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From the Editor Good afternoon to all my fellow Mornington Rotarians and Partner's, I hope all is going along OK for you and your families. Well the Melbourne Winter is very fast approaching and I can certainly vouch for this as over my three week holiday both Jenny and I were "caught out somewhat" by the Wintery Blast from the South. Over my absence, I now return to Rotary duties to see a lot of activity within the Club from the Community Chair and also a lot of items of business being actioned from our incoming President Elect young Pam. Well done and a big thanks to Ian, Ross and Pam for your fantastic support over the past three weeks. Also a big thanks to our current Guest Speaker Guru, young Joe, for " mustering up" some great and very informative Speakers to our Club Meetings. Pity about the presentations that we are seeing from the Eagles.  The Moondah Project Just on 12 months ago a meeting was held at the Morningtonton Community Support Centre were Ross K, Brian M, Cameron G, and the newly appointed CEO of the Centre young Ben Smith sat down to discuss a number of joint Rotary and Community Centre current and upcoming Community events. It was there that Ross presented a folder with the name "Moondah". Since that initial meeting over 12 months ago a tremendous amount of work from the three keys players in this project being Mornington & Mt Eliza Rotary Clubs and The Mornington Community Support Centre has now resulted in the current (as we speak) Moondah Project in full swing. This project has been steadily building up to this point and only last week we saw one of the three online Auctions commenced. The lead in work in sourcing an Auctioneer was an quite extensive investigation, the need to catalogue and sort out the good from bad the literally hundreds of items to go under the hammer was a mammoth task. All this work from the many volunteers has from all accounts has "paid off ". A recent dot point brief from Ross, as detailed below, last week, highlighted the major points of this project: - A win for the Mornington Community Support Centre. Last week’s auction raised nearly $5k and we expect more this week and even more the following week. This week’s on-line art auction looks to already have a lot of activity before closing Tuesday night. Before the auctions started around $1k had already been donated by people for furniture, and furniture was provided to the Centre itself for its own use. I strongly believe we have built goodwill towards the centre including with Ryman.
- A win for Rotary. Ryman and the Centre both recognise and appreciate the great work put in by many Rotarians – over 50 days so far. Well done, especially to so many who have done so many days. !
- A win for the buyers. Around 40 buyers who picked up goods last Thursday and Friday, many with trucks and trailers, were very, very happy with what they had bought. Most had not sighted it prior and had come from off the Peninsula to collect it.
- A win for the environment. We now have avoided truckloads of stuff going to landfill or simply being demolished.
- A win for Ryman Healthcare. They have been able to clear a lot of furniture but also communicate with the many local visitors who have been to simply have a “sticky-nose”.
 .  . Mornington Rotary - Annual Change Over Function With the end of the 2022-2023 Rotary year very, very, fast approaching us, our Club's Annual Change Over Function has been scheduled to take place on Wednesday 28th July 2023, so if your are free please pencil in this date in your diary. Our Club Change Over will be held at our own local Mornington Community House on Wilsons Road. The formal invitations are being finalised and will be sent out within the next week, so keep an"eye out" in your e-mail in-box. Guest Speaker Last Wednesday evening we had the pleasure to invite Snr Const Neil Prosser from the Mornington Pro Active Police Unit. Neil commenced his presentation with a brief self bio were he informed us of his move from the UK some 8yrs ago to Australia whereby he sort a career in VIC POL. Since then Neil has served at a number of Stations in Melb and now is involved with the Pro Active Police Unit located within the Somerville Police Complex. The unit that Neil heads up is indeed a very special and extremely interesting aspect of Police Community involvement. What Neil and his team do is actively engage with the younger teenage members of our community that have for one reason or another "gone off the rails". Their focus is to engage and foster positive relationships with the younger members of our community that have and continue to experience the devastating physical and physiological effects of Family Violence, that can in many cases lead to crime, drug abuse and removal from school and society in general. The unit provides counselling and support services to these adolescents in need, at to this end Neil and his team have gone that one " big step" further by instigating Project Enduro. What this project provides is an outlet to involve the teenagers with the opportunity to come together, on a regular basis (weekly) to experience the participation in riding Dirt/ Enduro Motor Bilkes. The track & bike centre is located in Hastings and operates on a volunteer basis from the supply of the Motor Bikes, to the use of the Track etc. The main purpose is to present not only a physical challenge but the most important aspect that goes far beyond a ride on a dirt bike is the need for theses young teenagers to "engage", that is: the requirement to have to conform to the rules and governance of the event, the need to help out their fellow members, to be able communicate effectively with their peers and those in authority, which has been a major negative aspect of their home life and in many cases their past experiences with the Police. Neil passed on (with immunity) a number of examples of some truly terrible experiences the you adolescents have experienced and the change, via such projects as Project Enduro, which takes many, many months with the aim in some way to change thier lives for the better. An extremely moving and uplifting presentation. All our members who were present last week expressed their gratitude and admiration for what Neil and his team do for our Community. Well done and a fantastic Community Police Project.  Guest Speaker (r) Snr Const Neil Prosser with our Club Host Ken Bilham. Upcoming Club Meetings As the 2022 - 2023 Rotary Year draws to a close there are still a number of informative Guest Speakers and events left to attend, so please keep your Wednesday evenings free, you may have to rug-up to venture out and the young Parkinson lad has been directed to "go out and close the front door at the bottom of Main Street ". a. Club Meeting, this week, Wed 31st May 23 , No Club Meeting at The Mornington Hotel instead our Club Members support for The Bays Hospital by attending their Health & Wellbeing Program at the New Peninsula Baptist Church, on 370 Craig Road - Bookings are essential b. Club Meeting, Wed 07th June, Mornington Hotel, Guest Speaker - Ms Lydia Burrowes from the McKillop Family Services. Empowering children, young people and families so they can heal from past trauma and develop to their potential. c. Club Meeting, Wed 14th June 23, Mornington Hotel, Guest Speaker - Ms Jade Phelan, current CEO of The Bays Hospital d. Club Combined Board Meeting, Wed 21st June 23, Members night free "no Club Meeting" e. Club Change Over, Wed 28th June 23, Our Formal Club Change Over evening function at The Mornington Community House Presidents Report - 26th May 2023 Club Business By now all members will have received an e-mail in which I notified all active Club Members of the upcoming increase in our Club Annual Subscription’s for the Rotary Year 2023 to 2024. As a Rotarian we pride ourselves in being involved in a non-for-profit organisation with a 100% volunteer ethos, but having said that we now find that Rotary, at Club, District and Zone levels, is not immune to the current world wide situation that we now witness and experience, every day, being an increase in all financial facets of our life. Our Clubs Change-over is only a few weeks away and over the past month there has been and continues to be a very smooth transition whereby key Board positions involved in managing Club Business matters are being jointly administered. Pam and her new Board are very, very much “on the ball “and our Clubs future is well and truly in good hands. As we speak the 2023 Rotary International Convention is currently under way and our home city of Melbourne is the host for this major event on the Rotary Worldwide calendar. We have two members, from our Club, attending the Convention which is being held from Thursday 25thMay 23 to Wednesday 31st May 23, inclusive. We look forward to hearing from our President Elect, Pam Hall, in the near future at our Club Meeting, with an overview into the major highlights of the Convention. Last week on Wednesday the 24th May 23, our current Community Chair represented our Club at the Bunnings Community Network evening. This forum is a great initiative from Bunnings in that it allows a vast array of Community Organisation’s in our local area to come together and present and network by displaying all the great things we do for our local community. From all accounts the evening was a great success with some 20 local organisations attending. We look forward to hearing from Ross via a brief presentation of the evening’s events. Well done Ross and a big thanks for representing Mornington Rotary at this important event. At our Club’s Board Meeting, two weeks, ago, the Community Report was quite extensive and detailed. A number of items were presented, and I would encourage all members, if you have not already read the Minutes of the Meeting, to cast your eyes over the items. There are quite a few major items / projects on the go within our Clubs Community involvement and this is extremely pleasing to see. Well done to Ross and his Committee. |
