The Clubs 10th meeting of this rotary Year, and our 5,001st Meeting in the Club’s 102nd year.
The 50 or so attendees on line and in-person enjoyed a lively welcome from Past president Phil Endersbee and Past President Robert Fisher delivered the reflection (which can be read later in this bulletin.
President Chris welcomed Members and Guests, and congratulated Immediate Past Adrian Nelson, Peter Hollingworth and Club Volunteers for making the prior week’s Angus Mitchell Oration featuring the Hon John Howard, OM AC a memorable success.
The first business of the day was the induction of Amit Gill, who, with his partner, Nova has been seen quite a lot at Club events over the past couple of months. After introduction by his sponsor, Peter Rogers, and the induction charge by President Chris, Amit delivered a brief smiling introductory address focusing on his hope that he would bring fun to everything he did in Rotary Melbourne. Congratulations and welcome to Amit and Nova.
Phil Endersbee then returned to the podium to remind us of the Around the Bay Project that supports our annual fundraising effort for the Smith family’s Learning for Life Program. Watch the bulletin and forthcoming meetings for further updates for getting involved.
Bruce Davidson then presented his final wrap up of the Clubs Footy Tipping fundraiser. Bruce’s humorous style has regularly been on display as our artful leader and promoter of Footy Tippling over many years. Bruce has called for volunteers interested in taking on the Footy Tipping leadership role for 2024. If you’re interested, Bruce will welcome your call and will be pleased to support you in learning the ropes of this mainstay fundraiser over our winter months.
President Chris completed the formalities by reminding member of the Evening Meeting – Welcome to Spring for the Hush Foundation next Wednesday evening at the Lyceum Club commencing at 6:00pm sharp.
Past President Chris Wang then stepped as Chair for the day to introduce Catherine Taylor, currently International Trade Manager for Dairy Australia. Prior to this role, Catherine had been part of the Trade Commissioner Service, including serving as Trade Commissioner for Osaka, where she was an Honorary Member of our Sister Club, the Rotary Club of Osaka.
In her interesting address Catherine highlighted the importance of establishing strong relationships as the foundation for expanding international trade opportunities. Catherine spoke of the creation of a $400 million market for table grapes with Japan, and the value of strong support for trade missions that built trust informed them of capabilities and practices that enabled sustainability of trade opportunities, such as Australia’s approach to containing and preventing Foot and Mouth Disease.
We are working to post the recording of last weeks meeting on our Web site later this week.
