Following on from the success of last week's Zoom meeting and the necessity to remain out of public spaces, where possible, we are continuing our weekly Zoom breakfast meetings next week.
Stuart Ellis AM, Chief Executive Officer of the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) will be the guest speaker
Like our normal face to face meetings, the meeting will begin at 7:40am on Tuesday 31 March and finish no later than 8:45am. However, for those who want to pour themselves a coffee and stay online we will continue the meeting as a Fellowship session, similar to the ground floor gathering at the RACV.
The link to log on is https://zoom.us/j/466677959 (Meeting ID: 466 677 959). Just press on the link or copy and paste it into your browser. It is a good idea to log on by 7:35am so we are ready to start on time at 7:40am.
Stuart Ellis AM
National Emergency Management capability and the recent fire season
Stuart Ellis was an Army Officer for over 22 years serving with the Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment. He was Commanding Officer on deployment in Somalia and at the Royal Military College, Duntroon.
In 1996 he was appointed Chief Executive Officer/Chief Officer of the South Australian Country Fire Service. In 2002 he established a consultancy company focussed on operational leadership and has been involved in over 20 operational reviews including the Canberra Bushfires, the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission and the Christchurch Earthquake.
He was a part time Member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for five years and sits on two company Boards.
In 2012 he was appointed CEO of AFAC, the National Council for Fire and Emergency Services in Australasia.
In terms of our Rotary Club, Sunday 15 March 2020 at our Bunnings Collingwood Sausage Sizzle was memorable for a number of varied reasons :
We raised over $800 to bring the total raised from Bunnings Sausage Sizzles for the year to date to in excess of $18,000.
We had first time volunteers Elias Lebbos PEN, Cecily Neil and Sally Jones as well as regulars Rohan Williams, Yanpu, Pauline and Frank O’Brien and Peter Duras who swung by in the afternoon. We also had Suvam Ganguli who brought along his father PDG Uttam (who spoke a couple of weeks ago at our Club re the finalisation of a Youth Education project in Kolkatta which our Club had supported and visited January 2019 and which had now been successfully completed) and Suvam’s friend, Ruth. Thankyou everyone.
PDG Uttam presented our Club at the Sausage Sizzle with 2 banners(refer photo), one from our Sister Club, Rabindra Sarobar(PDG Uttam’s Club) and one from Calcutta Victoria (the Club we financially supported last year. Uttam was so impressed with this Sausage Sizzle fundraising activity he is taking the idea back to Kolkatta...minus Sausages!!
This Bunnings Sausage Sizzle was probably our last for the year, despite at least another 5 scheduled, due to Bunnings “closing down” Sausage Sizzles for at least the next 2 months for obvious reasons.
Anyone who was looking forward to assisting our Sister Club, RC Echuca Moama, at its Annual Steam Rally on the June Queens Birthday Weekend can have the long weekend off.
Our Club normally supplies quite a number of volunteers in the Country Kitchen and a good time is had by all....but not this year. This cancellation is predictable but unfortunate as our Sister Club and many Echuca based volunteer groups rely on sharing the profits and distributing same among many worthy local causes.
