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President: Roy Garrett
Chairman of the Day: Herb Greenwood
Guests; Jill Forsyth and Chris Hewett (both Rotary Club of Kew re Garden DesignFest presentation)
Announcements
- Neville John re membership seminar held Saturday 30 August 2014. 120 Rotarians attended. Main points:
- Recruitment is a continuous process.
- Leverage of Rotary’s image and programs.
- Target participation by prospective members.
- Be creative re meeting structures.
- Develop relationship with other community groups.
- Remember each member’s priorities - family first, career second, Rotary third.
- Tell us our stories and why we are involved (e.g.. Richard Stone’s presentation last week).
- Need to be active and need to ask prospective members to join.
- Develop a pipeline approach to membership.
- Develop a membership action plan.
2. Tom Callander re Justine Murphy entering the Surf Coast Century Ultra Marathon, Saturday 13 September 2014.
- This is now a fundraising sponsorship project for our Club.
- 27 members signed up for sponsorship last week at either 50c/km, $1/km or $2/km.
- Sponsorship sheets will be circulated again today and next week.
- Sponsorship payments should be made at our Club meeting on Tuesday 16 September, following the event.
3. Herb Greenwood re Donations in Kind working bee:
- Held last Saturday with six members/partners/friends present, the men undertaking “dirty and dangerous” work and the girls packing sheets for containers for shipment abroad. There was time only for one short break.
Garden DesignFest Presentation
Jill Forsyth and Chris Hewett from the RC of Kew spoke about the Garden DesignFest development. It is now presenting its sixth biennial GardenFest and has raised in excess of $300,000.00 (2012 - over $100,000.00). Gardens have been opened throughout Melbourne and on the Mornington Peninsula.
Our Club will be involved this year with four gardens at Euroa on Sunday 16 November. This involves garden captains and volunteers from our Club for the four gardens, arranging for support e.g.. bus groups to Euroa, marketing through Shepparton News, estate agents’ boards, garden design web page and Garden DesignFest Facebook page.
Jill suggested that we should try to partner with charities with their websites and their data base. There was also support from Tourism Victoria. Use all media. Media does need content. Tickets for the lot are selling at $45.00.
The event will be weather dependent; hopefully it will be a nice spring day.
Greg Cuthbert thanked Jill and Chris and announced that the four garden captains from our Club are Rob Hines, Allan Seale, Tom Callander and David Jones.
President’s announcements
President Roy mentioned that the fund raising committee had been strengthened with the appointments of Peter Duras, Darren Park and Tom Callander to help Greg Cuthbert. He asked members to think about individual fund raising events which may be spontaneous, such as the Justine Murphy ultra marathon sponsorship.
Sergeant Session
Bernie extracted fines for birthdays enjoyed by Dick Mitchell, Rob Hines, Peter Duras and Tessa Hines. He extracted further fines in examining Rotarians on their knowledge of the Four Way Test. Our longstanding Richmond supporter Frank O’Brien was duly fined for the Tiger’s win last week. Anne King and Neil Salvano also contributed. Bernie’s quote for the week:
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance”
Guest speaker
Our guest speaker was Susan McLaine, a bibliotherapist (Herb Greenwood read out her background details which were in last week’s bulletin to some extent). Susan has been involved with bibliotherapy since 2008. Bibliotherapy involves the use of literature to help people deal with physical and psychological problems.
The therapy focuses on enabling individuals to gain knowledge from without and wisdom from within to discover the individual’s self. The therapy involves doing so by means of stories and discussion groups.
Initially libraries were established in psychiatric hospitals and, during the war years, convalescent hospitals to assist patient recovery. From the mid 20th century bibliotherapy evolved with the de-institutionalisation of mental health, and the provision of a wider range of treatments and therapies for patients. It has moved to education, aged care and Department of Justice use. It concentrates on creativity.
Susan became involved from 2008 when she was undertaking an Honours thesis involving State Library development. She was influenced by Blake Morrison’s book “Reading Curve” and then encouraged by Sally Heath (then an editor at The Age) to promote “Creative Bibliotherapy”. She has also been influenced by a Boston Institute of Massachusetts program “Changing Lives Through Literature”, an alternative program to jail developed in Boston, USA.
Creative Bibliotherapy is promoted through groups to assist people who don’t or can’t read well. It supports them to read aloud, to undertake voluntary discussion and to help deal with emotional issues and expressing deeply held concerns. It provides a means for individuals to use their imagination. Its benefits include social aspects, being part of a group, “well being” in mind, developing a sense of being valued, and a willingness to give time and attention to others in the group. Stories lead to discussion on our behaviour with others. Text reading is very important.
In 2010 St Vincent’s approached her to start a group for homeless people or people at risk of homelessness, often with alcohol or dementia issues, often suffering the stigma of withdrawal from the community and often feeling isolated. She became involved with this and also with a Department of Justice Group run by St Vincent’s.
Susan then read to us a short extract from Nelson Mandela’s writings from around 1969 when he was still in prison, and his reaction to his mother’s death and his eldest son’s death. She said that this extract has a particular impact on group members who often then want to share their own thoughts. The group bibliotherapy programme makes such a difference to individuals.
Closure
President Roy closed the meeting and reminded us to “light up Rotary”.
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Tom Brunzell
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