I hope this newsletter finds you in good spirits and health.
We enjoyed a very pleasurable meeting last week at Flem-Ken Bowling Club.
Members were very pleased to welcome and hear from Cathy Connop, Manager of the Farnham Street Neighbourhood Learning Centre.
Members also shared news and updates on various projects and members.
Our thoughts continue to be with John Sklenar following his wife Anna's severe stroke earlier this year. John reports that Anna is now out of bed and able to sit in a wheelchair although progress is slow. We wish them both every good wish.
Calling for Member Support:
As we look to explore the sponsorship of Interact and Rotaract clubs, I am eager to involve our members in this endeavor. I invite all of you to put your hand up and join me in making this initiative a success.
If you are interested in assisting with this project or have ideas to share, please get in touch with me or our new Youth Chair Jeff Weitzel.
August evening meeting Wednesday 16th 4pm start-->
This meeting will start with a tour of the new Flemington Hub in Debneys Park.
Justine Jones, the Hub coordinator will lead us on a tour of the new 2-storey building which contains a number of meeting spaces, a commercial kitchen and 3 community halls which open into a large space for bigger events. There are also small meeting rooms, a kiosk and sporting facilities.
It is our hope to be able to use a meeting space for our events and meetings in 2024 once catering is finalised. See map on the Moonee Valley website.
For more information, contact Lesley.
Then, dinner at Sahara in Kensington. RSVP to Shraddha.
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NATIONAL TREE DAY
Drew, Haruka, Jo, Shraddha and Samira, Lesley, Anne, Janet and Alex joined members from Rotary Keilor East, the Friends of Steele Creek, guides, scouts and several hundred members of the local community environment groups in this MVCC organised event.
Congratulations to Milly Burke, council's programs officer for her amazing efforts.
Holes were pre dug and seedlings placed ready for planting by MVCC workers.
There were a number of displays and supportive booths available including activities for children.
Uncle Dave gave a wonderful Welcome to Country with a traditional smoke ceremony using local leaves. He gave us a wealth of information about the basis for the welcome and what it actually means.
This was a very successful day in terms of planting, environmental efforts, networking and community engagement.
Haruka attended the tree planting event for National Tree Day and met several members of Rotary Keilor East including Michael Donnelly, a former teacher of Japanese.
She experienced her 1st tree planting,
1st Welcome to Country and
1st Rotary sausage!
Her classes have started, and she has been busy connecting with former Global Scholars Mei Maruyama. a Master of International Studies here in 2010 and Kat Oborne who was a Global Grant scholar in the USA in 2021-2023.
She will attend the Keilor East Rotary 40th birthday this weekend and visit the Rotary Club of Melbourne on Wednesday 16th for lunch.
Members are encouraged to take Haruka along to any events or activities they have planned. AFL anyone? She is keen to see more of Melbourne and Victoria.
Please contact Lesley or Drew for her contact details.
TAC L2P Car Project:
I am also excited to share that the TAC L2P car our club sponsored is currently on a ship in Port Melbourne and should arrive in the next couple of weeks. We will be organising a launch date with the council in late August/early September to kick off this project.
Emma Phillips from MVCC will join us in September to speak more about the car and join with RYDA and the program coordinator Anton Hockey.
ROTARY LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE aka RLI - save the dates!
It is on again in October. A fabulous Rotary learning experience led by PDG Julie Mason.
Learn about some of Rotary's history, how clubs, districts and zones work. Develop some additional leadership knowledge and practical ideas t help, find out how to get Rotary grants, how the Foundation works and ideas and tips to build public image and promote your club and what you do. ZOOM: Saturday the 7th 10-12 noon Saturday the 14th 10-11 am Saturday the 21st 10-11am.
Registration is essential and a link will be available soon.
Peter Cribb forwarded a wonderful story about playgrounds from the ABC South Australia which told the story. The playground from Port Lincoln will be managed by the Rotary Club of Mount Barker which Peter has dealt with previously.
Are you stashing away old mobile phones in your bottom drawer? You're not alone! Only 1 in 3 of us have recycled a mobile device and it's estimated Australians are collectively holding on to more than 4.9 million old phones, with an average of two unused mobiles in every household.
Did you know over 95% of the materials in a mobile phone can be recovered for reuse? It means that fewer raw materials need to be extracted and processed to make new products.
Stephen Sennett from the Rotary E-Club of Melbourne will lead you through this hands on experience. ChatGPT is an incredible piece of technology that's changing every sector, and that includes Rotary!
In this session, you're going to learn how to use ChatGPT to revolutionize and supercharge the way you do Public Image in Rotary. You don't have to be an expert, or even a great computer whiz to leverage ChatGPT to make your work easier, so come along! If you can sign up for this event and log in to Zoom on the day, you've got the tech skills to follow along with this workshop.
