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President Roy Garrett opened the meeting and chaired the meeting welcoming guests;
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Grant .Godino from Gateway Rotaract Club
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Paul Fraser friend of Tony Thomas
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Warwrick Cavell friend of Tony Fritsche and 2nd visit
Announcements:
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Herb Greenwood announced that there is a DIK Working Bee on 11TH April from 9am to 1.00 pm at the Woolshed 40, 400 Somerville Road, West Footscray. Email or call HG.
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Bernie Gerlinger also announced the next Working Bee at Royal Talbot on 18th April from 9am to 1.00 pm. Contact BG.
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Frank O’Brien mentioned another Working Bee as an urgent request from DIK to all clubs seeking support on Saturday the 18th April, 2015, at Box Hill hospital to ‘containerise’ a hundred hospital beds no longer in use as a result of the Box Hill Hospital renovation.
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Rob Hines announced that our club will be having a Rotary Golf Day on Friday the 8th May at Southern Golf Club. It will be an Ambrose Day event and very social. Ambrose means only one team member has to hit a good ball per hole. The cost $100 pp includes Green Fees and lunch with the proceeds going towards the Silk Miller Scholarship
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Wolfgang Jacobs also mentioned that our next social and fundraising Wine Tour event will be held on 24th May – TarraWarra Estate and the theme will be “Big Reds” approx $140 pp including the bus, lunch and wine tasting. Register your interest with Wolfgang.
Director’s Report – Foundation:
Doug Robertson efficiently handed over to Michelle Heard who has been in Melbourne for the last year as a Rotary Global Grants Scholar studying at Melbourne University. She is an example of the benefits of Foundation and the investment Rotary makes for our future.
 Michelle reported that she has had a lot of great mentoring experiences through her involvement with Rotary while living in Melbourne, doing an MBA,majoring in “Global Justice and Human Rights”. Michelle said it has been a phenomenal experience being involved in various volunteer opportunities and educational experiences, including:
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Brotherhood of St Laurence – developing further her interest in supporting refugee communities
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Involved in lots of Rotary Club projects
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Joined Rotaract, young people involved in the work of Rotary which later resulted in her becoming the Interact President
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Attending the recent Hobart Conference
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Learning many cultural differences in Melbourne while acknowledging the diversity of life in Melbourne
Michelle said she has formed the opinion that Melbourne is a very social community and gave a big heart-felt thank you to our Club for the support we have given her. Michelle and President Roy then exchanged banners.
President report. Roy – short and to the point:
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Rotary Convention at St Paulo in Brazil in June. If anyone is interested in attending please let Roy know.
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RCCMS Board met last week. Everything is going well financially.
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Farmer’s Market discussions continue with Council. progress is positive with a couple of locations being considered.
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Editor position is currently available for the RCCMS Bulletin so any EOIs to take on this important role would be appreciated –to Roger.
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In regards to the Laos project – plans are underway to support the construction of our 4th school
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A sizable donation for disaster relief was also made to the Vanuatu disaster response
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$1000 donation has been made to the ‘Lets read project’
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Volunteers ( two more) required for MUNA camp for last weekend of May
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RC – Brighton holding a breakfast on International Labour Day, President Roy would like us to try and make a table on 1st May.
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Brian Downie has returned from hospital and recovering well at home
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Sergeant’s Session
Sergeant Bernie started to hit people up for the usual fines then realised he did not have much time allocated so there was only one fine - for Allan Driver enjoying his birthday today at our club breakfast “Happy Birthday Allan”
 Guest Speaker – Elio D’Amato (CEO of Lincoln) “Talking Stocks”
Elio started by giving a short history of Lincoln and the founder Dr Merv Lincoln and reported that they now look after $220 million in managed funds. Elio gave an excellent presentation and had everyone interested in what shares are “hot and what is not” using punch phrases like “Blue and green is were you want to be seen” referring to his charts and showing how investors want to be in a strong and satisfactory growth position and with low risk shares.
Elio gave a thorough overview of the stock market and the issues that should be important to investors. For example, he raised many questions and delivered his answers confidently, posing questions like “What to like about the market now?” then carefully articulating his rationale to invest and what to invest in. According to Elio, the main issue is that income investment will be a strong driver for the market going forward, “our currency is weakening therefore the positive is that there will be more foreign investment”. Others considerations include:
- Energy and commodity prices have fallen, expect to hear more about capital infrastructure investments, and
- World recovering economically
- Great businesses can be found and challenged businesses/sector easily avoided
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ROMAC began as part of an outreach team of volunteer surgeons and back up staff which went to Fiji to treat local children with cleft palates or lips. They found there were many children too sick to be treated where they lived. ROMAC began when Rotary clubs in Victoria began sponsoring children from the Pacific region to be brought to Australia for treatment by some of our most eminent surgeons who generously donated their services. There are tight parameters on the number of cases which can be treated due to constraints on resources and capacity. A key benefit is the experience surgeons and staff acquire from treating conditions not usually seen in Australia. The big challenge is finding funds to continue the program with increased costs and a never ending demand for places for patients from our neighbours in the Pacific.
The RCCMS Board has unanimously agreed to donate $1600 for the cost of 2 Family Survival Kits for Vanuatu. These kits are fantastic....they include the largest humanitarian aid tent available, blankets, water containers, cooking utensils, a stove, pots, pans, children rucksacks, mosquito nets etc. Arrangements are overseen by Disaster Aid Australia, an organisation managed by 9 local Rotary Clubs..gif)
Rotary Australia has established a project to aid the recovery efforts in Vanuatu following the loss of life and property during Cyclone Pam. Should anyone care to donate, please 
If you are unable to get to Royal Talbot or are still looking for work after your gardening is complete, you need only drive to the new Box Hill hospital where DIK is arranging the collection of 150 hospital beds from the old hospital. Further details will be advised when available. There will be a good number of Rotarians from other Clubs working there but the job may need to run into a second day if insufficient help is available on the Saturday.
