Dear SecondBite Volunteers,
Further to my message below and your various responses, a couple of weeks have now passed and a number of developments have transpired.
As you will all appreciate, a majority of our volunteers fall into the vulnerable age groups of over 60 years or 70 years of age. The directions of the Prime Minister is quite clear – we should all be at home!
Since your responses a number of folk have decided that for an number of reasons, they have reconsidered their position ( or have had it reconsidered for them!!)such that the roster is now all over the place .
In consultation with SecondBite Director Simone Carson, we have decided this afternoon that we will cease collections at Prahran Market today so those of you rostered or volunteered for next Sunday and in the future will not be required.
It is with considerable regret and sadness that we have made this decision but I am sure that you will all understand why it has been done. Many of you have been collecting at Prahran from the very beginning – that’s over 15 years of Rotary service. You should all pat yourselves on the back for a job well done.
Now the need for the goods that we have been collecting has never been greater , the market traders will still have surplus items and there is a real desire to keep the goods coming in.
So the following has been put in place from this coming Sunday.
As a consequence of the several Australian and Victorian Government initiatives where there are payments available to keep people in employment, we have a number of State Government employees who will be paid under this arrangement but will be looking to do other things. As an example, these could be folk who would normally be at The Arts Centre will become SecondBite collectors – among other things.
These people will take our place at Prahran until things revert to the new “normal”.
This is an important step to keep the food flowing to SecondBite; keep faith with the market traders and provide some worthwhile activity for the people concerned.
The roster will be coordinated by Andrew Spencer arspencer@mac.com and should any of you still want to collect at the market, drop Andrew a line and let him know. Please copy me in your email.
So – this phase of this terrific Rotary project comes to an untimely end but I am sure that we will be raring to go as soon as the situation changes and we can once again collect at Prahran. Any queries – please let me know and again- many thanks for your participation."
Cheers
Bob.
