Chair Neil Salvano also welcomed everyone and proposed a toast to Rotary International.
Guests
Kevin Love welcomed guest:
Maika Tran - Mentee of Des Benjamin
*Breakfast of everyone in person
Partner Birthdays
Heather Fielden, Mal’s partner 26th March
Joining Rotary Anniversary
Elias Lebbos 23rd March 2015 - 6 years
Ariik 26th March 2019 - 2 years
Martin Langton 26th March 2019 - 2 years
Announcements
• Rohan Williams announced a new RCM initiative: collecting clothing and toiletry bags to be distributed by St Vincent De Paul with support from Caulfield Grammar and Rotary District 9800. The club will be looking for volunteers on Monday 19th April to collect bags from Caulfield Grammar and deliver them to Rohan's or Peter Duras’ home and volunteers for delivering those bags to charity (date TBD).
• Peter Duras called out for help to fill in 2 spots at a Bunnings Sausage Sizzle on 28 March (this Sunday): 2 volunteers in the morning (8:30 am to 12:00 pm) and 2 in the afternoon (12:00p pm to 4:00 pm), and one extra volunteer on Easter Monday. Please contact Peter Duras.
• Gerard Hogan Tabled a notice for a D9800 Multi-District Conference from May 1st to May 2nd. For details, please contact Gerard Hogan.
Des Benjamin - introduced Maika Tran who presented to the club her experience and reflection as a mentee in the club’s pilot International Students Mentoring Program. As an Accounting and Actuarial double-degree international student from Vietnam, studying at Monash University, Maika is in her 4th year. She was first involved with Rotary in 2015 and has participated in RCM’s pilot International Students Mentoring Program.
Maika is also an intern at Mentor Match gathering feedback and survey results from program participants. Mentor Match matches international students with experienced qualified mentors, aiming to connect international students with the Victorian community; RCM successfully partnered with Mentor Match to launch the mentoring program which recently finished and consisted of 11 mentor/mentee pairs.
International Students provide $13.7B of revenue and 79,000 Victorian jobs annually. Recently finished pilot program of 11 pairs of mentors and mentees. As mentee - Maika experienced the program firsthand, meeting with Des fortnightly, and sometimes weekly for hour-long sessions.
Des helped Maika navigate career planning, job applications, career pathways, networking with other people, how to handle conflict, and how to reframe thinking to handle "failure". He also encouraged Maika to explore her creativity which resulted in Maika signing up for Latin dance classes! These are just a few things Maika gained from her mentee experience.
Chair Neil Salvano then formally introduced Chris Wang, OAM to members.
Chris Wang has been a member of Rotary Melbourne since 1988, serving as President in 2007-08. He was a founding member of the Australia China Business Council and is Managing Director of CWI International specialist importers, wholesalers & retailers.
Chris is also Deputy Chair and Treasurer of Give Every Child a Future which is a collaborative zone project to immunise children throughout the Pacific. Rotary Melbourne initiated the program but it has certainly gone well beyond the club in terms of
Support.
While there have been improvements in immunisation services, the poorest and hardest to reach children are still being left behind. Diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhoea remain the leading killers of children under five years and high rates of life-threatening cervical cancer continue to devastate Pacific Island families. Poor health systems, limited government resources, environmental challenges, and families living in difficult to reach areas mean children are missing out on life-saving vaccines. The project aims to introduce 3 new vaccines: cervical cancer vaccine for 9-12yo girls, vaccines against pathogens that cause diarrhoea and dehydration, and against pneumonia. UNICEF is currently working with a global freight company to prioritise the shipment of these vaccines, with education and training already underway.
The Asian Development Bank announced that it would provide financing to the governments of Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu to introduce the new vaccines. Independently Rotary will fund some regional and other supporting activities in those four countries. It will also fully fund a similar program in the other five Pacific Island countries independently of Asian Development Bank.
With support from the Rotary Foundation, approval for the first 9 global grants has seen total funds raised of $1.8mil USD - Rotarians are extremely generous, but to meet goals we are seeking corporate and philanthropic organisations’ support.
Questions:
Neil: Is there a role necessary for rotary clubs in those countries
Chris: yes, where there are RCs in the local community, we are asking them to support us in social mobilisation, that is educating local communities about the project and why it is necessary
President Therese - gave updates on the latest board meeting.
1. Returning to face-to-face meetings – The club has done well in keeping connected, but this doesn’t substitute what we achieve when we meet in person. We plan to hold face-to-face meetings once a month at least until the end of June, and in between, we will have zoom meetings. Moving forward we will no longer hold hybrid meetings: it will either be zoom or face to face. Allan Driver is negotiating the contract with RACV and as a club, we will need to maintain a certain number of attendees.
2. RCM Strategic plan - We will keep monitoring how we are going, what have we done in the past 90 days and what we need to do in the next 90 days. Keeping a close eye on our expenditure, and celebrating the return of the Sausage Sizzles.
3. Next week's guest speaker is Georgie Armstrong – founder of Gretel analytics in 2018. Added details on the RCM website.
President Therese thanked Chris Wang and members for attending.
Meeting closed.
Georgie Armstrong: Aged Care - Engaging technology to save a sector in crisis
