District 9465 Projects

Jamie has been a Rotarian for more than 11 years and is currently a member of the Applecross Club.  He reminded us that our International President said that people come to Rotary for different reasons, but stay because Rotary has made us better people - more community minded.  As Director of Projects, Jamie coordinates what a lot of dedicated Rotarians spend a lot of time working on.

 

At any given time during the Rotary year there are as many as 34 different projects on the go.  These are clustered under the different Avenues of Service:  Community, International, Vocational and Youth Services.  Jamie is supported by the chairs from each of those avenues of service:  Michael Raspa, Frank Wheel, Ray McKinnon and PDG Bob Cooper. 

 

Jamie spoke about Australian Rotary Health including scholarships for Indigenous Australians; Bowelscan; Donate Life just to name a few of the Community Service Projects.  He then went on to talk about the major projects under the umbrella of International Service and included RAWCs (Rotary Australia World Community Service) and RABS (Rotary Australia Benevolent Society) as well as Interplast, ROMAC, Shelterbox and others.  The four way speech contest, Shine on Awards are all part of the Vocational Service; and there were also a large number of projects that come under the banner of Youth Services as well.  Jamie felt that of all the projects he's been involved in the National Youth Science Forum is one of his favourites as it provides opportunities for budding scientists to really explore different opportunities within science. 

 

He would love to see the how enthusiasm that people have for their favourite football team could be channeled into developing better communities around the globe.  He also was very thankful that he lives in Australia as on recent travels he noticed an increase in homelessness in the USA and in China their crack down on smoking in public places could see you in prison for 2 years on your second charge of smoking in public.   Particularly in the USA he felt that without Rotary the community would suffer as there is a very high level of philanthropic giving by Rotarians there so that local community projects can be developed and run to the benefit of all.

 

His final words were:  Be grateful we are in Australia; be grateful we are in Rotary - because we do have the opportunity to help the world.

 

Thanks Jamie. 

 

[ED:  For more information about all the projects he mentioned and the others he didn't mention make sure you log onto the District website and go to pages 58 - 68 to see them all.  There are some there I'd never heard of, but am very impressed with.]