Guests: Missia O’Donnell, Adam Shilck, Andrew
Visiting Rotarian: Assistant DG Ian Salek
Announcements:
Anne King - Announced a "Guess who's coming to dinner" event on the 21st May, 2016.
We will be meeting at six o'clock and for drinks then we will move off to dinner.
Herbert Greenwood - highlighted the "Craft Beer and Fine Wine" event 16th April 2016 [See report later this Bulletin]
There will be proxy bidding prior to the wine auction and the bids will be sealed and opened on the night. The absentee bidding will be closed off the day before the auction, bookings for the auction will close off next week. Herb will be be at the meeting to take your bookings.
Persian breakfast at Gerard Hogan's was a cordial, civilised success, the breakfast theme being Persian.
Special thanks to the Persians for inventing the breakfast and $30 was raised for the Sergeant's tin.
Roy Garrett gave a quick report on the trip to Cambodia.
Rob Hines will give a full report on his return with the main take from the trip was that was very hot and everybody had a great time as well as contributing to the renovation of Laos schoolrooms.
President George noted that we now need to drive for new memberships and the board is going to look at the matter again.
Youth Science Forum
Adam Shilck gave a report on his time at the youth science forum.
A
dam is 18 and attends Xavier College is currently doing VCE. He has a wide range of interests and is keen on drama, maths & sciences.
His cousin Stephanie Morgan-Smith had previously attended the forum. One of the most important parts of the forum was putting aside any preconceptions and being open to all things put to the students.
There were 250 students from around the world in attendance and went for 12 days, was quite overwhelming and, initially, he was unsure how much he really needed to know to attend the forum.
He was put in the Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing group which quickly put aside his preconceptions.
Every day activities ranged from lectures from top scientists to swing dancing and the chance to program robots.
They had an opening ceremony at Parliament House, Canberra and a talk from Brian Schmidt, Nobel Laureate.
The science dinner was near the end of the trip and by this point he knew everybody quite well and he was seated amongst members from IBM and other entrepreneurs.
Sounds like a normal dinner but as the night went on and they chatted to the scientists and learned about their lives and jobs their goals became a little more realistic and gained an understanding of the journey of other scientists who have moved on to science had evolved. He had a good chat to Brian Schmidt and made many friends with like-minded people.
At the end of the program the friendships made were fairly deep and he is sure that in the future he will find business partners and maintain many different friends from the experience. He has had many opportunities in his lifetime and the National Youth Science Forum certainly is one of the top experiences of his life and has helped focus his post high school activities looking at Engineering and advance manufacturing as a career path.
Guest Speaker
Marjorie Gerlinger as chairman of the day introduced our guest speaker Detective Senior Staff Sergeant, Stuart Bailey.
Stewart has served a police officer for 28 years working in a variety of fields, including working overseas in Indonesia after the Bali bombings.
Has been involved in high-profile homicide investigations such as the murders of policemen, Silk and Miller and investigation into the death of Carl Williams.
His current role as the manager of the homicide squad involves 70 homicides per annum.
Todays address is about the functions of the homicide squad.
He has been involved in the policeman touring program and has had Roger Thornton as his Rotary mentor so he has been fortunate in seeing how Rotary works in the community.
The Homicide squad was founded in 1943 and has evolved to having an inspector, three senior sergeants, nine sergeants and 36 detective senior constables and six analysts. There is also a cold case unit.
Just to get an understanding of how homicide works, the workload is divided up rated in cases graded from A to D, dealing with life threatening or terrorist acts and impact type crimes, then high victim impact crimes, which usually have organised crime involved.
This is then broken up into two categories, category one and category two crimes.
Category one crimes are dealt with by the crime department, category two crimes are dealt with by the regions and both groups help with the crime investigation.
One group will have primacy in the investigation. The homicide squad looks after murder, manslaughter and infanticide.
Category two crimes are murder and suicide and sudden infant death, in which the homicide squad will assist the regions.
They also deal with category one crimes and police shootings, deaths in police custody or a death in police presence.
Category two crimes, for example, would be a death in custody. There is also another function in which the homicide squad looks after anti-mortem cases. This is post-disaster victim identification.
He attended Bali after the bombings to assist with the victim identification. Victoria Police sent crime scene investigators across to Bali, the group included photographers for victim identification and post-mortem reconciliation.
Anti-mortem involves speaking to the deceased relations and getting this much information about them as possible.
This involves looking for a decryption of clothing of what they were wearing at the time, and DNA samples. He also collects any dental records or x-rays that may assist.
They also attended in air disaster in the Ukraine.
Once all that information has been captured, it is then worked into a reconciliation process that biologists and other professionals then try to match.
Then when the deceased has repatriated back to their country of origin certainty about their identity may be determined.
How investigators deal with crimes.
There is a 24 hour seven-day week team on call to respond to any homicide cases.
There are basically three shifts a day covering this service so senior sergeants are on call every third shift, this can lead to high stress levels.
The downside in managing staff is that many are called to attend court which takes a lot of preparation .
There are an average of 57 homicides per annum in Victoria. In 2014 there were 70.
There are ongoing investigations dating back to 1984 in the Cold Case area. What happens is that at an inquest , the coroner can make a determination on the case then it can be dealt with by the squad.
Changes in technology over the years has helped solved many cases. This calls for strategic and and targeted revision of the exhibits in the case.
Number One squad is currently managing 65 cases at the moment. Out of these, 27 are still unsolved and the rest are in preparation for court cases.
All cases are heavily scrutinised and tested before going to court. If cases are unsolved they can then go to an inquest.
The squad also runs telephone intercepts and engages listening devices to assist with inquiries. The squad has to compete with other agencies within Victoria police to obtain resources for listening surveillance and other activities. Sometimes live actions require a large requirement for limited resources.
The three main drivers for homicide are domestic violence, mental health, and the other drivers are greed and hate.
Of homicides in 2014, 25 women were murdered. About one third of homicides are related to violence.
The missing person unit has always been the homicide squad. In 2015 they were formed up as an entity of their own. This helps families that they are involved with.
Use of the web in helping to find people has become increasingly important. The website will help people in making a missing persons report, advice on what to do if your loved one goes missing and advises of other support agencies.
There will be links to Crime Stoppers and ways to help people report a missing person.
Some of the resources highlighted will be Crime Stoppers, National Missing Person, Reconnect Victoria, Salvation Army, Family Relations Australia, Beyond Blue, Compassionate Friends, public places like McDonald's where they can put up public notices. Chemist Warehouse actually puts public profiles in their catalogues .
This website will be launched shortly .
In 2005 and five and a half thousand people were reported missing. In the first two days 70% of those people are found.
In 2009 there are only two people left outstanding listed as missing. In 2015 the number of missing people has been reported at 10,100. Of these, 24 people were still listed as missing.
Interestingly the outstanding clearing rate is greatest between 0.1 & 0.2%
Roger Thornton has assisted in setting up a website and there will be a launch involving the police and Rotary in the very near future.
Over the last 26 years Michael has worked with over 6,000 community businesses (not for profits) throughout Australia, working within a framework of transformational change, strategic planning and project management. During this time he has also undertaken 258 amalgamations and mergers. His unique analogies, models and tools provide a powerful approach to recognising the past, understanding the present and creating the future.
household furnishings to major retailers, in South Melbourne and delivered them to the DIK warehouse in West Footscray.
However, Peter was able to retain and deliver 3 boxes of same to assist the children’s organisation, Shine for Kids, managed by Mik Wells.
It was an early start for us all as Kevin Walklate and Peter Duras loaded and Russell Rolls and I oversaw the operation, ably assisted by 2 DIK stalwarts, Bob Glindeman and Laurie Fisher. We weren’t needed to accompany the van to West Footscray so it was an early finish, well before school started for the day.
