Minutes.
Attendance: Nooka recorded twenty members and one guest in attendance. Our one guest was Ian Urquhart, who reported that he was ‘brought here by fraud’. Nooka claimed that it was ‘all accounted for’ and ‘working like clockwork’. Fair dinkum.
Meal: Frittata and salad. Perfect.
Sgt Trev tried to open the meeting by telling a joke about penguins however management kept turning up the music before Trevor could get to the punchline. They must know a dirtier version of the joke than Trev. Trev introduced our President and we were under way. In reports;
· James thanked members for contributing to the working bee at Bruce and Lorraine’s. Brendan extended his thanks also and advised us that another working bee before Christmas in likely.
· James also thanked those members who helped at the health volunteers expo.
· James asked for volunteers for a working bee to be auctioned off at the Merri School auction this weekend. Luckily a good number of members volunteered because the item is already printed in the school’s auction guide.
· Peter Hayes thanked Boré for his assistance of the Neil Porter Legacy.
· Hayesey also informed us that the primary school awards are going out now.
· James asked for a show of hands of members who receive Rotary Down Under. Most members have no idea one way or the other.
· Dillo knows a Sri Lankan chef who is looking for short term accommodation. If you are able to help, please let Dillo know. (If he can do string hoppers and paper dosas then I might have the perfect home for him – Ed.)
· Trev reminded members that the Hospital Auxillary will be seeking our assistance with a barbecue on the 19th of Feb.
Pip then introduced our guest speaker, Ian Urquhart. This was a surprise to members because we had no guest speaker scheduled. It was even more of a surprise to Ian, who didn’t even realise that Pip was taking him to a Rotary meeting.
Ian was a Rotary exchange student in 1962. He travelled by ship to the United States and then by train to Denver. Ian spent the year as an exchange student at George Washington High in Denver. At the time the Rotary Club of Denver had 400 members and ‘practically ran Denver’. The club now has about 100 members.
Ian described how influential the exchange year had been in his life. He ended up working in the travel industry and all his children travelled and did exchanges. He recently went to the 50th reunion of the high school class.
We thank Ian for sharing his experiences with us and thank Pip for the subterfuge that got Ian there. We prefer people to come to our meetings voluntarily, but it has never been essential.
A lively fines session included a fine for Gracey after he called an electrician to fix his fridge. The helpful sparkie suggested to Gracey that he plug it in to the power point. The barrel was drawn and Dillo very kindly donated his prize to our guest speaker. Thanks Dillo.
Ian was forced to come to Rotary against his will, but it all turned out well in the end.
