This past couple of weeks have been full of face-to-face meetings and there is a real sense of excitement building around our Centenary anniversary. Everyone is enjoying the fellowship of being together and I think there is a desire to come out of our isolation and party. So, I hope everyone will join me next Wednesday, 17 March, and bring your best green outfits to celebrate, St. Patrick’s Day. Mary Barry assures me she has a very special prize for the best dressed!
My very first, in person, meeting with club members was at the International Women’s Day event which was again a great success, thanks to the hard work behind the scenes of the committee members. Led by Kerry Kornhauser, these included Robyn Holland, Judy Newgreen, Di Gillies, David Carruthers, Catherine Baxter, Carolyn Ballagh, Mark Pinoli, Chris Stillwell and the Brighton North team, especially, Mark Stephens and Peter Killey, their President. There were so many more helpers along the way, including our videographer, Sean Meltzer.
Barbara Yerondais middle back of table, with visitors enjoying being in each other's company again in "A Bold New World" Breakfast.
As you can see it takes a village to bring to fruition a new format! This new format allowed each of the clubs who bought a group ticket to use the video in their own way and the accolades have been coming in thick and fast. Many clubs, like North Melbourne, set up their own event and fundraising, and invited potential new members – a great night I heard. Brighton North had a spectacular lunch and Balwyn held ‘the best event ever’, according to one of their members.
Our conservative estimate is that this reached over 4,000 people and beyond our own fundraising these clubs were able to fundraise for their local communities. A stellar effort and likely to see a new and similar format into the future.
There were a couple of side benefits from the IWD this year that are worthy of note. Some of our newer club members got fully behind the effort and we have managed to cement a much stronger relationship with our City of Melbourne colleagues and hope to continue this into the future.
Next, was the launch of our Rotary Coins and Stamps, which was a joint production with Sydney. Sarah joined me for this and can be seen in the photograph with the Minister Michael Sukkar. This was an excellent affair, tilting our hats to the new world of technology assisted meetings, and a big thank you goes out to both Philip Archer and Gary Browne (Sydney) for bringing this together.
You can see our special guests, the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Housing the Hon. Michael Sukkar and Ross
Greenwood in the following video - https://vimeo.com/521190344/526d88425e
On Friday, I sat in on the final presentations of the Monash University MITI teams, coordinated by our member Madeleine McManus. This was very exciting and two teams in particular, were supporting the work of Rotary. One, has been developing mobility solutions for participants to our Conference in 2023 and was roundly applauded by Yarra Trams. The other is further developing the mobile wash stations for our ‘End Trachoma’ team. The talent of these young students was outstanding.
Our birthday party is under way. Chris Stillwell has organized a spectacular team of Rotary 'doers' to focus on our Centenary Birthday Celebrations and we invite you all to book a ticket as soon as possible.
It will be a magnificent affair with some of the highlights including a memento of our "Did You Know", and a Centenary photograph, to continue the tradition of our first meeting ever. You need to attend to be part of this
historical record, although, we will find a way to ensure our less able members are included.
First Meeting in 1921
Next week is our first members’ face-to-face lunch and I hope to see as many of you join us as possible. I know that some of our members may have difficulty in attending and we hope to be able to stream out to a zoom environment for them. Into the future, we intend to develop a hybrid format so that everyone can access and participate in our meetings. We are working hard to manage the technology challenges, so as, to ensure as many of our members as possible are involved.
Have a wonderful week and I look forward to seeing you soon.
Until next time – take care and spread kindness.
Marion
