President's Report

 

At today's meeting I chose to use an Invocation taken from the Peace Credo as used at the Royce Abbey Peace Oration last Sunday in Wagga.  This Credo is used around the world to Celebrate International Peace Day on 21st September.  District 9700 initiated a worldwide Peace Communities Program (in fact the late Tony Quinlivan of Kooringal Rotary Club founded this activity), which is now supported by Rotary Clubs all around the world.  It is included below.

 

Welcome back to Rob Fuller who has been cruising around the Indonesian waters with his family and Doug Sutton who has returned from his annual winter in QLD.  He highly recommends Canarvon George in Western Qld for a visit.

 

At our Board meeting this week we accepted the resignation of Wayne Jenkins who felt that work and family commitments must take preference at this stage.  Wayne has made a great contribution to the club over the last 4 years and he will be greatly missed.  Wayne is keen to keep the door open to re-join Wollundry if his circumstances change (something I completely understand!). Thanks to Ken Taylor for stepping up as Farmers' Market chair.

 

Membership attendance was also discussed at Board level and the Board made an amendment to a previous Motion that "Members are entitled to a meeting makeup if attending a Board approved Club activity of 30 minutes or more" rather than just a 'committee meeting'.  For clarification this will include events such as Markets, Festivals, working Bees and Club Approved meetings (ie District meetings etc) but will not extend to social functions such as Meal Deals etc.   Members are encouraged to report makesups to the Reception Officer when they arrive at the Weekly Meeting.  By way of interest Geoffrey Little (The Smiling Policeman for older members!) from The Rotary Club of Sydney told me at the Peace Oration that his club of 350 members only achieve 50 or so at each weekly meeting and don't bother recording attendances.  In fact I have found that many clubs in our District don't bother with attendance recording.

 

Our grand social experiment of rotating Sergeant's duties each week has failed so we have agreed to revert to a roster of 5 or 6 people.  Laurie would like anyone who is interested in this activity to let him know ASAP.  This is a fun activity which importantly helps raise $2500 each year for the Club.

 

Rob Fuller is calling for members to send him a suggestion for a possible new member.  Rob is happy to do the leg work with his Membership team so just send him some contact details and the "Salesmen" will do the follow up.  Remember there are probably plenty of people who would love to join our club and contribute to the community but only need to be asked. 

 

Our main activity for the day was a Club Assembly to discuss changes in the Markets.  Two motions were debated being:

 

1.  That the monthly Farmers' Market be expanded to include craft stalls"  Moved G Breust, Seconded Greg O'Hare.  Passed with no further discussion.

2.  That Wollundry cease running a regular Sunday Market"  Moved G Breust, Seconded John Ferguson.  Members spoke for and against and this motion was also carried.

 

The Farmers' Market committee have lots of ideas for rejuvenation and I am sure all members will support this enthusiastically.  It was pointed out that the Special Markets committee is charged with assessing the merits of running markets such as Australia Day, Xmas markets, Spring Fair etc and this will be assessed on a case by case basis.

 

Special thanks to Gail Smith for bringing along two dozen of Dick's great wines for the Club.

 

Geoff Hamilton