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Make Yourself Stroke Safe
One in six people will have a stroke in their lifetime. But stroke can be prevented. The presentation covers;
- What stroke is.
- How to recognise the signs of stroke.
- What to do if someone is having a stroke.
- How to prevent stroke.
Nikki is a volunteer for the National Stroke Foundation. Nikki has volunteered in the Strokesafe Education team as an ambassador since April 2012. Nikki successfully runs her own business and is a stroke survivor.
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ROTARY INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT 9800 COMMUNICATION
Dear Club President
I am contacting you regarding the Victoria Police Leaders mentoring Program and in particular the selection of Rotary Mentors for the 2014/15 year. As you may be aware, the program is undergoing a number of changes to better align it with Victoria Police priorities for the development of its future leaders. Victoria Police are seeking from Rotary, good exposure of the mentee to our work with the community. Chief Commissioner Ken Lay places great emphasis on this when speaking about the development needs for Senior Sergeants and Inspectors who are at the front line in service delivery in the community. This is a real complement to Rotary.
One of the improvements being implemented this year, is the opening up of the Rotary mentor selection process to all D9800 Clubs. We are seeking nominations from Rotarians across D9800 including alumni Mentors who would like to do it again. The Steering Committee is also aware that over the 7 years of the program so far, many Rotary mentors who have had strong business backgrounds have found themselves sharing that experience with their mentees. Victoria Police would like to see this continue. The ideal Rotary Mentor has extensive Rotary experience, has been personally involved in meaningful community engagement programs or projects and has a relatively recent business involvement at a managerial level. The selection process will be based on those criteria together with the profile of the mentee candidates so we get a good match. This is also explained in the attached Nomination Form.
What we ask of you is to please brief your club about this opportunity, to distribute the form to members and, as appropriate, endorse any nomination as having your club¹s support as an important element in the mentee¹s experience with us. Your club endorsement of your member nominee can be made by email to Justine Murphy. The Nomination Form with explanatory information is attached and applications can be made using the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VPLMP_Rotary_Mentor_Nomination_2014_15.
Once the questions in the link have been completed, the application will automatically be sent to Justine and the nominee need do no more. Would you please advise any interested members that the form needs to be completed by Friday 9th May 2014.
If you require further information regarding the program or nomination process, please contact Justine, Rotary D9800 Vocational Service Chair, on vocational@rotarydistrict9800.org.
Kind regards
Alan Seale
Rotary Steering Committee Coordinator
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 Roy and Annie Garrett are putting on a club fund-raising dinner on Saturday May 3 at 7pm at their beautiful Fitzroy home. Annie's kitchen certainly rules when it comes to tender fillets basted in Asian sauce concoctions, raspberry coolies etc, and Roy will lay on his finest wines, including a 1976 marque, although he is out of Grange Hermitage 1959 vintage as enjoyed by ex NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell. Cost per head is $120 but Roy can arrange for this to be a tax-deductible contribution to RAWCS en route to its destination, improving school structures in Laos. Capacity is limited as the Garrett's can only handle 10 guests. The previous such dinner, at the Seales, was a night to remember. Tickets to the Garretts will be on a first-booked, first-served basis. Apply at roy@mingrit.com.au, or 9416 2615.Pic: Annie's dining room, or possibly the State Dining Room at the White House.
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Once prevalent in Europe, Australia and the United States, malaria has become a disease of the developing World as enhanced health and hygiene practices break the mosquito/human cycle upon which malaria depends. Nevertheless malaria will still impact more than 10% of the world’s population, and will kill millions this year – mostly pregnant women and young children; mostly in Africa and South East Asia.What You Can Do
As the Rotary year draws to its close, and you consider your final deployment of funds, perhaps you could consider a donation to RAM. You can direct the funds to any of the RAM areas of activity as listed above, or you can leave it to RAM to apply where there is most need. Even $100 will buy ten or so treated bed nets or a few hand tools to recommence and continue village clean ups. It would be a good to see D9800 clubs mark Malaria Awareness Day with a donation to help fight malaria.
Make your cheque payable to Rotary Australia Overseas Aid Fund (RAM) and send to
PDG Richmond Manyweathers
15 Panorama Drive
Alstonville, NSW. 2477
I’d also appreciate advice of your donation!
Bill Oakley
District 9800 RAM Coordinator
Billoakley1@bigpond.com
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Malaria Awareness Day – April 30th
Around the World April 25th is declared as World Malaria Awareness Day. Here in Australia, because of ANZAC Day, we have moved this day to April 30th. It is the time when we reflect upon the scourge that is Malaria; its impact upon the World; and the progress we are making in fighting and rolling back malaria.
The malaria virus – falsiparum – has a life cycle which depends upon it having a period inside a human being, and a period inside an Anopheles mosquito. To complete its life cycle, and reproduce, it must transfer from mosquito to human in the mosquito saliva when an infected mosquito bites a human; and later transfer from an infected human back to a mosquito in the human blood drawn from the human by the mosquito.
This complex interaction provides many battlefronts upon which to wage the war against malaria. We develop vaccines and treatment to help humans resist infection. We isolate and treat infected humans as quickly as possible, so that they cannot infect mosquitos. We try and stop mosquitos biting humans with protective clothing, repellents and bed nets. We try and rid the human environment of mosquitos by cleaning up, and removing mosquito breeding places; and by spraying insecticides around homes. We enhance natural human immunity by improving diet and general health.
There are three stages in the war against malaria:
Stage 1 – Reduction. Improvements in health and hygiene practices, and efforts to reduce the number mosquito bites on humans restrict the flow of the falsiparum virus and reduce the proportion of both humans and mosquitos which are infected.
Stage 2 – Elimination. Continued improvements in both prevention and quick response treatment cause a breakdown in the malaria cycle such that the virus cannot survive, and dies out in some areas. Improved hygiene and constant vigilances allows malaria to be eliminated from areas under surveillance – perhaps a specific island or designated area.
Stage 3 – Eradication. Continued prevention and quick response treatment practices cause widespread breakdown in the malaria cycle, eradicating the virus from ever widening areas. Occasional instances of malaria outbreak by travelling humans are quickly identified, isolated and treated, preventing the virus from getting a hold in either the mosquito or the human populations.
Malaria, Australia and Rotary
The war against malaria continues to be waged on many fronts. Australia is at the forefront of World research seeking to find a suitable, cheap, long lasting and easy to administer vaccine, and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne (WEHI) is one of the leading research institutions in the field. Google WEHI!
Meanwhile, much of the heavy lifting is done at a more basic tech level, and here Rotary is very active in Australia’s sphere of interest and focus – Papua New Guinea, Solomons, Vanuatu and Timor Leste. Here’s a summary of recent progress:
Papua New Guinea
Topography and the stage of political development in PNG make it impractical to plan areas of malaria elimination in PNG at this stage. Nevertheless efforts to educate the local villagers and to provide nets, particularly for women and children, have brought about substantial reductions in the incidence of malaria over the last decade, with reductions in many areas in excess of 50%. Rotary in PNG assumes responsibility for assembling, training and coordinating the team responsible for distributing bed nets, and for educating villagers on the need to use bed nets and other hygiene practices.
Solomon Islands and Vanuatu
Improvements overall in health and medical services; widespread provision of bed nets through the Global Fund; and a geography comprising hundreds of isolated islands has led to substantial reductions in malaria in the last two decades and to increasing areas moving towards elimination, particularly in the south east islands. However Guadalcanal still has an incidence of malaria of more than one in ten every year. The ravages of recent cyclone and floods are feared to set back elimination efforts, and it is important that clean up efforts as part of the recovery are put in place quickly. The Clean Up a Village project, coordinated by the Rotary Club of Honiara, is an important effort in the fight against malaria. Many of the tools used for this will have been lost in the floods, and funds are needed urgently to replace them.
Timor Leste
The Global Fund and its allies have provided bed nets for the areas of highest malaria risk in Timor, but has left many areas of moderate risk, and other institutions like schools and hospitals without support. Rotary has been conducting a vital role in funding and delivering bed nets to complement the Global Fund effort. We are now making final plans for a third container of nets which need to be distributed before the next monsoon season. RAM has directed over $130,000 towards this effort in the last few years. Undirected funds offered to RAM have mostly been applied to this project.
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 Steam rally a giant task for small club
It’s an annual Rotary project involving upfront costs of $100,000; 190 volunteer workers, 600 exhibitors and about 10,000 visitors paying $45 per family. And it’s all organised and managed by a club of merely 22 members.
Welcome to the Echuca Steam Rally, run by Echuca-Moama Rotary. Scheduled this year for the June 7-8 long weekend, it’s the biggest and most popular steam rally in Australia.
“Last year was our 50th annual rally,” says club president Chrissy Weller. “The weather was perfect and we raised $90,000 for local charities from the 13,500 people who came.” Chrissy is also wife of the district’s State member, mother of four, and milker of 400 cows at their Lockington farm each day.
“We’ve had perfect weather for the past four rallies,” Weller says. “Just as well because rain drives the crowds away, and we’re lucky to break even.”
Big commitments include TV advertising, typically $20,000 a year,and managing insurance, Worksafe and traffic. .
Four years ago, with the club ageing and shrunk to 16 people, the intent was to scale down the event, says rally director Alan Whitten. But local people demanded it continue “full steam ahead” and the club rejuvenated as members increased to 22.
The huge vintage steam engines are the stars of the show, valued at about $500,000 each. Owners sleep under the warm boilers at night. As dawn breaks, they join hundreds of other machinery buffs firing up their steam engines and wreathing the oval in smoke.
Apart from the grand parades, the highlight of the show is the “Burning of the Dunny”. An old style country outhouse is set alight and the fire brigade’s job is to save the dunny by use of a horse-drawn, steam-powered pumper, loaned for the occasion by the Fire Museum of Victoria. “We’ve got a good supply of country dunnies. We did a special trip round the district collecting them,” says Whitten.
A drawcard for kids is Thomas the Tank Engine, converted from a one-time Queensland sugar-railway loco. The Tank Engine is borrowed from the Bellarine Railway, Queenscliffe, and hauled via tracks onto a low loader for Echuca. All school kids in the district are offered free entry (normally $5) if they bring an adult along ($15-20).
The rally is held on land – about 4 hectares – owned by the small Rotary club. The first of the club’s steam rallies a half-century ago had to move each year from place to place, and a sympathetic landowner sold the club a block on easy terms - now valuable real estate. The government also agreed on a 99 year lease to the club of adjacent Crown land of about equal area. This lease is now being renegotiated to become perpetual.
The Rotary-owned block boasts large sheds, toilets (including traditional ‘long drops’), kitchens and club facilities, with a resident caretaker. The club hosts horse and truck shows, machinery clubs, a miniature railway and a vintage car club.
The club’s strategy is to increase the community’s input. The rally is already supported by three organisations involving children and adults with special needs. About fifteen local groups and two other Rotary clubs provide volunteers. Just cleaning up the grounds on Monday and returning borrowed gear takes 40 people working a 10 hour day.
“Our aim is for turnover to be recycled within our district,” president Weller says.
Last year a big beneficiary from the 50th rally was the new Echuca Hospital. The club has put in $50,000 over three years towards the $2.4m community target for hospital equipment.
Six years ago the club handed the catering to local contractors, as the task became unmanageably large. . Says rally director Alan Whitten, “It removed a big workload and we just take a fee.”
The local fire brigade, a rally beneficiary, is providing shuttle bus drivers from decentralised car parks, and wood and water supply. Other beneficiaries have included local aged care homes and police. #
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 Left: President Doug with our new member Rob Hines and his wife Tessa. Below: Louise Bugeja with her friends Loretta Martin and Marken Lakatani.  |
Chair: John Ilott
Reporter: Kevin Walklate.
Visitors: Loretta Martin and Marken Lakatani, friends of speaker Louise Bugeja (who is from Hoppers Crossing RC)
Stella (guest of Neville John).
Rob Hines (impending member) and wife Tessa
Induction: President Doug inducted Rob Hines, under category Tourism & Leisure. Rob and Tessa were welcomed to the club with a standing ovation. Alan Seale will be Rob’s mentor. Rob will serve on the International Committee, coached by Roy Garrett. Rob described his current pet International project and his hopes as new member.
Announcements; Tom Callander called for final numbers of those wishing to attend The Café International Dinner on Saturday 10 May 2014.
President Doug then advised that the Club had been the recipient of donations totaling $4,680 for Laos School Projects. $2,000 had come from two friends who had travelled to Laos with Roy & Annie Garrett. Members had donated $2,680 with two significant donations of over $1,000. Of the above amount, members of the International Committee had donated $1,680 for the provision of electricity and fans for Ban Heu Yen school. These donations were acknowledged with acclamation. Roger Thornton had organized a matching grant through Rotary District of $500 to support our Recruitment Project. President Doug then commented on two matters from the Board Meeting. The first being a report from Neville Taylor on the Recruitment Project, with significant work being undertaken by two Committees. President Doug also emphasized one of the recommendations that each Committee take on the challenge of recruiting two members over a year and asked that each member come prepared to discuss their contribution to the challenge.
The second matter was in regard to the good work Greg Cuthbert was putting into finding a suitable sustainable source of fund raising to further our efforts within the community..
Roy Garrett gave a short report on the International Committee and advised of the recent DIK working bees. He also announced that the next one was to be held around first weeks of May during a normal working day loading hospital beds into a container . Frank O’Brien would be looking for volunteers shortly. Roy then presented detail of the work carried by Rotarians in the painting of a school in Laos & reiterated the good work going on in that region through our contacts on the ground. He also presented detail of a young person from the Laos region who had been born with severe facial disfigurement. One of our visiting Doctors had assessed him & was now trying to arrange a visit to Australia for treatment through ROMAC & had requested us to see if we could handle the case through Rotary District, Roy undertook to keep us fully informed of the progress of this potential project.
Sergeant Session: Michael proceeded to tell our guests about our Epic Poem in the style of Robert Browning where each member was providing two lines progressively over the last many months. Yoday’s were provided by Roger Thornton& they ended with villain/Hero joining Rotary in Melbourne.
Guest Speaker Louise Bugeja
Louise was born with several severe disabilities but has been heavily involved with many projects that have contributed to a better understanding & awareness within the general community of disabilities. Louise told us she was the youngest in the family of four children. She had a heart condition and several other disabilities. After early days at Williamstown the family moved to a farm at Tarneit. At this stage she was being assessed for residency at Yooralla; however a local Pediatrician suggested this would be limiting move so she was tested at kindergarten on cognitive skills & as a result of those tests was put into mainstream education. At that stage she was one of the few people with disabilities in the general education system. Louise found that children did not treat her all that well. She encounted bullying at all school levels & even some prejudices at the local shops. Although she did not suffer within the family and was expected to do her normal duties on the farm, she immersed herself in many areas such as Venture Scouts & other camps to overcome the bullying etc. During her VCE years she lost further vision & had a major operation for blindness which made those years very up and down and not all that successful. But her positive approach led her to pursue an independent life including getting married but again further health complications intervened. She had renal failure, and unsuccessful dialysis which lead to a very rewarding transplant. An article in the Donate Book in the Canberra National Library told her story.
Louise then talked of the impact of living with a disability and being judged by the disabilities rather than the real person. The tremendous support of her family and friends & a positive approach enabled her to become more involved & and never give or let the disability tie you down.
As a direct spinoff from her positive outlook, she branched out and enrolled in a Leadership of Tomorrow course and found that she reviewed her goals in life, needed to be more flexible due to her disabilities, developed a better understanding of self, joined Rotary with new ideals, registered her own business, spread out her network was accepted as a facilitator for the course. Finally she left her original job of many years. Now she is involved fully with the community through Rotary and been involved with fundraising throughout the district. Since the transplant her life is completely changed, her developed self belief has enabled her to confidently undertake a lot of work with several disability bodies involved with the provision of services etc. Now she undertakes a lot of consultant projects both here & interstate. However that requires an additional person to attend with her which can be financially restrictive. As a direct result of her becoming a technical expert & completing her Certificate of Workplace Training she started her own Avon Business, and joined the Rotary Speakers Bank to promote the notion “anyone can achieve as long as you are willing to give it a go”. She has been asked to assist in the promotion & advertising in relation to the NDIS scheme as announced by the previous government.
Louise then outlined a quick overview of NDIS such as single, national system, social insurance model, no fault lifetime benefits, non means tested entitlements and reasonable and necessary support for all Australians with significant permanent disability under the age of 65. That includes all the necessary support mechanisms. It was noted that the Productivity Commission concluded that “the current support system is underfunded, unfair, fragmented and inefficient, and gives people with disabilities little choice and no certainty of access to appropriate support”. The scheme will cover funding areas such as Attendant care & Respite, Home care, Community access /Transport Assistance, Work Preparation /training & supported employment, Aids & Equipment, Home & Vehicle Modifications, Accommodation, therapy & Recreational activities. This system will mean a tremendous choice & control to individuals with disabilities. It will enable them to one stop shop for services with current & future need considered in any plan and many other benefits that will be entitlement rather than rationing. Louise then outlined what she saw as weaknesses and also threats to the NDIS such as Funding instability, time poor to meet targets therefore rushing planning & sign off without consent, staff not being adequately trained and lack of knowledge in relation to plan, portal not working & providers not receiving payments. The threats are likely to come from interpretation of ‘’reasonable & necessary’, no quality checking of services & providers, lack of qualified staff and similar things as outlined in the weaknesses area. The NDIS will provide greater opportunities for people with disabilities as they will no longer need to beg for funding & assistance, will able to plan for the future, better choices in terms of education & training accommodation and will provide for a more Holistic approach to their well being & life. Louise finished off her talk by reiterating that the NDIS will mean to her more flexibility & freedom, travel independence and better work choices. She also gave a couple of food for thought issues-- will it allow current models to continue to provide services?
With the roll out phase when will funding be available & will assessments of cognitive versus physical abilities be fair and reasonable?
In conclusion she acknowledged the valuable & loving care that her family & especially her mother had given her throughout her life. She had taught Louise to be strong & independent and her pet cat was of great importance to her well being. During the presentation Louise also thanked The Rotary Speakers Bank for the support she received from the team & provide the following quotation as her view on life:
“With everything that has happened to you, you can feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose” This quote is by Wayne Dyer.
Kevin Love asked a question in regards to level of support from the NDIS & Louise said she felt the current support was very good & the Providers/ Carers are doing a relatively good job as well, the real challenges are in stretching yourself & going forward.
John and President Doug sincerely thanked Louise.#
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To Jill Weeks, D9800 Rotary Speaker Bank.
April 23, 2014
Hello Jill
Last night our club had guest speaker Tony Thomas from RC Central Melbourne Sunrise.
He was informative, entertaining, controversial, thought provoking.
Our club much enjoyed his talk “Global Warming: The Debate”
Would recommend to any Rotary club.
Regards
Geoff Tighe
Secretary
Rotary Club of Echuca-Moama
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