April is designated by Rotary as a month to focus on Child and Maternal Health. We are a month ahead of ourselves having been down to Loved and Shared Grand Opening and hearing from Matt McConnell from We've Got You. Check out some RI projects for April from around the world here: https://www.rotary.org/en/rotary-projects-around-globe-april-2023
The line-up for guest speakers is empty, if you have someone in mind please let myself and Brendan know. We've had some really interesting guests along so far!
The Rotary Club of Warrnambool have put a call out for quality books and puzzles for their book sale coming up, if you have some to donate bring them to lunch and we'll organise them to get to the club. Thanks to Greg for organising with Brooke and to everyone that attended the dinner to hear Milie present on the NYSF. Looks like a great night was had!
Pres Elect Rob has booked the Lady Bay for Changeover dinner on July 8th. Please RSVP, partners and friends are welcome. More details to follow...
The RI International Convention in Melbourne is fast approaching, it will be an outstanding convention, hosted by D9800. It's an amazing experience, albeit without the flavours of new geographical location, it's well worth the $$ and time. Let me know if you are coming along too.
I hope your Easter is filled with good food, happiness and recharging. For all of us missing loved ones I hope you are surrounded with kindness and happy memories. It can be tough to have these holidays missing them, we are all here for each other, just a phone call away.
I hope you can come along on Wednesday, RSVP today, it'll be great to see you all.
Matt went to the Loved and Shared official launch and kindly sent us these snaps.
One thing we cannot abide at Warrnambool Central Rotary is people getting Ronnie Barker's name wrong.
Minutes.
Last Tuesday night we joined the Rotary Club of Warrnambool at the Warrnambool Football club to hear Millie Barling and Fina ‘Ayya’ Maulyda talk about their experience at the National Youth Science Forum. It was great to be included in the Warrnambool Rotary Club’s weekly meeting and they were very generous hosts. Millie and Ayya’s presentation was fascinating. I must admit that I had not previously realised what an amazing program the National Youth Science Forum was. The National Youth Science Forum; another wonderful Rotary project that I had not previously fully appreciated. Brendan has kindly sent us some snaps.
We thank Millie and Ayya for representing us at the National Youth Science Forum and thank them both for taking the time to speak to us about the program. We thank the Rotary Club of Warrnambool for hosting us at their meeting. We also thank Greg for arranging Millie to go to the NYSF and then organising this presentation meeting.
Correction number 1 - Boré’s View.
Here at the Central Spoke we pride ourselves on our accuracy. We always correct errors when they are pointed out to us, which happens a lot. All the time really. Recently we published a cartoon showing Bim Affleck wearing the slouch hat of the Australian infantry. Bim, who tells us his nickname as a younger man was 'Choppers', quickly corrected us.
No, when Bim completed his years of military service, he was proudly able to return his boots to the quartermaster in exactly the same condition as they were issued to him in. Bim was a turret head and proudly wore the famous black beret of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps. Our apologies to Bim. This week Bore corrects the record with a new cartoon of tanker Affleck.
We thank Boré for another wonderful cartoon.
Correction number 2 – RC of Alfredton gets the job done.
Last week I reported that the Rotary Club of Alfredton had not placed their jigsaw piece in the puzzle at the District Conference. It turns out my judgment was too hasty. The District Governor Kathy Rivett, who is an avid reader of the Central Spoke, writes;
Alfredton did have their piece there - we just wanted to be the last piece put in...
Cheers
Kathy
Thanks Kathy. I should never have doubted the Rotary Club of Alfredton; only the best people live in Alfredton.
Rotten Advice.
Rotten Ron returns this week with some excellent advice which he feels applies to club members.
Rotary Horse Racing report.
When I proposed buying a share in an inexpensive racehorse several years ago, I had modest hopes. I hoped that the horse would run in mid-week country race meetings, maybe win the odd non-feature race. If we were really lucky, maybe win enough to cover our training fees and have a bit of fun along the way. These were realistic dreams. If someone had told me they hoped our horse would dominate group races and run in a group 1 feature race at Royal Randwick in Autumn, I would have thought them to be a deluded fantasist. However, this is the dream we are now living.
Life will throw at us its fair share of misfortune and difficult times. So, it is important to celebrate the successes when they come. Sirileo Miss will run in the group 1 Queen of the Turf/Coolmore Legacy at Randwick on Saturday. Let us pause to savour the moment. Let us also take a moment to thank all the hard-working people at Wilde Racing, who’s efforts have made this experience possible for us.
I know some members of our syndicate are travelling to Sydney to watch the race live. I wish them safe travels. To our syndicate members, where ever you will be watching the race from, good luck! To those Rotarians not in our syndicate, I hope you have enjoyed following Sirileo’s journey all the same.
Fingers crossed and bring on Saturday!
Pleonasms.
In the last piece I used the term ‘deluded fantasist’. This is an example of a pleonasm. A pleonasm is a phrase that includes a redundant word or words; that is, a part of the phrase that is unnecessary because it is already implied by the remainder of the phrase. The English language is full of them. Some examples include;
See with my own eyes / hear with my own ears.
Agonising pain.
Moral and ethical.
ATM machine.
PIN number.
Boiling hot water.
Free gift.
False pretenses.
Cooperate together.
Nape of the neck.
Arancini ball.
English scholars generally don’t regard pleonasms as mistakes, just quirks of our language. Once you start thinking about pleonasms, you might start noticing a lot more of them. Pleonasms; another true fact brought to you by the Central Spoke.
Ten Years Ago.
Ten years ago, we had a club homepage on Club Runner, just as we do today. At the time the page was managed by our hard-working Charter President. Members of the public visiting our homepage would have discovered that our President-elect was ‘North Northeast’, our Secretary was ‘Chill Blain’, our Program Director was ‘Mr Bean King’, our Outbound Exchange Councilor was ‘Macca McLaughlan’ and the person in charge of attendance was ‘The Cutter Bray’. Good work Bruce.
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.
