems in a bid to save itself from the ageing demographic). We can learn a lot from them however... Gen X and Z want to do things to help, apparently Gen Z has the highest percentage of volunteerism and 'cause driven' projects for the Y, X and Z generations. This was really interesting to me because it tells us there is a lot of hope out there - https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/ Don't be too quick to call this "woke", because the founders of Global Citizen were inspired by Rotary and they have the supporters. Check them out, in a few short years they’ve done incredible work.

There were so many highlights to the Convention, I am hoping they post the keynote speakers online soon so that you can watch some. It would be great to share them with you as it really shows the scale of Rotary and the impact we have globally.

The overall feeling I left with was that there is still HOPE and while it is a lot of work, we are getting the jobs done. The overall message I took home was that mateship and our ability to have significant impact has no borders when we are working toward the same things together. There were so many topics and conversations, projects and initiatives, it really is astounding to see it all in the one place at the same time.

Some photos of the adventure:

The Opening Ceremony set the tone for a very inspiring few days.

Found some Rotarians that are shorter than Brendan and myself - Rivo and Laurent are Doctors from Roanne, France. They have invited the whole club to visit, and with a month left in Aussie, they might be coming down to say g'day. We will need an interpreter!! Anyone here speak French?

I found the Wine, Gin, Whiskey and Beer Rotary Fellowships. Thought of all of you, and our livers, as I passed by those stalls a few times!

If only we could always think to do this first...

I didn't get a great pic of the new Rotary Melbourne Peace Bells, but the message they convey is a wonderful one. If you head to Melbourne and are around the gardens prescient, check them out. They all sound different and are a very moving concept.

Around the world there are PEACE POLES. I think Warrnambool could use a few... https://www.worldpeace.org/peacepoleproject/

Long story and many cocktails later, but in short, Claude met his first Drag Queen. Claude is from Reunion, an island off Madagascar. He is a hospital director and it turns out he didn't know what 'Drag Bottomless Brunch and Cocktails' meant, but he was thrilled to find out! I didn't see him for the rest of the convention, perhaps I should have gone back to check the bar. She was a fab entertainer, but from what I hear she has nothing on Compass when he is frocked up!

D9870 ROTARIANS! Peace!

When I went to the Toronto Convention in Canada the "Rotary Fellowship od Alzheimers' forgot to show up. This year is was the Entrepreneurs, I guess they has a better idea!

There was a dome 360 degree cinema showing short movies. This was the polio drops clip, but the one about the Rotary Reef was incredible! A truely genius idea... see more here: https://rotaryactiongroupforpeace.org/rotary-saves-an-ocean/

The Closing Ceremony wasn't as well attended as the Opening Ceremony, but it was fantastic, and with that the last goodbyes to many new friends made. The next convention is in Singapore, worth considering the trip, I am thinking about it...

Welcome to our Club!

Imagine Rotary

Wednesdays at 1:00 PM

Warrnambool Bowls Club

75 Timor St
Warrnambool, VIC 3280
Australia

Phone:

0434 600 114

Send Email to Club

Please join us for lunch at the Warrnambool Bowls Club.

District Site

Venue Map

Minutes.

Attendance: Nooka received a Covid vaccine the day before the meeting and felt sick on the day. He then felt even worse when he came to Rotary. Nooka noted that ‘Boxhead has absolutely stuffed up today’ before announcing that there were 21 members present. He then angrily asked your correspondent if I was going to do a head count to check his numbers. Honestly, I wasn’t planning on doing that, but I after Nooka mentioned it I couldn’t resist. For what it is worth, I counted 22. However, Nooka’s attendance report has always been more about the journey than the destination.

Meal: Some sort of meat and mushrooms in a stroganoff sauce on a bed of rice. Malcolm declared the meat ‘must be chicken’ before then deciding ‘oh, it could be pork.’ It could have been giraffe for all we know. Beef stroganoff and the cookbook it came out of, Elena Ivanovna’s 1871 classic A Gift to Young Housewives, was banned in the Soviet Union. Fortunately, we don’t live in a communist dictatorship and can enjoy sour cream and mustard on our meat. Very tasty.

Bob opened the meeting before introducing yours truly as stand in president. I neglected to take minutes of my own comments before Bob asked for reports;

· We all extended our sympathies to Peter Hayes.

· Rob is looking for a Sergeant at Arms for next year. Talk to Rob if you would like to help.

· Bob indicated that we will go ten pin bowling before a meal at Bojangles next Thursday (8^th June).

· Brendan informed us that a Rotarian from the RC of North Balwyn has looked at our website, which makes it one more than from our club. Rotarian Hugo Goertz will be toasting us at the next RC of North Balwyn meeting.

· Bob announced the Doug Hazelwood cemetery walk has been rescheduled for the 14^th of June. We will tour through the cemetery before returning to the bowls club for lunch.

· Gerald asked for volunteers for the final Neil Porter Legacy automotive program visit next week.

· Nooka announced that he was still leading his own footy tipping contest with T-Bone, Rob and Dildo in second and Cuz in third.

Halfway through the reports a bowls club staff member closed the bar shutter down on the water dispenser which, in the absence of a guest speaker, added a bit of excitement to the meeting. Apparently bob has organised a guest speaker for next week, which is fortunate because the bowls club has only got one water dispenser.

Boré’s view.

The club’s shark billycart was recently rehoused. The shark was built, as I understand it, by Graeme Aberline and decorated by Boré. I recently heard an engineer say that he believed something would work and that ‘believing is engineering’. I think that is the sort of engineering that went in to creating the shark billycart. I will let Ron take up the story from here;

I can't remember exactly, but it was probably around 2004 and it was the first time the event (the Red Bull billy cart challenge) had been held in Australia. I transported the shark to Melbourne in my work van. Other Rotarians and partners to join Bev and I were Gary and Betty Ryan, David and Sue Smith, Graeme a Murial Aberline and our Brazilian exchange student, Caio, who drove the billycart.

Unfortunately our driver hit a hay bale during the first round and crashed out of the race. The night before the race we congregated at a Vietnamese restaurant in Richmond where Caio had much better luck with a table full of girls.

By the way, I have now joined the Stack App so my much-maligned phone has had an upgrade. It no longer is steam driven as claimed by Robbo and is now coal-fired. I was hoping to use renewable energy but it probably wouldn't get enough sun for 6 months of the year. However, it does have enough power to receive calls from India, China and Nigeria promising all sorts of things to my advantage. My phone also told me that last week's meeting was on the 31st of May and not June 1st as stated in the Central Spoke. Why would anyone pay more than $19 for a mobile phone???

We thank Boré for another wonderful cartoon.

Rotarians visit the 'Bool.

Your correspondent doesn't do social media. However, Sashi sent me this news story this week. Our President was right on to it.

Speeding.

Pip Ritchie has never received a speeding ticket. He used to get pulled over all the time but, when the police officer informed him how fast he was going, Pip informed the police officer that he was a Workcover inspector and asked the officer where his high vis vest was. It worked a treat. Pip reports;

Ten Years Ago.

Ten years ago, the club paid a vocational visit to Tim at Morse Engineering. Tim explained in engineering terms all that was wrong with the shark billycart. Apparently, believing is not engineering.

Our Club and Community Fundraiser 2023 NOV-APRIL

Building on 2021/2022 - Supporting ROMP

December 3^rd 10:00 AM leaving from The Pavillion.

Subscribe to our eBulletin and stay up to date on the latest news and events.

Click here to sign up!

Rotary International's statement of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

As a global network that strives to build a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change, Rotary values diversity and celebrates the contributions of people of all backgrounds, regardless of their age, ethnicity, race, colour, abilities, religion, socioeconomic status, culture, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

https://www.rotary.org/en/about-rotary/diversity-equity-and-inclusion

https://my.rotary.org/en/guiding-principles

Check out the latest Rotary International News here: www.rotary.org/en