Past President Brian Lane filled in for President Bob Booth who is on leave.
After the Acknowledgement of the Bundjalung and Gumbaynggir people, past and present, as the traditional custodians of the land we are meeting on we encouraged respect, appreciation and care for the nature of this special place that we live and work in, toasted Australia and France and observed.
Brian spoke briefly of the visit to Dougherty Villa men’s luncheon on 4 April where Bob Booth and Brian Lane met about 8 village residents. Bob has promised that we will run a barbecue lunch at the village for them on Thursday 2/5/19. A couple of more male Rotary members would be ideal.
Reminders were issued for the joint valley cluster meeting at Brushgrove on 11/4/19, Bunnings BBQ
on 13/4/19, and The Great Gatsby, the movie: Tribute to Spiro Notaras at the Saraton on 4/5/19.
Early notice was also given for the 11/5/19 Family Fun Bike Ride starting at Memorial Park.
Brian also mentioned that incoming board members should seriously consider going to the district
assembly on 2/6/19 at Mullumbimby.
District Conference Report. Bob Booth, David and Leila Thompson, Adrian van Ash, Peter Robinson
and Brian Lane attended the Lismore conference in late March. We had 16 members plus Theo, our Youth Exchange Student, at our meeting on 10 April 2019. All speakers were worthwhile and we had the chance to catch up with other Rotarians, and to pick the brains of others. Notable speakers included –
Clyde Campbell: explaining his role in developing robotics across the globe and dealing with a diagnosis of Parkinsons disease which has involved his role in setting up the Australian arm of Michael J Fox’s (US) program to fund the research of a cure for the disease, and partnering that work with Rotary District 9640.
Sarah Brown: with great laconic humour describing the creation of the Purple Bus, which provides remote area dialysis in NT, SA and northern WA, including actor Jack Thompson while on set in NT and how the service has grown from one truck with one staff member to many permanent sites with around 150 staff. The service was made possible by local indigenous people creating artworks that were sold through the NSW Art Gallery and others to generate substantial funds (over $1m) without government action. A fantastic achievement. The service has recently achieved Medicare approval and now runs successfully as an independent medical service, … and has also recently been recognised as having better treatment outcomes than many metropolitan dialysis centres. Sarah’s
address was interspersed with many comical references! She received a standing ovation, or was it
three!??? A standup comedian in the making!
Peter Drysdale: Spoke of RotaHomes in Fiji, the difficulties, the emotions and the successes. An
uplifting address to say the least. Raising people out of desperate situations.
Corrina Grace: Sustainable development in Central America was her topic, informed by her experience in watching how the authorities dealt with the aftermath of a volcanic eruption in Guatemala. A wealthy golf course was attended to, prior to a whole village of poor people many of whom did not survive with many injured and totally homeless. That injustice prompted Corrina to act through SERES to provide leadership for youth through education, aiming to build personal and
community resilience and to introduce regenerative agro ecology with a lead to enduring and sustainable livelihoods. Her address was emotional and uplifting too.
Prof Peter Silburn provided an update on the work of the brain research team that District 9640 supports and introduced PhD students working on the project.
The chief vet at the Currumbin Koala Sanctuary, Michael Pyne, spoke on their work noting that in the last ten years the number of koalas treated each year has grown from 5 to 400 per year. Leila will promote the sale of raffle tickets in support of the clinic.
Mention was also made of the cultural exchange group from the Phillipines, especially the colour, music and dance displayed by the team.
These are but a few inspiring examples drawn from the Conference. Attendance at future conferences is recommended.
On behalf of President Bob, Brian outlined a proposal that needs working up: Defibrillators for Grafton’s main streets. We need two or three volunteers to meet and work out whether we should create a project to provide defibrillators, like we saw demonstrated last week, in the Grafton and South Grafton CBDs in conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce noting that there are some
already in place in some businesses like Bunnings and Shopingworld (Bob has found an app where you can see what is available), work out how many would be needed, at what cost and over how many years if required, consult ambulance service perhaps, work out a publicity plan and make a presentation to the Board by say 31 May, or later if that suits the group. There could be an opportunity for businesses to sponsor some as a legacy for the community. We will review next
week.
Working with Children Checks. Reminder to arrange your check, for our YEP programme, if not already in hand and to let Amanda know when you are registered.
Des Harvey and Bill Paterson stepped in to extract some Fines as Sgt at Arms Camellia was an apology for the meeting.
Next week’s program: Judy Keeley, Dragon Boats on 17/4/19 and then Club Assembly on 24/4/19.
Item contributed by Brian Lane
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