Past President and Treasurer Bob, led the meeting with a near perfect rendition of "We are Australian", and our unofficial national song "Waltzing Matilda".

President Neil welcomed visitor Kim Addis, ex-Collie now of the Moranbah Rotary Club, and welcomed Donna after a long absence reintroduced herself to the meeting. Welcome back Donna.

The vocational interviews are now completed. Very good feedback on these from participants and teachers.  We had a vocational visit last week to Pilatti Transport and ended up being a very enjoyable night.

Youth - Confirmed the vocational interviews were found to be very worthwhile by those young people who attended.

PA System - was not able to get hold of Ben Magnolio, given most of the cost is to update the frequency allocation, we will go ahead with the quotes given. Hopefully the work can be done in the next few weeks.

Mark thanked all who assisted in the opening of the Tourist Mine and this is a great achievement for the club and the town.

Wuhan Gong - John attended a Collie Senior High School assebly with John Green, Mark Sanders and Sal Miletto.

 

The gong is a magnificent instrument and two pieces of music were played featuring the use of the Wuhan Gong. How this project came about was via a donation from John Green, a drummer with the former local band Incense and Peppermint. He used to run music classes for youngster on weekend for a gold coin donation. The gold coin donations were then passed to our club by John Green to "do something worthwhile". The club thought it fitting to use the money for a music education purpose. John Vlasich approached Lisa Lindsay who suggested the Wuhan Gong as it was out of reach of the school budjet. Our club contributed an equal amount and even though the exchange rate increased the cost we able to still get the gong at a reasonable price. Thanks go to Lisa Linsday for the idea and incorporating the gong into the school music program.

Attendance certificates for 2014-2015 - an item missed during the club handover was the recognition of those who had attended all meetings and make-ups where needed throughout the year. Bob presented certificated to Keith Martin; John Vlasich; Libby Hopkins; Keith Hopkins and John Bylund. President Neil also presented Bob with a 100% certificate. 

Treasure Bob gave feedback that the audit of accounts was in the hands of the Accountant. He has the portable computer on which the records are stored. These should be completed and back in the next few weeks.

Treasurer Bob reminded those members who have not yet paid their annual dues. Invoices have been issued and approximately 50% of members have paid. Members may bring cash to the meeting and can pay their $295 membership fee by bank transfer to BSB 633 000  Acc# 125080861 into the GENERAL ACC. 

President Neil requested members who have badges they are not using or interesting badges they wish to donate to Alice for her RYE Jacket.

It is a tradition of RYE's to gather as much weight in badges and medals on their jackets as they can in their exchange year.

Kim Addis our guest is a visiting Rotarian from the Moranbah Rotary Club in Queensland. Kim had worked in Collie and left when the underground closed in 1994. He gave an overview of the Moranbah club having 14 to 20 members depending on comings and goings throughout the year. They are fortunate in having their own clubrooms and are able to rent them to others for meetings and functions. They raise between $30,000 to $40,000 per year and the average age of members is 32.

Kim is a Paul Harris fellow and has been the Moranbah Club president four times.

The club doesn't put a great store on membership due to the transient workforce, but encourage "friends" and find mainly young people won't commit to long term membership, rather they prefer to get involved in projects as it gives them a mission and satisfaction for completion. However all members have at least one job. Most with two or more roles through the year.

The club sponsors 2 places each year on the Young Endeavour sailing program down the east coast, and has a number of fund-raisings such as getting free molasses for on-selling as cattle feed supplement. Kim is visiting relatives in collie and President Neil thanked Kim for his attendance and to Geoff Blackford for bringing Kim to the meeting.

 

Keith is organising a visit to another club and in discussion with the Manjimup club. It will either be a night meeting or a weekend meeting. A show of hands indicated the majority of members were interested in a visit to the Manjimup club.  Another visit being considered is to either a Sydney or Melbourne club, this will require some home hosting and only two members at the meeting had indicated an interest. Keith will raise this again in a few weeks.

Attendance - was 90% with one visitor, one RYE, one make-up and two absences.

Cards and Wheel - Keith had a few cards come his way with no result, but won the booby prize on the wheel. 

 

The question of the week relates to what theme month of the Rotary calendar is August and it is Membership month. 

Following an email to members earlier this week, members are asked to assist the Collie Cycle Club with extra Marshalls for this weekend's Collie to Donnybrook Cycle Race. They have found there are more participants and visitors than expected and need additional Marshalls to help.  Anyone with a few hours to help, let Geoff or Mark Paget know as they will be attending this Saturday.

There is an annual fundraisung by District called the Climb for a Smile that involves a race to the top of one of Perth's tallest buildings and via the sale of raffle tickets.  We have been sent 30 tickets at $10 each. Funds go to Rotary's Interplast program, Melanoma Research and Polio Plus. More information can be found here, and if you wish to purchase tickets see Steve smith. 

Welcome backs - Libby, Keith, Tony, Donna, Mark. Birthday - Neil, Badges - Donna and Kim, Late - Norm and Bernie, Cards - Keith Martin X 2, Wheel - Gary, Mark, Keith  and Doug, Left handers - more than the Bulletineer could count on one left hand, Box - John Bylund for Steve Smith who noted Damien was Chairperson of the Allanson path group, should have been chair person. Keith Hopkins for Keith martin on the altered playing cards. Joke about the husband who bought his wife something that could go from zero to 150 is a few seconds. A set of scales.

Turbine failures in Power Station's are extremely rare, but if they happen they can be catastrophic and very expensive. Martin Beottcher gave a presentation on the occurrences of steam turbine failures in power stations, showing some examples from around the world and how they occurred.

Steam turbines are very large machines that covert steam into kinetic energy, in turn driving a generator to output electricity. Problems can occur if the coolant, hydrogen is contaminated with oxygen, creating an explosive atmosphere. Or a turbine is run without load and overheating the blades, or many other fault conditions.

Fortunately these are very rare occurrences, but where these have occurred the damage can be severe and result in very costly repairs, not least the loss of electricity supply to communities for considerable lengths of time.

One of the main issues with turbine failures is sourcing replacement components, taking months, if not years to have components manufactured.  Australia has many different models of steam turbines and this means very little standardisation. So when a machine fails parts may be hard to source. Keeping spare parts is not usually needed and would be very expensive. Preventative maintenance, monitoring and servicing prevents turbine failures. (Ed. And that's why engineers get paid the big dollars!)  

Peter Ruben gave a vote of thanks to Martin on an interesting presentation and an aspect of power generation few of us would be aware.

 

A group to meet after the meeting.

Director's meeting on Wednesday 19th August at Pres. Neil's place.