Not quite a Bulletin rather like Christmas Good Tidings' Messages
PRESIDENT MARION'S MESSAGE
Dear Rotary colleagues,
Well 2020 and hopefully COVID are almost gone, and I think we’re ready to see both go!
It has been a hard year on many levels and whilst it has had its challenges, it has also brought out the very best in many. The benefit has been that we’ve reset our compass, and we will be a better and stronger club for the future - and what a future 2021 holds for us!
We are after all a fantastic club which is celebrating 100 years of success, and which has far more that binds us together than separates us.
We will start 2021 preparing to meet once again ‘in person’ and, with luck on our side, our first ‘blended’ (virtual + in person) event will be our Members meeting on the 27th January.
The Sofitel has proven to be a good partner for us, and is working to ensure that we will have the necessary support to return whilst still allowing our more distant members to ‘Zoom’ in.
This will also allow us to continue to get the stellar speakers who have kept us engaged through our lockdown, and who are keen to continue to be part of our future.
We will have a Rotary coin and stamp to celebrate our 100th anniversary, due to launch on Monday 8th February, and our virtual IWD breakfast is on the 9th of March.
Our birthday celebrations then start in earnest, with the hosting of the President’s dinner on Rotary’s birthday on 23rd February, before the Club’s 100th Anniversary on the 21st April.
So, with all this planned, I need you to rest up over Christmas - enjoying the very best of company with your friends and family - in order to come back with renewed spirit and energy in the New Year.
The Board and I are looking forward to an exciting 2021, and meanwhile wish you all the very best for the Festive Season and look forward to enjoying your company - in person - in the New Year!
(Marion Macleod, Russell Board, Pam Brown, Chris Stillwell, Peter Hanlon, Kerry Kornhauser, Mikaela Stafrace, Peter Davis, Chantida Bou, Philip Cornish, Iqbal Reta, Mark Pinoli, Reg Smith, Kevin Sheehan)
Kind Regards,
Marion Macleod
President R100 (2020-21)
President Rotary Melbourne
EDITOR'S MESSAGE
This week's Bulletin is the last for this year. Editor shall be back (God willing) after the break for your first Bulletin of 2021 which will be in your Inbox by Monday, 11 January 2021.
We don't need to be reminded of the challenges of 2020, but let's look forward to 2021 being a year of changing what we need to change and incorporating the positive outcomes from 2020.
Thank you Rotary Melbourne and our hundreds of Subscribers for reading our Bulletin each week. I hope the Bulletin has successfully fulfilled my focus for providing you with our Rotary news, projects, highlights and meetings to inform and even, dare I say, entertain you?
My profound appreciation to those who have contributed and assisted Editor in her weekend task of creating our Bulletin. Thank you. Have a healthy, happy, peaceful Festive Season and my heartfelt desiderate for us all, for a far less challenging 2021.
Onwards and Upwards, Dorothy Gilmour
Editor's note: "May all your troubles last as long as your New Year resolutions?"
The Germ Chaser by C.J. Dennis
By Perry Middlemiss on September 8, 2013 9:29 AM | No TrackBacks
Just at present, when there is a great deal of talk about germs and injection, doctors agree that while reasonable car and precautions are commendable, any tendency to hysterical fear and panic is least to be desired.
"I knew a careful lady once
Who read a book by Dr. Bunce,
A wise authority on bugs
That roam about in dust and fogs;
Indeed, he pointed out, all air,
However pure, held germs somewhere;
They clung to door-knobs, crawled on floors,
Inhabited small change in scores.
In fact, there scarcely was a thing
To which some foul germ did not cling,
Ready to leap and work its will
To some poor luckless human's ill.
The lady closed the book and sighed,
And all content within her died.
This pleasant earth for her became
The haunt of bugs, and life a game
Of hide and seek. She joined the band
Of grim germ-chasers in the land.
She scoured and scrubbed, examined food --
Which, thus far, was all to the good --
But when she strove to disinfect
Her home, 'twas worse than mild neglect;
No hospital smelled half so bad,
And then, I fear, she went quite mad.
Her eye took on a maniac glare;
She saw germs lurking everywhere.
She hung up mottoes such as this:
"Ten thousand germs in every kiss."
She would not handle coins or take
Anothers hand for friendship's sake;
Scarce dared to eat or draw a breath
For fear she might imbibe her death.
She sprayed her husband, heels to head,
With crude carbolic till he fled;
But, since she had means of her own,
She much preferred to live alone.
When going into town one day,
Wrapped up and muzzled in a way
Quite microbe-proof, from foot to crown,
A passing motor knocked her down.
And where she's sleeping soundly now
The germs have got her, anyhow ...
The point of this sad tale is here:
Better be dead than live in fear;
Better live like a Stone Age man
Before germ-consciousness began;
Better take chances, seems to me,
Than try to dodge what you can't see."
First published in The Herald, 8 September 1937; and later in Random Verse edited by Margaret Herron, 1952.
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
SOME THOUGHTS FOR YOUR NEW YEAR
- What do you tell someone you didn’t see at New Year’s Eve? I haven’t seen you for a year!
- My New Year’s resolution is to help all my friends gain ten pounds so I look skinnier.
- To kick start my New Year: I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
- My resolution was to read more so I put the subtitles on my TV.
- It’s officially New Year’s Eve, you only have a couple of hours to do all the things you will resolve not to do in the New Year.
- I was going to quit all my bad habits for the New Year, but then I remembered that nobody likes a quitter.
- My wife still hasn’t told me what my New Year’s resolutions are.
- What happened to the man who shoplifted a calendar on New Year’s Eve? He got 12 months!
- A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.
CHRIS RECOMMENDATION
Chris Sotiropoulos has provided some summer reading with his comment being: "Not quite Kafaeskque or Dostoevsky in tone, but light reading whilst overlooking the garden or the water."
Access to the free book is by Apple Books, Kindle and his website (thesimpledoctor.info - via a simple download)
Looking Forward to:
Save the Date:
- Rotary Australia Day Online Event - January 26, 2021 (Details next Bulletin)
- President's Dinner 23 February, 2021
- Online Streaming International Women's Day Women in Rotary 9 - 12 March 2021
- Our 100 Year Celebrations - 21 April, 2021
Goodbye for now ......
|
