The 30th Meeting of this Rotary year and our 5021st all time Club meeting, in our one hundred and third year. Past President Bob Glinderman was MC and opened the meeting and the weekly reflection was delivered by Cheryl Lacey.
After the Loyal toast, and welcoming members and guests, President Chris Sotiropoulos conducted the induction of Sam McLarty, our newest corporate designee from the Bionics Institute. Sam will bring joy to the Go Pies Committee because he has previously been a Collingwood football Club, drafted player. Sam expressed his own gratefulness for joining Rotary and shared the delight of his grandfather (a 45-year Rotarian himself) that Sam had joined our Club.
PP Mary Barry came to the podium to encourage members to join the On to Conference tour Wednesday 11 April to Friday 12 April 2024. Full details are included later in this Bulletin.
Richard Dent was Chair for the day and introduced our guest speaker Abiola (Abi) Akinbiyi, Founder of Changepreneurs, on the topic Empowering Young CALD Women: Mentoring, Education, Networking and Outreach. Abi focused on the challenges facing young, recently arrived Australians to achieve their full potential.
She demonstrated compelling insights into the power of support and mentoring to assist CALD (Culturally & Linguistically Diverse) young people in excelling in their lives. In particular her organisation uses mentoring to encourage young people whose confidence needs support to aim high and pursue their dreams.
Abi mentioned her organisations newly minted relationship with Rotary Safe Families providing workshops and presenting at other Changepreneurs events on domestic abuse issues to their leadership teams and members.
Unable to use audio visual materials she had pre-prepared due to technical issues, Abi adapted bringing 2 colleagues to the podium to share their stories. Emma Amos is Vice President of Changepreneurs building her capability to play a variety of leadership roles in community organisations. We then heard from Ruth Kamau who was inducted as a Chartered Practicing Accountant just last year. She gave huge credit to Abi for encouraging her to enrol and succeed, overcoming much self-doubt along the way. She now has a solid foundation for a successful accounting career.
In response to a question from a member, Abi has provided the following contact details: Email direct: changepreneurs.info@gmail.com, and via their website: https://www.changepreneurs.com.au/contact-us
Abi’s address can be viewed by Clicking here
To view the full meeting recording (missing the pre-dining segment of the event due to technical issues) Click here.
