28 April 2020 - Zoom
Reporter: Tony Thomas, moving house from Ascot Vale to Niddrie this week and in sub-par form.
There was attendance of 47 at the meeting, chaired by Cam Chambers. Among the guests were Marjorie Gerlinger JAM, the famous Justice Murphy, two Probus stalwarts Bruce Cameron from Keilor East and Robert Renshaw from D9810, and Docklands Rotary supporter Janette Corcoran.
Guest Speaker was Mark O’Keefe from and in the US, speaking on religious persecutions around the world, a topic which won him a Pulitzer Prize for reporting, and a further six nominations.
He told how he joined the Oregonian paper as a church news specialist, although the State is the second least religious in the US. He heard from a Jewish leader of persecutions rivalling holocausts in five world ‘hot-spots’ of persecution and his editor have him a year to investigate (Them were the days, says newsman TT). They were Pakistan, Burma, Sudan, Egypt and China.
He spoke of the difficulty of getting first-hand material from places like China and especially Sudan where women and children would be enslaved as war booty. He was offered the chance to join a group illicitly entering the country to buy back such slaves, who were from the Dinka tribes and ransomed at $US73 each.
80% of the world’s population live in places subject to religious persecution. The underground Christian church in China might be up to 100m people, 80% meeting in private homes not churches.
Mark now coaches people over 50 in leadership and life skills via firedup50.com.
We next heard from Jemima Streader of Year 12, on January’s National Youth Science Forum. She’s interested in both chemistry, biomedicine and the environment, and music (oboe playing) and was endorsed and sponsored by RCM.
In Canberra via Melbourne she learned about bushfire indicators and warning systems, with Canberra itself so clouded in smoke that the kids wore breathing masks. The program had to be ended early at its 7th day but she made lasting student friendships.
In announcements Elias Leboos suggested that with RCM’s many connections to VicPol members could donate to Police Legacy, to remember the four fallen police.
