Hugh Campbell provided these photos from the recent Riverina hay drive for drought stricken farms in Queensland. A huge thanks to our members who assisted.

A further drive  may be arranged in April.

 

 

Chairman of the Food & Wine Festival, Tim Barter gave a report on this year's preparation which seems to indicate that this years will be bigger and better than ever. He encouraged all members to nominate for vacant time slots on the rosters. Tim reinforced to all members, that this event is our most important fund raiser for the year and now with the demise of the weekly Sunday Markets, members have fewer Rotary commitments.

Many of the hard physical tasks of stage and fence set up have also been lessened and taken on by other volunteers such as recruits from 1 RTB Kapooka.

At next week's meeting a spreadsheet will be displayed and all members are requested to support this great Wollundry Rotary event.

 

The announcement of this year's beneficary will be made at the showrooms of Riverina BMW on Friday morning, 12th February at 10am.

The media will be present and refreshments will be served. Members in club white shirts are invited to attend.

 

I sat in on a Food & Wine meeting last week and was impressed with the business like manner that Tim and Paul run their meetings.  There were 12 or so members helping out (and Jo Carlisle the Social Media guru).  The committee are doing a great job and I am confident this year's Festival will be a great success.  I would encourage you to add your name to the roster and perhaps ask your partner to help out as well.  It is a great event and one of the most enjoyable ways to demonstrate "service above self".

 

The committee have chosen the successful applicant for the major donation from the event and this is to be announced on Friday to the community.  The recipient will be The Wagga Wagga Rescue Squad for a Jaws of Life machine to help in vehicle accidents.  This organisation have applied unsuccessfully in the past for funding and are delighted to be successful this year.

 

At our Club Assembly we discussed the following items:

 

1. Collecting and recording Club manuals, lists and procedures.  As each committee has a certain way of doing things the Board feel it is important to document this for future reference.  Paul Murray has set up a "Committee Section" within Club Runner and we will organise a training session one evening for all Committee chairs to show you how to collect and upload these vital documents.

2. Market Duties - as our Club has been approached to run a weekly Farmers Market and we are already involved in the provision of tents mid-week members were invited to express their thoughts on this issue.  The majority of members felt we should keep our market/festival commitments to weekends and still offer to provide tents mid week from time to time, with members being asked to volunteer for the mid week activity.  Clearly many members have work commitments and would not be happy with the Club taking on a regular mid week obligation.

 

Geoff Hamilton.

President Geoff opened the meeting in traditional style with the dulcet tones of Peter Clucas leading us in the singing of Rotary Grace and then we acknowledged the great nation of Australia and the Queen.

Geoff welcomed 51 members and guests.

He then moved and it was seconded by the meeting that $1500 be donated to the Combined Ashmont Churches for their Schools Breakfast Program.

 

President Geoff then called our delightful exchange student, Kat to the microphone and she gave a summary of her life at present; going back to school-fantastic! Parties! and now living with her new Wollundry parents Louise and Jonty Shuter and their recently returned daughter from her Austrian Rotary exchange, Heidi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our much maligned but highly competent and cooperative treasurer, David Pyke returned a great round of 70! May there be many more David!

 

President Geoff-Member Profile

 

Geoff was born in Cootamundra and raised on a farm at Illabo attending Illabo public school - then off to Scots College in Sydney for 6 years of boarding.  Following that he studied Agricultural Engineering at Melbourne University and went farming both at Illabo and Condobolin.  One of his memories of farming at Condo was burning a 250hp Steiger tractor on the farm when something went wrong clearing the land - an expensive bonfire!

The family ran into financial difficulties with foreign currency loans in the mid 1980s (Aussie interest @ 18%, Swiss Francs @ 6% - never mind exchange rate movements!) both farms were sold and Geoff headed off to Perth to work for the Kondinin Group - a farmer organisation that published books and magazines, including "Choice" style consumer surveys and reports on tractors and farm machinery.  Geoff has edited a number of books on the subject including one on Shearing Sheds and Sheep Yards.

 

He and Jan first met at Uni but when farming Jan spent a bit of time on "the interchange bench" but they married prior to moving to Perth. They both moved back to Wagga in the early 1990s and set up their first childcare centre which grew to 8 centres in the Riverina before selling to ABC Learning.  Following that they developed 34 sites for ABC in regional areas (and had a team in the US) but this ended in tears when ABC went broke post GFC.  From disaster springs opportunity and Geoff and Jan purchased 23 childcare centres from the Receivers going from 2 employees to 600 overnight.  Having spent 5 years turning this business around they sold the group a few years ago and invested in new businesses including a farm in Tassie (where they will move permanently later this year) and Proway livestock equipment in Wagga.  They also co-own HeliSpirit in the Kimberley which has 20 helicopters for tourist work.

 

Geoff and Jan have 3 children, Claire who is a chemical engineer with Shell in the Netherlands, Lachy who has recently finished bio-medical science and Dougall who is studying at Yale in America.

Sergeant, John Gray started proceedings with fining last week's sergeant, Paul Milde by accusing him of "cheating" because of his record haul of fines. Paul was fined again for wearing a thong and a shoe-was it the result of overindulgence!?! Rob Nicholson, the fine collector was then fined for being too courtesy with the masses and trying to take over the fine session. Kerry Pascoe was fined" in absentia" for the annual anniversary of his last meeting he attended. Where are you Kerry? The Sarg then reeked revenge on "Captain Calcutta" for last week's "white wash" incident. Neil was fined heavily due to the fact that boasting about India's recent victory over Australia was nothing to crow about as even New Zealand can beat the Aussies! 

 

The Sarg then went about fining all the golfers in the club by quoting from a recent publication he was given to promote "Better Golf for The Desperate"

John is pictured reviewing the more relevant chapters:

Chapter 1 How to properly line up your fourth putt.

Chapter 2 Proper excuses for drinking beer before 9 am.

Chapter 3 How to relax when hitting three of the tee.

Chapter 4 How to relax when hitting five of the tee.

Chapter 5 When to give the curator the finger!

 

The book also includes some Golfing Terminology:

A Paris Hilton- an expensive hole!

A Rock Hudson-thought it was straight but it wasn't!

A Cuban-needs one more revolution!

An Adolf Hitler- two shots in the Bunker!

A Princess Grace- should have taken a driver!

A Princess Di- shouldn't have taken a driver!

 

 

 

Wollundry Rotary Club is a major sponsor for the Help Cambodia 2016 Charity Ball .

Contact one of the following members and get on one of the tables of 10 .

Peter Clucas , Doug Sutton , Geoff Breust , Tim Barter

The ball will be held on March 5th