Chair Peter Duras gave special welcome to guest speaker David Parkin who has been involved with Australian Football at the elite level since 1961, as a player, coach, fitness adviser, administrator, and media commentator.
A parallel career in education saw him teach in primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions from 1962 to the present. A prostate cancer survivor, he has written extensively on the topics of children in sport, men’s health, coaching, leadership, motivation, and teams. Currently, David is the Patron of the Male Bag Foundation, which is a group of men and women, who ride ex Australia Post motorbikes all over Australia, to raise money to purchase prostate cancer diagnostic machines, for rural and regional hospitals.
David reflected on his history with Rotary and two members of our club in particular having raced bikes around the Eastern suburbs with Peter Duras and Peter's father, and spent many days with Warwick Cavell at the Cavell family home. David's talk and subsequent conversation covered a range of topics surrounding the theme of leadership. Key takeaways from the discussion:
1. Leadership must be adaptive to the situation: David retold how he had to learn to move away from an authoritarian leadership to enable the Carlton football team to thrive through self-directed leadership before later having to become more hands-on as members of his team shifted over time
2. Be clear and immediate in performance feedback: David discussed performance reviews with every player after every game and how he would be clear on how well they performed and supported it with a written up performance report and ongoing support to build required skills, competencies and knowledge
3. Know your strengths and build teams to support your weaknesses: Repeatedly David presented examples of the value in being clear on what leaders' strengths are to bring to bear in their roles and the importance of building teams around the development areas. He did this himself when bringing support to get upwards feedback on his leadership and coaching at Carlton and sees it increasingly today with the increasing size and scale of AFL leadership and coaching teams
Group questions and discussions covered a range of topics including the unsustainability at times of David’s approach to both coaching and lecturing, books he has authored, the increasing burden of leadership in increasingly volatile environments, and some inside stories from his career.
Importantly, David also spoke about his work with the Male Bag Foundation which has managed to raise $1.9M to purchase prostate cancer diagnostics machines for rural and regional hospitals supporting early diagnostics for locals who would otherwise have to commute to a metro location.
He is inspired by the support the foundation has received from individuals and corporates making special mention to Honda for funding without expectations in return and Australia Post for providing the motorbikes. Discussions could have continued all morning. Chair Peter Duras and President Elias thanked David for such an engaging and informative talk.
Peter Duras, Rebecca John, Sue Duras and David Parkin, OAM
Member Milestones
Member Birthdays
Partner Birthdays
NIL
Wedding Anniversaries
NIL
Date Joined Rotary
Suvam Ganguli 23rd May 2017 5 years
General announcements
1. Maria Groner from Travellers Aid presented Incoming President Rohan with a cheque for RCM's share of the revenue from the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show
Maria Groner - presenting the cheque to Rohan Williams
2. Roger Thornton reminded members of the upcoming Garden Designfest on 12/13 November for Metro sites and 19/20 November for regional sites with three opportunities to support:
- Volunteer to support operations on the days particularly 19th & 20th of November at regional sites
- Provide Roger with any advertising leads to be included in the booklets (key revenue stream from the event)
- Share flyers for the event with family and friends (Roger distributed flyers to the group)
3. Kevin Love reminded members about the impact this month's raffle funds will make. Funds from this month's raffle go to support the Bernie Gerlinger Hope for the Future Scholarship program. This program provides support for young people at primary and secondary level to attend school by meeting some of their material needs and providing mentoring and guidance support with significant success in recent times.
4. Allan Driver reminded members about the new RACV club agreement to use TryBooking in advance to purchase meeting tickets
5. Therese Robinson formally presented Paul Harris Foundation badges to Warwick Cavell and Anne King as it was the first time with all three in a room since her Presidency. Therese thanked them again for their support and guidance during her year.
PP Therese Robinson presents PHF badges to Anne King and Warwick Cavell
New member induction
President Elias formally inducted Steve Turner into the club representing the vocation of aerospace engineering and mentored by Herb Greenwood.
Steve grew up in a community-orientated Rotary family and has always admired the work Rotary does. Having recently retired and finding himself with more time on his hands, Steve is eager to give back as a Member of Rotary Central Melbourne. He kept his introductions short and is looking forward to getting actively involved in upcoming club activities.
President's announcements and close
- Elias reminded members to reach out if they want to attend any upcoming board meetings (noting next meeting is 18 May)
- Des Benjamin will be guest speaker next week discussing his work in plastics and the circular economy
- Elias also shared with members the upcoming launch of the MentorMatch program to support international students with cultural integration and assimilation. Next program will launch with a complimentary evening event on 26 May at the State Library, where Nelson Mandela’s grandson (from the Mandela Foundation) will be keynote speaker. Members to reach out to Warwick Cavell with questions.
Chair Peter Duras closed the meeting at 8.45am
