VicPol Road Policing and Rotary Central Melbourne. An opportunity for reflection, development and fostering relationships.
Sarah Carmichael is a Senior Sergeant at Victoria Police, and is stationed within the Road Policing Command Strategy Unit.
Sarah is a participant within the 2017-2018 Victoria Police Leaders Mentoring Program, and is being mentored by Marjorie Gerlinger. Sarah will provide a glimpse of herself professionally and personally, her role in the program and outline her community project.
After commencing studies at Monash after completing VCE, Sarah joined Victoria Police in 1999 as a 20 year old wanting to serve the community whilstfollowing in the footsteps of her grandfathers, father and brother – all of whom had served in the Australian Armed Forces.
President Frank opened the meeting and handed over to Chair Tom Callander.
Visitors:
Uttam Ganguli Past District Governor 3291 and representimg the Rotary Club of Rabindra Sarobar, Calcutta.
Lauren Clark, Rotary Club of Albert Park and her guest Caitlyn Rustern
Nick and Jennifer Clift. Nick is a transferring member from RC Echuca-Moama
Temur Samarov, an overseas MBA student at Charles Stuart who has a connection to Rotary via his sponsors, the RC of Helmond, in the Netherlands. Temur is from Uzbekistan.
Tom advised that unfortunately our guest speaker, Sheryl Forrester, The Victorian Programs Coordinator for Shine for Kids was caught in the traffic chaos caused by an accident on the Monash freeway and was unlikely to join us. He decided to reallocate the time to allow several presentations from members and guests.
Announcements
Uttam Ganguli announced that his Rotary Club of Rabindra Saobar, Calcutta had approved the documentation to enter into a sister club relationship with Rotary Central Melbourne and he handed the completed paperwork to President Frank for approval by the RCM Board.
Rotary Club banners were exchanged between Uttam and Frank.
Stuart Ellis sought feedback on our Youth Exchange program following the successful hosting of Flavia by our club this year. He is interested in member’s views about whether or not we should replicate this program next year. Comments to Stuart please.
Neville Taylor, on behalf of Elias, reminded members of our commitment to White Night on Saturday February 17. Our marquee will be situated on the corner of Swanston and Lonsdale streets.
Herb Greenwood reminded members of the Opera on the Yarra event on March 3. Please book your tickets via Try Booking.
Yangpu made a short presentation on the Children’s Toy Project being conducted by the Melbourne Men’s Shed. They are looking for non-profit organisations to partner with to sell the toys and share the proceeds. Any ideas to Yangpu please.
President Frank relayed the sad news that ex member and friend of RCM, John Meehan had suffered a major stroke and was very unwell. Our thoughts and prayers are with John, his wife Lorraine and their family at this difficult time.
President Frank commended the members to read the latest District 9800 newsletter which he had recently circulated via email.
Member and project updates
Rob Hines then provided an overview of the biennial Garden DesignFest which would take place over two weekends in November this year, 10th and 11th for rural gardens and 17th and 18th for Metropolitan gardens. The GDF is a joint venture between three Rotary Clubs, Kew, Brighton North and RCM. The major beneficiary of funds this year will be the End Trachoma campaign. This will be RCM’s major fundraiser in the 2018/19 year and there will opportunities aplenty for volunteers.
John Heinrichs then spoke of his next sojourn to the USA in order to save $80 per month! That’s the storage fee for his motor home over there. He will be leaving shortly for a number of months continuing his exploration of the west coast in particular as he attempts to hike from the northern border of California to Canada, nearly 2000 kilometres. That’s if he survives his trip to the Big Sandy Machine Gun Shoot in Arizona first. Good luck John and please send us some photos along the way. Hopefully we’ll see you in October.
Anne King then spoke of her recent trip to Bali during which she visited a project of the RC of Richmond. Anne is Assistant Governor for the Heritage cluster, a group of 6 Rotary clubs which includes Richmond. RC Richmond are sponsoring a young women to attend a hospitality school in Bali which is focused on training young people to speak English and learn skills to enable them to work on the cruise ships and in turn provide for their families.
Lauren Clark a visiting Rotarian from RC Albert Park spoke of her club’s project “Star Carnivale”. This is your chance to swing on the Giant Ferris wheel, the Melbourne Star, while it is lit up in Rotary Colours for the evening on April 22. Tickets are $35 per person and each Pod takes 20 people. For every Pod sold RC Albert Park will donate $400 to the Rotary Foundation in that club’s name. details at www.rotaryalbertparkevents.org.au
Close
As expected the Swindle jackpotted to next week’s meeting.
Today’s chair Tom Callander handed over to President Frank who closed the meeting, on time at 8:45am
Special Program to Replace Guest Speaker (due to traffic jam on the Monash)
In the absence of the guest speaker, Peter Duras talked about the objectives of Shine for Kids. Shine for Kids is the only national charity in Australia that works solely to support the children of incarcerated parents.
He noted our close connection to this charity through ex club member Mik Wells and spoke of the need to reconnect. Through the goodwill of Caprice, many items of linen, toys, bags, shoes etc had been donated to Shine for Kids through RCM.
Following a desperate plea from Donations In Kind ('DIK') chief Bob Glindeman for one final working bee to clear and clean up their former home (Shed 40), twenty plus Rotarians dutifully attended on Saturday 16 December.
Our Club supplied six (Alan Seale, Rohan Williams, Peter & Sue Duras, Roger Thornton and Frank O’Brien) and RC Balwyn supplied 7 (including DG Peter and Anne).
DIK had to be out of Shed 40 by Christmas (some months overdue) and Bob had planned this day meticulously. Amongst other things, two massive bins were filled with hard rubbish, four bins were filled with cardboard and one of the DIK trucks was completely filled to the roof with non-useable items which had become scrap metal. By the time we departed, Bob was left with completing the move of remaining pallets to Shed 39 or into a container headed for South Sudan and filling one last bin with hard rubbish.
Was he happy? To quote him, he was “ecstatic” with the result and thanked us all profusely.
Well done to our Club volunteers who gave up much of their 2nd last Saturday before Christmas for this key Rotary exercise. Of interest, DIK has now shipped 526 containers overseas in the last 15 years.
We understand Sue and Frank were talking about their recent fishing expeditions.
On Friday 15 December, our intrepid President and myself (standing in for Elias Lebbos, Team Leader, Community Services) meet our partner organisations, Steps Outreach, Lentara and TAL Insurance. This annual event has TAL staff selecting a gift tag with the age and gender of the recipient, purchasing a suitable gift and leaving it for collection under the Tree of Joy. Rotary arranges the gift collection with our distribution partners, ensuring the gifts get to the families most in need.
The photo above shows (left to right), Grace Baulch from Steps Outreach; Dannielle Shokry from TAL Insurance, Frank and myself, Malcolm Shimmins from Lentara and another TAL member. The photo shows a number of the gifts after more than half had already been removed, demonstrating the generosity of the TAL staff. We also attended a second TAL location where even more gifts were collected and distributed.
Malcom and Grace confirmed the importance of these gifts for families who are doing it tough, along with the food hampers donated by Rotary members.
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