Another good fellowship meeting with 21 in attendance, including my wife Carol and Honorary Members Kevin and Uwe. We were well fed again with another 3-course meal prepared by Chef Kouma!
Neil Jones provided an update on his visit to our Sister Club Tauranga for their 80th Anniversary Celebrations. Neil had some issues with his flights to and from New Zealand, but made it there and back. The celebrations were attended by members of our other Sister Club Kasaoka – which in 2027 will be celebrating their 70th year – with a personal invitation for embers to attend to be made in the near future. Neil expressed that he had a great time with extended fellowship as well as being personally shown around the area. Neil provided a presentation to our club of a commemorative plate. A big thank you to Neil for representing Broadbeach at these celebrations.
Neil also provided an insight into his dog minding of his son’s dogs. This experience saw a visit to the Vet with one of the 2 dogs acting quite erratically. It turns out that the dog was high on methamphetamines, having licked or ingested a substance on their walks around Broadbeach. The Vet was not surprised about this when Neil explained where he lives and where he had been walking with the dogs. A fairly costly experience.
A big thanks to all members who volunteer their time – from cleaning and setting up The Hub, to Sausage Sizzles, Scooter Roster and Containers for Change. The last Sizzle took $2135, which was a great effort, with some members also performing double shifts – a big thank you for this. Colin is also doing an outstanding job with the Containers for Change with regular monthly amounts coming back to the Club Account. Thanks to the members for bringing their cans and bottles for Containers for Change – it is most appreciated. As are the tablet slides that are being collected to be recycled. Treasurer Noel also discussed the option of prepaying for meeting via the bank account – with this to be further pursued.
Our lucky winners on the night were – Raffle Bill Waller and Heads and Tails Grahame Werrell.
Harold noted that we have had a number of Mobility Scooters being returned as some of our recipients are reaching an age where they can no longer operate the scooter. The club is looking to allocate the returned scooters to worthy recipients.
Discussion was held into the cleaning and meeting set up at The Hub and it was noted that the Tuesday morning activity will continue for the remainder of this Rotary Year and from July the cleaning and set up will be conducted prior to the commencement of the meeting. A big thank you to all the members and their wives who are and have been involved in this activity.
Ron mentioned that he will be looking for some hosts for a Rotary Friendship Exchange Group from Arizona over the period 18-19-20 October 2025.
We also discussed our Changeover from the current Rotary Year to the next with Tuesday 17 June 2025 selected as the appropriate date and Chef Kouma is to be consulted on an appropriate Menu for the evening.
I trust that everyone has had an enjoyable Easter and we now roll onto meetings in May and June to conclude the current Rotary Year.
