Our guest speaker last week was Issy Siebel who is a volunteer grief counsellor for the Crystal Lee Foundation. The Crystal Lee Foundation is a not-for-profit organization which provides counselling to anyone in the South West region who has suffered a bereavement. The Foundation also offers to meet the needs of a young person facing and end of life diagnosis whilst providing support, education, wellbeing and memories for their family and community. The Foundation was set up in memory of teenager Crystal Lee who died in 2019 from an aggressive form of adult cancer. Being a very young girl Crystal’s needs were very different to that of an adult facing the same fate. The foundation was set up by Crystal’s mother Jo Sinclair to offer acts of kindness to help with little things that become enormous when facing the end of a child’s life. Thank you Issy for your presentation and voluntary service.
The board are scheduled to have our monthly meeting on Tuesday 22nd June at City Memorial Bowls so we should have plenty of directors reports to present at Wednesday’s meeting. Speaking of which we will be meeting at the Central Court Motel on Wednesday 23rd June, 12.30 for 1pm. Please contact Mark McFadden on 0407 052 758 or email Mark.McFadden@roads.vic.gov.au to confirm your attendance by 6pm Tuesday 22nd June. Payment by card is preferred. However, there are a couple of rules that we must obey - masks need to be worn on entry (they can be removed when you are seated) and you will need to sign in (QR) at the door.
This week I won’t have to break glass for an emergency finemaster - Greg Allison has ‘volunteered’
The changeover dinner is fast approaching on Friday 2nd July at the Carmichael Room so if you have not indicated if you are attending please contact me
Cheers
Ronnie
Save the Date.
Our Changeover dinner will be held on Friday 2nd July in the Carmichael Room at the City Memorial Bowls Club. Pop it in your diaries now.
Minutes.
Attendance: Nooka launched his attendance report by advising members he is about to skip town for a while. He congratulated the as yet unnamed winner of the 2021 Feral Award. He also hoped your correspondent would attract a larger crowd than the current president, which seemed to be setting me up for a fall. Penno would up Nooka’s report by announcing that we had twenty-two members and one guest. Our guest was Issy Siebel from the Crystal Lee foundation.
Meal: Chicken curry, rice, poppadums and mixed thawed veg. Mine was parted to the left.
Penno opened the meeting with a very tasteful joke about Boré. Our President discovered that we had no visiting Rotarians before reporting that the director’s reports are now overdue. Brendan had submitted his report already, and was duly fined for this egregious efficiency. In other reports.
· Hayessey gave us an update on the Trade Fair. Please help Peter if you are able.
· Garry didn’t have a RYLA candidate, then he did, and now he doesn’t again. If you know anyone who is 18-25 and would be a good candidate, please let Garry know.
· Garry reported that in the footy tipping Glendon has 79 ‘theoretically’, KY has 78 and Sam is on 77.
· Doug anounced he will now be homeless until September. Doug might need to dress a bit better if he wants to be accepted by other homeless people.
· The President-elect advised members to expect an email this weekend with the proposed plan for 2021-22 attached. Please email anthony.davies@hotmail.com with your preferred email address if you don’t receive this. Have a look at the plan and email any feedback to the above email address, or discuss it with any of the incoming board members.
Our guest speaker was Issy Seibel. She spoke about the Crystal Lee Foundation, which was set up as the dying wish of Crystal Lee who died of cancer in 2019. We thank Issy for the important work that she is doing and for taking the time to talk to us.
Our wonderful President then conducted a fines session based on the theme of cheating in sport. We thank him for not mentioning the Swans, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Carlton, the Bulldogs, Essendon, Brisbane, St Kilda, the Kangaroos, Richmond, Collingwood, Freo, West Coast, Port Adelaide, Geelong and Adelaide’s past sanctions for salary cap breaches and various other forms of cheating. It’s a bit like professional cycling and Olympic sprinting; surely it isn’t really cheating if everyone is doing it.
Issy speaks to the club.
When it comes to setting up the microphone for Les, everyone is a comedian.
The fines session was unusually productive. The bullet was a nice touch.
Boré’s view.
Ronnie’s year as president is coming to an end. He has done a great job under very difficult circumstances that required almost constant adaption to an ever-changing situation. For any president, there is a component of both style and substance. Gerard’s substance has been excellent, but his style has also been very, very good. Our President has been channeling Richard Nixon all year with great success. Your correspondent hopes to bring a bit of a Kim Jong-un vibe to the role of President next year. However, I don’t expect to be able to pull off a Kim Jong-un effect with anywhere near the success that Ronnie has brought to his Richard Nixon impersonation. I have heard a whisper that Roger Stone now plans to get a tattoo of Ronnie on his back. Well done, Gerard.
Myeloma Support Group.
Our President has kindly sent us a copy of this flyer.
Personal Protective Equipment.
As someone who has been professionally trained in infection control and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), it has been interesting to watch the broader public try to come to terms with these concepts during the pandemic. PPE is all the stuff we use to keep us safe; gloves, masks, gowns etc. I have spoken to other people in healthcare, like nurses, ambos, who report similar bemused experiences. Of course, this isn’t a criticism. No doubt a mechanic would cringe at the way I maintain my lawn mower and a builder would shudder at my attempts to build and repair things around the house.
It does raise the question as to what problems may be improved now that people are more aware of infection control strategies and the use of PPE. Glendon has been turning his mind to this exact problem, and has come to an interesting conclusion.
Politics explained.
Here at the Central Spoke we normally avoid politics. However, our Politics editor Pip Ritchie delves into this controversial area this week. Pip, a former Past-President of the Bushfield branch of the Australian Sex Party, is a huge fan of Marx and Lenin; he loves the music of both Richard Marx and John Lennon. Pip writes;
A Russian Jew named Jacob was finally allowed to emigrate to Israel. At the Moscow airport, a customs inspector found a statue of Lenin in his luggage and asked, "What is this?"
Jacob replied, "Wrong question, comrade." You should have asked, 'Who is this?' This is Comrade Lenin. He laid the foundations of Socialism and created the future prosperity of the Russian people. I am taking it with me as a memory of our dear hero.
The Russian customs official sent him on his way.
At Tel Aviv airport, the Israeli customs official also asked, "What is this? "Wrong question, sir.” You should be asking 'Who is this?'. This, my friend, is Lenin, the bastard who caused me, a Jew, to leave Russia. I take this statue as a reminder to curse him every day.
The Israeli official sent him on his way.
When he settled in his new home, Jacob placed the statue on a table. The following evening, he invited friends and relatives to dinner.
Spotting the statue, one of his cousins asked, "Who is this?" Jacob replied, "Wrong question." You should have asked, 'What is this?' This is five kilograms of solid gold that I managed to bring with me from Russia without having to pay any customs duty or tax.
The Moral: "Politics is when you can tell the same story in different ways to fool different people and come out smelling like a rose."
Ten years ago.
Ten years ago we were mid-way through the AFL season and it was time to do the traditional coin toss. We reported back then;
This week Bob McMillan, in Nooka’s absence, conducted the mid-season ‘double or nothing’ coin toss. Bob selected Bomber as his coin tosser despite the fact that Eddie is arguably the member least physically equipped for the task. Eddie performed the task either phenomenally well, or very poorly depending on your point of view. The highlight was a toss which he juggled twice before landing it in his shirt pocket. Degree of difficulty 9.5.
From the point of view of most members, Bomber’s work with the coin was unbelievably good. His first eight tosses went in favour of members (there is only a one in 256 chance of this occurring), and the final count left members well in front. Ironically one of the few members to loose the coin toss was Bomber himself. Even some of the losses were actually gains for members. Lynchy was down 22 and, exploiting a legal loophole, lost the toss and had his $44 dollars reduced to the minimum $20.
Bob was not happy because he knows it might cost him his job. Nooka will be livid because it has cost him a lot of money. The other big loser is Rowan, who as mid-season winner stands to collect a percentage of the payout. Now Rowan will barely pocket enough to cover his fine for being silent.
Congratulations to Bob and Bomber on a job well done.
Central Spoke wine prize.
Last week we discussed our exciting new competition. Once a month a Central Spoke contributor will win and excellent bottle of wine. Our wine expert, Garry Askew, has chosen a Pirramimma 2016 Cab Sav. The tasting notes describe the wine as ‘rich beautifully textured…sweetly fruited and richly expressed…displaying excellent weight and intensity, leading to a lengthy smooth finish…at its best now to 2026.’ These are all sentiments that could equally be applied to the Central Spoke itself. The Central Spoke might be ‘richly fruited’, but it would be even fruitier if the censor would ever allow us to publish any of Lew Officer’s contributions.
Anyhow, Garry has selected a wonderful prize. We will announce the first winner at the end of July. You have to be in it to win it, so send us your contribution to the Central Spoke before the end of July.
