Our next meeting will be a social dinner on Tuesday, 30 April at the Emerald Hotel, 415 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, at 6pm.
Please come along and bring your partner, a friend and/or a colleague to share a meal and enjoy time together in a relaxed setting. There are no meeting responsibilities for this event.
If you would like a more general discussion about attending a Rotary meeting, please contact the club secretary at rotaryclubcentralmelbourne@gmail.com.
District Governor Michael Lapiña: Unlocking the Magic - a Year of Transformation with Governor Michael
Dive deep into the goals for the coming year, focusing on creating an irresistible membership experience through understanding our "ikigai," healing divides within our communities and clubs, and embracing youth as the "Now."
Learn about fostering trust in leadership, promoting mentorship, and playing the long game with strategic succession planning. Discover how sharing unique skills and vocations can create a sense of belonging and empowerment, ensuring a transformative and impactful year for Rotary.
Don’t miss this chance to be part of the magic!
Governor of District 9800, operatic tenor Michael Lapiña began his professional career in 1988 performing in musicals, touring extensively in Australia and Asia, and being engaged with many of Australia’s leading opera houses to perform some of the most coveted tenor roles in the operatic repertoire.
His Rotary career began in 2005 joining the Rotary Club of Central Melbourne Sunrise, a breakfast Club that suited Michael’s corporate role as an Executive Coach & Project Director at the National Australia Bank that was situated across the road from where Rotary met.
Transferring his membership to the Rotary Club of Wyndham in 2018, he juggles his professional opera career with being a Music Tutor at the prestigious Haileybury College, as well as his Rotary commitments, which has seen him hold several District Leadership roles, including Assistant Governor, Team Leader of the Group Vocational Exchange, Artistic Director of several District Conferences, and Artistic Consultant for the Next Generation Service Exchange sending aspiring young Opera professionals to Bayreuth, Germany annually. Recently, he has was invited to sing at the closing ceremony of the 2024 Rotary International Convention in Singapore.
Michael’s passion and success stems from the support of his wife, Niña, and his three adult children, Mikey, Alex and Brianna – all of whom are Rotarians.
Rotary Central Melbourne Face-to-Face meeting at the RACV Club on Tuesday, 16 July 2024
Chair: Michelle Crawford
Reporter: Ignacio Inchausti
Photographer: Roy Garrett
Following acknowledgement of Rotary International with a toast, Chairperson Michelle ushered President Rhys to the podium to open the meeting with an Acknowledgement of Country. Rhys promptly welcomed members in attendance and our guests to the meeting:
District Governor Michael Lapiña
Alex Lapiña. Alex is the son of Michael and member of Rotary Club Activate
Carl Knudsen. Carl is an Engineering student with a special interest in environmental engineering and climate solution, visiting from the Technical University of Denmark
Guest speaker: Senior Sergeant Ben Morris
Our guest presenter, Victoria Police Senior Sergeant Ben Morris (member, Road Policing Command Strategy Unit) provided insights into the project he is currently delivering within the police: “Increasing road safety within the Victorian basketball community”.
The road safety message would appear to be under-represented across this sporting group, and especially within a specific cohort of basketballers (ie. 16 – 25 year olds), and this is the target demographic which is the focus of Ben’s project. This group of players represents a higher proportional number of road fatalities when compared with ages of other basketball players.
With funding provided by the Traffic Accident Commission (TAC), the main participating bodies in the program are the National Basketball League (NBL) and Basketball Victoria. Why basketball? Basketball is one of the top four sports in Australia (by participant numbers: 300,000 aged 15 – 24 represent 50% of players). There is no explicit messaging about road safety to remind players, club administrators, coaches, friends and families such as we see for the AFL or cricket.
When we understand that young men, their families, staff and supporters travel long distances on country roads, play, spend up to two and a half hours at the stadium, then drive back, many times tired and, late at night, we become aware of the increased risk of accidents and fatalities: this was impactfully driven home by Ben when he shared that he had lost a younger cousin to a fatal car accident whilst returning from a competition; Ezra was only 19 at the time.
Globally, approximately 1.3M lives are casualties of road trauma each year, with 1,100 estimated casualties in Australia. The cost to Victoria is approximately $6Bill/annum, or $17Mill/day. To address this situation, Victoria Police’s Road Safety Strategy has a goal of halving road fatalities by 2030, and eliminating them completely by 2050. The challenges are multiple: evolving vehicle technology, regulation and compliance, modernising road infrastructure, policing and vigilance measures, societal education, medical and rehabilitation services and infrastructure.
Amongst others, the most common causes of road trauma and fatalities are:
Fatigue (accounts for 16 – 20% of fatal crashes; 25% of hospitalisations)
Speed
Basic human error
Drugs and alcohol
Distraction
The riskiest period of a license holder is within the first 3 – 6 months of receiving a Probationary Licence (aka “P1”). If you drive after less than five hours’ sleep, you are four times more likely to crash. With two teenage sons (one a learner-driver, the other a recent probationary licencee, and both avid basketball players), this message is well-understood within the Morris household and actively championed through Ben’s indefatigable efforts, engagement with the Road Safety Partnership and active involvement in the community.
Ben is mentee of our own Paul Fowler through the 2024-2025 Rotary Victoria Police Leaders’ Mentoring Program.
Member Questions:
Ignacio Inchausti asked Ben how confident he was about reaching the stated Victorian Roads Safety Strategy targets, to which he explained that the challenges were many and continually changing.
Peter Duras regretted that in his neighbourhood (specifically Kavanagh and Power streets) there was little police presence to deter traffic accidents. Ben acknowledged this and explained the manpower challenges facing Victoria Police and explained that changes to officer rosters, duties and assignments was being considered to address this.
Francesco Fedele shared his story about also losing a cousin to a road accident; this one caused by an overseas driver. Francesco agreed that education is a key plank in changing the current situation.
Re-induction of Francesco Fedele After an absence of about 3 years, Francesco returned to the club and was re-inducted by President Rhys at the meeting under the classification of Leadership Development. Francesco will be joining the Vocational Service Committee (led by Ignacio Inchausti) and spoke about his commitment to working with youth to support their leadership development as they will eventually be our leaders in the future.
Michael’s Magical Moment With “The Magic of Rotary” as this year’s Rotary International Theme, DG Michael Lapiña, ably assisted by his son Alex, recruited the members in attendance to record the next instalment of Michael’s Magical Moment – a regular feature during this year to be posted on the D9800 Facebook page. Following the “outro” for Ben Norris’ presentation, Michael cued the members to exult “…The Magic of Rotary!” with gusto, verve and panache. All was captured on camera by Alex.
President Rhys adjourned the meeting by thanking members and guests and reminding us of next week’s Zoom meeting at 7:30 pm: “The Rotary Regionalisation Project.”
Chair Elias Lebbos made the following announcements on behalf of President Michelle Crawford.
The recent Board meeting noted the ongoing fundraising by the BBQs, currently looking to be ahead of the past year’s results.
The value of the BBQ fundraising events is well acknowledged by the Board members and all members volunteering are thanked, with special mention of the organisers who established this activity some years ago and the current organisers.
District Assembly is set for 19 May, contact Rhys Williams for information.
Elias announced that he will be taking the baton from Alan Seale to organise the music student exchange program. A viola student has been accepted, to be due here later this year. More later.
Members:
Rob Soros has resigned from the club.
Trevor Dymond’s membership has ended.
Elias noted, with appreciation, the firefighting capabilities of Rohan Williams working behind the scenes in many aspects of managing the smooth running of the club.
Do you have old mobile phones? Can you donate them for our DV Safe Phone project?
Our Club has a focused project to support DV (domestic violence) Safe Phone Group (based in Mooloolaba) which has a national plan to end violence against women and children and to end gender based violence within one generation. Nikki Firman addressed the Club on 12 March 2024. We can support this project by gathering in your discarded old mobile phones, which will be passed on to women in need – victims of domestic violence.
Phones should have content erased, although DV Safe Phone will ensure that occurs in any event. For iPhones, it is important to sign out of iCloud and iTunes and App Store. For Android or Samsung Galaxy, it is important to sign out of accounts and encrypt old data before erasing device. We can provide a link for detailed instructions.
Next steps:
Look for your old phones.
Email Tom Callander if you can donate them.
Erase data – ask for link if required.
Bring them to our in person meetings either on 30 April 2024 at Emerald Hotel or on 7 May 2024 at RACV (alternatively make other arrangements with Tom Callander).
Rotary Central Melbourne supports “Youth Projects” (located in Hosier Lane) which provides a wide range of services to homeless young people, particularly in the CBD.
This time last year, we provided a large number of sleeping bags to Youth Projects. These were quickly distributed and much appreciated.
We want to do so again; the need is real; temperatures are dropping.
Our objective is to collect or purchase at least 50 sleeping bags.
We already have support from Bunnings. We also need, and seek, your support in the following ways:
1. Donate any unwanted sleeping bags your family, your friends or you may have (in good condition). 2. Scour your local op shops to see if you can purchase sleeping bags (in good condition) for modest prices. 3. Purchase sleeping bags from outdoor shops or Bunnings ($50 each at Bunnings) and donate to the Club. 4. Make a cash donation to Rotary Central Melbourne by putting funds into RCM’s bank account (details in the Bulletin or the Club’s website) – mark as “sleeping bags”.
You can bring your sleeping bags to the Club’s “in person” meeting on Tuesday 7 May 2024.
Alternatively, contact any of the following Community Service committee members either to drop sleeping bags off at their places or for pick up from you, by 7 May 2024:
· Tom Callander tcallander@rigbycooke.com.au (East Malvern) · Rebecca John beng1@iprimus.com.au (Eaglemont) · Rohan Williams rdwrcm@gmail.com (St Kilda) · Peter Duras peter.duras@bigpond.com (Southbank)
Sleeping bags should, preferably, be “zero or minus 4 degrees centigrade” grade, but all will be gratefully accepted.
Our close off date for all sleeping bags and cash donations (to the Club’s bank account) is by our in person meeting on Tuesday, 7 May 2024. There has been strong support so far, please assist if you can.
Contact Tom Callander if you can assist or if you have any query.
Several years ago, one of our members, Mawien Ariik created South Sudanese Health Matters to help with health, hygiene and education in his native South Sudanese village of Lou Ariik, RCM recently supported South Sudanese Health Matters Inc (SSHMI) with their menstrual hygiene project that provided 1,200 school girls with access to related education and materials which has helped improve their ability to attend school. SSHMI are conducting a fundraising event to highlight the work done so far and planned in the near future. There will be plenty of entertainment as well as Eastern African-inspired cuisine. Special items will be auctioned on the night and all funds will be used to support an isolated community that is water locked due to floods during the wet season. Details are in the flyer below.
The combined Rotary Districts in Victoria are honoured to be hosting Rotary International President Gordon McInally at two different events in June.
RI President Gordon has been a strident advocate in promoting Mental Health initiatives that help communities and individuals rebuild their resilience.
We are also delighted to advise that Professor Pat McGorry AO a psychiatrist known worldwide for his development and scaling up of early intervention and youth mental health services, will be joining us to compliment RI President Gordon.
The first event is on Sunday 2 June, at the RACV in Cape Schanck, 12.00 noon for a 12.30pm start, tickets are: $95 pp (plus booking fee) incl GST for 2 course lunch, $1,200 for Rotary or Corporate Tables of 8 with naming rights.
This is an amazing opportunity to meet the RI President in person and to hear of his passion in helping our youth, individuals, and communities.
The second event is a Community and Leaders Breakfast on Monday 3 June at the Frankston Arts Centre with tickets costing $38 per person. The keynote speaker will be Professor Pat McGorry AO.
We'd like to extend our invitation to each of your clubs to join the Rotary E-Club of Melbourne for a very special guest speaker, RI President-Elect Stephanie Urchik, who will be joining us on Wednesday 12th June at 9PM AEST.
Our meeting will be held on Zoom, with the details below, and also in the attached image.
Date & Time: Wednesday 12th June 2024 at 9PM AEST (Find Your Timezone)
With the Rotary E-Club of Melbourne transitioning to the new E-Clubs Community Group made up of clubs across Zone 8, we especially wanted to emphasise both links to our new collaborators across the Zone, and our close and continuing friendship with the clubs of the Batman Cluster, which has been our home for many years, and with whom we look forward to continuing to serve.
