Dear Everyone,
The Laughing Fox Café was the venue for our 5th meeting of the month and everyone appeared to enjoy the Social Night with only a little business being raised. I hope to engineer a better hybrid meeting at our next meeting on Tuesday night and am seeking further help from District.
It was our Club’s 41st birthday last Sunday the 28th of March, and I received this very nice email from PP Suren Poruri:
Dear President Vicki Van Den Bergen,
This is Suren Poruri, Past President from RI District 3150, from India.
Your rotary club of Emerald & District was chartered on 28-Mar-1980 , which is today.
I would like to extend my warm wishes to you and to all your club members on this joyous moment.
Rotary is the only organization which has global foot print and is working towards happy communities across the world with its noble initiatives.
Thanks to our rotary club founder Rtn Paul Harris, we are able to make a difference in the communities where we live.
Looking forward to working with your club on service projects .
In Zone 8’s Rotary on the Move Newsletter April edition, I found the following interesting extract about the incoming Rotary International President and have reproduced it here for you:
‘SERVE TO CHANGE LIVES’ - Extracts from an RI website, article by Ryan Hyland.
Incoming Rotary International President Shekhar Mehta urged members to become more involved in service projects, saying that caring for and serving others is the best way to live because it changes not only other people’s lives, but also our own.
Mehta, a member of the Rotary Club of Calcutta Mahanagar, said “Rotary kindled the spark within me to look beyond myself and embrace humanity,” he said. “Service became a way of life for me and I, like many others, adopted the guiding philosophy that ‘Service is the rent I pay for the space I occupy on this earth, and I want to be a good tenant of this earth.’’”
I have heard the quote about service being “the rent I pay” before, at a District Conference I think, but it is a good one and it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it.
Mehta would like every member to bring one person to join Rotary by 1 July 2022 with his Each One, Bring One initiative.
I used the link in the 29th of March edition of “Open Doors” to register for the District 9810 Virtual Conference beginning at 2:30pm. on Saturday 1st of May. I know that it is a Market Day for us, but if we pack up very quickly, we’ll be able to just make it. With Tina’s assistance, Peter Dompietro has very kindly agreed to produce the 2-minute video of our achievements over the past twelve months for us to submit for the Conference. It would be fantastic if our video was one of the ones chosen to be shown.
The date for the 2021 Virtual Convention, Rotary Opens Opportunities, is from the 12th-16th of June. Registration will open in mid-April. After the Deb Ball, we can come home, put our feet up, and see the opening ceremony perhaps.
Have you started practising the Waggle Dance yet? The link to the website where the steps which we have to learn are demonstrated is:
https://youtu.be/dnGcKjt9gT8 Don’t forget we will be attempting the World Record for the Waggle Dance at the “Picnic in the Park” on the 15th of May for the Rotary Centenary Celebration at Jells Park Wheelers Hill from 10:00am. to 3pm. It’s BYO everything. See the flyer below.
We had all better start practising as there are a lot of steps!
Many thank you’s this week, to:
- Susi from the Community Service Committee, John Ritchie, Shalini and Onslow for delivering the Easter cards, Easter baskets and treats to Marc for the Lifeview residents.
- Lorna for being the Go-Between with the Pub and The Laughing Fox this week.
- Kris and Roy for producing the Market Plan document for the Board.
- Ian Wakefield for his ongoing work for our R100 celebration on Saturday 22nd of May.
- Kris for promotion of our R100 celebration on Facebook over the next few weeks.
- Catherine and the Marketeers for all of your work leading up to and on Saturday.
- Roy, Ali and Shalini for joining the Berwick Rotary Club on their vocational excursion to the nursery at Devon Meadows.
- Ros for her monthly report on the Club’s activities in our three community newsletters.
**This Tuesday night, on the 6th of April, our guest speaker is Salwan Shahine, Youth Service Chair from the Rotary Club of Doncaster talking about Earlyact and Interact. You’ll learn a lot about the amazing projects the youngsters are engaged in and their capacity for empathy.
**Next week: on the 13th of April, AG Brian Hodgson will be launching our Cluster’s outstanding Youth Wellbeing Project. 🥁🥁🥁🥁🍾🥂
Bev and David from SALT, guests from the schools the project will be aiding, and the delightful Rotarians from the Belgrave and Monbulk Clubs will all be attending, an important meeting not to be missed!
**The following week: on the 20th of April, our guest speaker is none other than DGE Dr. Daryl Moran talking about his book “Empire’s Noble Son” about an Australian WW1 pilot.
So, there is a lot to look forward to this month.
Enjoy the Easter break, then come join us at The Paradise for a great night!
Stay safe and stay Rotary Even Prouder.
Yours in Rotary,
Vicki.
