Meeting Report 20th May 2014
Attendance: 30
Chair: George Mackey
Guests
Visiting Rotarian, Dawn Colston, Rotary Club of Kent, Washington
Leonie Greenwood
Club Announcements
- Club Almoner, Richard Mitchell provided an update on Pamela Robertson who has been unwell recently
- Administration Director Neville Taylor reminded members of the necessity of booking for the Police Leadership Mentoring Program breakfast on 17 June.
- President Doug reported on District Assembly which had been attended by 460 Rotarians including a delegation of 12 CMS members. Alan Seale and Anne King had presented an excellent vocational workshop in the absence of Vocational Director, Justine Murphy who was at the time completing a 100km run in the Blue Mountains in the satisfying time of 19 hours.
- Members were encouraged to support the Steam Rally, Country Kitchen over the Queen’s Birthday Weekend. The Steam Rally which is the major fundraising event of our Sister Club Echuca Moama has been supported by CMS for over 10 years and is a great weekend of fellowship and hard work baking 2-3,000 scones and brewing gallons of vegetable and pumpkin soup. Normally we would have 10-12 members assisting but a combination of events has resulted in only 2 members being able to attend this year, so if you haven’t enjoyed the fun of the Steam Rally and would like to know more contact Roy Garrett or Alan Driver
Directors Report Foundation
It was a rather confusing morning for Herb Greenwood, firstly he had bought Leonie along to what he thought was the PLMP breakfast and then proceeded to confuse the Chair by delivering his Directors Report during Club announcements.
Herb was proud to report some excellent numbers, re the distribution of funds raised from the PHF Breakfast held in November 2013
- Rotary Foundation. $5,500, this exceed the recommended target of $100 per member
- Royce Abbey Award $1,195
- Polio Plus $3150, this will be augmented by a 2 for 1 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation of $6,300
- Herb then reported planning was well in hand for the 2014 Paul Harris Breakfast.
Sergeants Session
Michael Bromby began in a determined attempt to unseat Club Comedian Gerard Hogan with a joke which threaded together a theme of golf, Jesus and St Peter where almost as miraculous a walking on water, Jesus converted a terrible slice into a hole in one.
Michael then announced that the Epic Poem was drawing to its close with the dastardly Darcy’s new found status as a “pillar”? of Rotary. Over recent weeks members may have noticed Yanpu putting the saga to film and it is confidently expected that Fund Raising Director Greg Cuthbert will shortly announce a film deal and also a rumoured TV mini-series.
Visiting Rotarian
Dawn Colston who owns an employment service company is President elect of Kent Rotary Club and is in Australia to attend the Sydney Congress. Kent is due east of Seattle in an industrial area with major industries including Boeing and the Star Bucks Roasting Plant, Seattle Airport is nearby. The Club has 70 members of whom 40% are female. The membership age range is 25-90 years. Fund raising is focused on one major event, a dinner auction which this year had raised $US 120,000
Guest Speaker, Professor John Polesel, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne.
Professor John presented an analysis of what had happened to the 45,000 student who had completed year 12 in 2013. Key statistics indicated that the major direction was to University 53% while 8% had begun Certificate programs. Of the others, 7% had entered traineeships or apprenticeships, 12% had entered employment, 5% were unemployed and 1% was inactive. Employment figures had masked underemployment and jobs which didn’t offer a growth pathway.
84% of year 7 starters ultimately make it to University, however girls are more likely to enter University as many males are drawn towards apprenticeships.
Of those that enter employment straight from school, a high proportion, mainly female will engage in part time lower paid work with no oblivious growth pathway. 40% of part time workers are in low paid casual job which offer no skill development. The situation for school leavers is made worst by the fact that those applicants compete against university students and those seeking part time after school jobs.
Deferment is critical in rural areas; this is attributed to affordability and maturity which limits opportunity to move to the City. Research has shown that deferment by rural students often results in their not going on to tertiary studies.
Although overall 53% of school leavers enter university, only 40% of lower socio economic students will enter university and these will usually be red brick rather than the sandstone universities and the dropout rate will be much higher than norm, this suggests the need for a more diverse University sector distinguishing the sandstone research group of 8 from new style Polytechnics which will prepare students for the workforce.
The low esteem attached to VET vocations as an academic pathway had made it essential to refocus VET in schools as pathways to Cert 1V qualifications and not directly to work. There was a need to better link VET pathways with the TAFE sector, industry and employees and to focus on non university pathways in career education, this also would require better funding of TAFE’s. The refocus needed to be coupled with developing better support structures for those school leavers who do not go on to further education
The Chair thanked Professor Polesel and presented him with a gift of soap pointing out that this supported cottage industries and the Aloha Foundation in Timor Leste.
President Doug then formally closed the meeting, inviting members and guests to adjourn for coffee.
Dawn and Pres. Doug. Speaker John Polesel and George.