A highlight of our first meeting for 2026 was seeing Lew looking dashing in his new glasses.  The first thing I want to acknowledge is that Sashi has instructed me to handle this subject with the utmost sensitivity.  No doubt Boré received the same advice from Anita.

 

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of Lew with his stylish new glasses.  So, for those few members who could not be there last Wednesday, allow us to paint the picture for you. 

 

Lew’s new look is definitely rocking a Brains from The Thunderbirds vibe.

 

 

Mmmm, the shape of the glasses doesn’t seem quite right.  Maybe Lew’s new look is more like Rob Sitch’s impersonation of Brains in his first ever TV appearance on Hey Hey It’s Saturday.

 

 

That is pretty close, but I think we can do better.  Let’s call in the expert.  Take it away Boré.

 

 

We commend Lew on his new look and thank Boré for another great cartoon.

 

Attendance: Nooka recorded an excellent attendance of 28 members and two guests, which he noted was ‘some sort of record for this year’.  That sounds impressive but it was also the first regular meeting for the year, so an attendance of two would also have been the record.  Our two guests were Uncle Pip’s niece Amanda and Uncle Tony’s nephew Preshaan.  Interestingly, Amanda had just been admitted to Rotary but had yet to attend her first meeting in her home town in Michigan.  Our meeting was her first as a Rotarian.  Welcome to Rotary Amanda.

 

Meal: Roast beef. 

David Jellie surveyed the room and decided it was best to go with plan B in the joke department.  We were still treated to an excellent selection of lawyer jokes.  Robbo arrived late, perhaps deliberately. 

President Bono returned from fighting fires to report;

In other reports;

Our guest speaker Commander David Ferguson from the CFA was very understandably unavailable.  Brendan stepped in to give us an excellent update on the fire situation in Victoria and his recent experience working at the big fire near Albury.  We thank Brendan for his service with the CFA and for his report.

 

The barrel was drawn and Paul Reilly bagged the rich prize purse on offer. 

Bono reminded members that next week’s meeting will be down at the Hole-in-one competition. 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday and Sunday members were out in force collecting and recycling containers at the Red Hot Summer Tour.  It was a long hot day.  This was good for drink consumption but also a challenge for those members helping on the day.  Many people reported being genuinely exhausted by the end of the event.  What a great effort from everyone who pitched in on the day!

 

Our final total was 19,513 containers collected and recycled, raising more funds for important Rotary projects.  Special mention needs to made of how good the festival goers were in general about not putting general waste into our recycling bins.  Well done and thank you to all those patrons who did the right thing.  

 

 

 

 

Last weekend saw the first trial of our brand new Bonomatic 2000 motorised recyclable container discombobulater ('Patent pending' - DJ).  The Bonomatic 2000 has been beautifully designed by our illustrious president, Brendan, and expertly fabricated by Woodhams Engineering with financial support from the Lane Foundation.  We thank them all.

 

We had our first chance to try out our new machine and test it in action.  The trial produced a few small suggestions for improvement, but over all it was a great success.  About half a dozen of us sorted 10,000 plus containers in less than 90 minutes using the new device.

 

The Bonomatic 2000 can be limbered and towed as a trailer, and then unlimbered for use in just a few minutes.  The automatic bin lift removes the difficult physical task of lifting the sometimes heavy bins.  The conveyor automatically delivers rubbish into a bin so we no longer need to handle all the debris mixed in with the containers.  The contraption runs off 240V mains power but can be run off a car vehicle-to-load outlet if we do not have access to mains power, allowing us to use the device in virtually any location.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul has kindly sent us these figures of our can recycling from the start of the program in November 2023 until now.  Our Red Hot Summer Tour figures are not included.

 

 

Ten years ago, we began promoting another Voices for Peace concert.  These concerts, that ran for about a decade, were a wonderful part of our calendar.  The concerts largely came about through the efforts of Rob Coffey.