Today's meeting was chaired by Peter.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Tom Callander – announced the last chance to sponsor Justine for the ultra marathon and followed this up with advice that he would start collecting the sponsorship money next Tuesday as Justine was competing in the event over this weekend.
ANNUAL AWARDS [2013-14] – Held over from Changeover evening owing to absences overseas.
- The Family of Rotary award was jointly presented to:
Margaret Thomas
For her initiative in pricing and purchasing in bulk, items for Xmas Hampers. These were then weighed and individually bagged and made available to members for inclusion. This bulked up and significantly improved hampers for needy asylum seekers.
and
Pippa Thornton
For her involvement in a number of activities included providing significant help with the BBQ at the Meehan's, taking part in the working bee at Royal Talbot and helping prepare the friendship banners for digitising.
- Presidents Rotarian of the Year Award was presented to:
Roger Thornton
for his inability to say no to any requests for help including: Chairing the Membership Project Team, support of the BBQ at the Meehan’s, taking on the Chair of the Community Service Committee and involvement in many volunteer activities.
PRESIDENT’S ANNOUNCEMENTS
- “Celebration of Rotary” event will be held at Queen Vic Market in February 2015
- RNZWCS Limited. Rotary in New Zealand is collaborating with Rotary Australia World Community Service Ltd who has registered a project in Bo, Sierra Leone to build and extend the Bo Children’s Hospital and provide basic health care education. The hospital’s desperately needs an isolation ward owing to the Ebola virus. The funding shortfall is NZ $45,000. Our club is donating $800 towards this project.
- Ban Houy Thao School – President Roy announced that Kevin and Veronica Love will be representing the Club at the handover ceremony on 5th November and would also be inspecting the site of the new project at Ban Bou Aor.
VOCATIONAL PRESENTATION David Jones, Director Vocational Service.
David summarised recent material received from RI that reiterated the role of Vocational Service in Rotary.
Salient points are;
- Vocation is central to Rotary -
- the very base from which Rotary commenced
- the basis of the second objective of Rotary
- continuing importance through the member classification system
- the prominence and popularity of ‘job talks’ and vocational visits within the club
David gave several examples of how our club is applying Vocational Service and how it affects all members, not only the Vocational Service committee.
SERGEANT BERNIE
Bernie started his session by fining Neville Taylor for three years membership and Doug Robertson for six years membership. He then announced that elevator speeches would start next week as the message about them starting this week had got lost. Kevin Walklate interjected that they were probably lost in the lift. To keep us all on our toes Bernie said he would call on members at random but to assist us to prepare our speech a template would be sent to everyone.
He then proceeded to collect some easy funds by fining everyone whose team won at the weekend. He followed this by some obscure questions which raised a few laughs as well as dollars.
Finishing with Confucius says: “Silence is a true friend who never betrays”
GUEST SPEAKER
Tom Brunzell, BERRY STREET Education, Training and Employment programme
Tom delivered a polished and passionate talk on the work of the Berry Street School programme.
They strive to:
- maintain the participation of those who are at risk of disengaging from mainstream school;
- re-engage young people who are excluded from education or training;
- promote pathways for young people into employment.
The Berry Street School caters for young people aged 12 to 16 years. The school currently has three campuses - Noble Park as part of the South Eastern Metro Region, Morwell in the Gippsland Region and the campus in Shepparton, Hume Region. Each campus has an enrolment of approximately 30 students, and delivers a trauma-informed education model.
Berry Street also works in partnership with the Pavilion School, a DEECD school in the North & West Metro Region that provides an education setting for young people who are disengaged from education and/or training.
Young people are able to access educational opportunities through a VCAL programme in the Gippsland Region and a range of community based accredited and pre-accredited programmes that are responsive to community needs.
Tom was hopeful that this model could be incorporated into the curriculum of State Government schools to enable students with problems to be kept in the regular school system.
An illustration of a successful case study; ‘Barry’ dropped out of school when he was in Year 8. Although a very capable student, his chaotic home life made it difficult for him to attend regularly. Rather than ‘fail’, Barry withdrew and started using marijuana regularly.
Three years later, Barry was referred to the Berry Street School in Morwell. He was living with his two siblings in a rundown house on the outskirts of town. “When we couldn’t contact him, we drove to his home and eventually persuaded him to ‘give it a go’. Our teachers were impressed by Barry’s obvious desire to learn, despite the enormous challenges of his living circumstances and gaps in his education.”
Through one to one contact and small group work, Barry started to make up lost ground and his confidence grew. He joined a local football club, found part-time work and successfully completed the Year 11 Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning. Without our reaching out and the skills of our education staff, Barry has acknowledged that his life trajectory would have been very different. He now looks forward to a positive future.
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