The morning started with an address by DG Terry Brown followed with the presentation from the Group Cultural Exchange (GCE) Team from the Philippines (District 3780). They gave us a lively, informative and entertaining presentation of and dance of their city and the Philippines.
The next speaker was Prof Peter Silburn who spoke about the effect of deep brain stimulation and who has now performed over 1000 of these operation and is in the forefront of this research in the world. He spoke to us about the effectiveness of such treatments and how they striving to improve on them, by showed us video clips of before and after such operations for a number of neurological conditions.
This was followed by Dr. Andrea Giorni the first Human Brain Research Scholarship awardee who has now graduated. He spoke about being able to locate single brain cells and how they can be used. The next scholarship holder is Samra Naz who is researching efficacy and best timing of all these procedures. The Human Brain Research Project provides scholarships of $25000 pa for students while they study for a PhD. The Club has contributed to this project and its marvelous to see how such treatment can help so many people effects by these debilitating diseases.
The next was Dr. Michaek Pyne, Senior Veterinarian and General Manager of the Currumbin Wildlife Hospital. The Hospital is caring for a growing number of injured Koalas , these have grown over the years to ca 400 last year. The described the causes of injury and the chances of saving the Koalas and returning them to the wild.
The Conference finished up with a presentation of the next Conference will be in Tenterfield, with a decidedly Scottish slant.
The Conference was reviewed by the representative of the Rotary International President was Past Rotary International Director (PRID) Don Mebus a Texan, who gave during past few days of the Conference some instructive talks about membership and the functioning of Rotary, but most of all he entertained us with appropriate songs about Rotary. His final talk on Sunday reviewed the Conference in word and song.
So concluded an enjoyable Conference, I encourage all to enjoy this Rotary experience next year in Tenterfield.