Month: June 2016

Changeover 2016

Welcome to the new Rotary year!  The Rotary Club of Coolamon celebrated its 45th changeover on Monday night in the company of local dignitaries, visiting Rotarians, partners and guests.  Along with a changing of the guard, the task of composing the bulletin has changed hands as well.  I hope to keep up the high standard that John Glassford has maintained for many years.  John has stepped down from this role because of the duties associated with preparing for a much bigger role, that of District Governor of District 9700, which John will assume in 2018-19.  I know my fellow Rotarians join me in wishing John well in this venture and will assist in whatever ways we can.

As usual, the changeover was a lively affair with a healthy rollup.  Approximately 90 people were in attendance and were entertained by Caleb Richards and Ryan Farrell.  The formal proceedings, emceed by Ian Jennings, began with a welcome by Coolamon mayor John Seymour and a welcome to country by Auntie Gail Clark, a Wiradjuri elder and Coolamon resident.  A number of toasts and responses ensued, followed by an excellent four-course meal cooked up by Gilbert and Diane in the Chinese restaurant at the Coolamon Sport and Rec Club.  Outgoing president Wayne Lewis  then had his moment of glory, describing the highlights of the past year and listing the recipients of the $25,000+ in charitable donations made by the club in that time.  PDG John Egan was on hand to assist Wayne in presenting a PHF to yours truly, a humbling and personally gratifying occasion. Wayne and PDG John then inducted our president for 2016-17, Don Dyce.  After introducing the new board, newly minted President Don thanked the attendees for their participation and wished them a safe drive home.   More fellowship followed, accompanied by coffee, tea and assorted slices baked by Rotarian partners.  The first raffle prize, which consisted of a basket of locally produced goodies, was won by Bob Toose of Junee Rotary.  Second prize was a hamper of licorice items from Junee Licorice & Chocolate, and third prize was a gift basket of garlic items from Ganmain Garlic (second and third prizes were won by Narranderans Anne Dunn and Marilyn Manning).  All in all, it was a memorable evening that spawned new friendships and rekindled old ones.  We look forward to a productive and enjoyable Rotary new year.

•  Paul Weston, ed.

July is changeover month!

Coolamon is not the only place where Rotary changeover occurred; changeovers were taking place throughout the world.  Each month has a theme in the Rotary calendar, except for July, which is changeover month.  District 9700 had its changeover last weekend, and was attended by our own John and Susan Glassford as evidenced by the photo below.  Happy New Year!

On the lighter side

A politician and two of his cronies, Bill and John, were fishing when their boat capsized. Bill and John started to panic because they’d seen sharks in the area.

“No worries, mates,” said the politician and he started to swim towards the island to get help.

As he swam, John spotted the dorsal fins of two great white sharks heading straight toward the politician. Before he could yell a warning, the politician took hold of their fins and the sharks escorted him safely to shore.

When the politician returned with help, John asked him how he had managed such an amazing feat. The politician answered, “Professional courtesy.”

Puzzler

Most of us are familiar with the nursery rhyme/riddle about the person travelling to St. Ives:

“As I was going to St. Ives,

I met a man with seven wives.

Each wife had seven sacks,

each sack had seven cats,

and each cat had seven kits.”

In a twist on the original rhyme, assume that the man and the seven wives were in fact travelling in the same direction as the narrator of the rhyme.  How many individuals (people, cats and kits) were in fact travelling to St. Ives?

Diary Reminders

Monday, July 4th: President Don Dyce’s FIRST Meeting of 2016-2017

Thursday, July 14: Bingo [Neil Munro (Capt), John Nulty, Don Dyce and Ian Durham] 

Saturday, July 17th: Street Raffle in Coolamon

*Partners and Guests Night

Apologies for Monday meetings: call Ian Jennings on 0428 492 157  BY FRIDAY 12:00 pm.

Coolamon Rotary News Bulletin #45

THANK YOU WAYNE AND HELEN

I know that I express all of our members wishes here in saying thank you to President Wayne Lewis and Helen Lewis for a great Rotary year for Coolamon and District.  The only measure of a successful club is that the members keep on turning up every week.  We had a lot of fun did a lot of work and made lasting new friends this year.

Thanks also to the Board and a special thanks to PP Ian Jennings for making the meetings attractive with many many excellent guest speakers.  Also to our newer members who got stuck into projects such as Moo Poo with Dave McKinley.  Trevor Parkes for the raffles each week a good team all round,  and we look forward to the same with PE Don Dyce.

Well done Wayne and Helen.

MEETING MONDAY JUNE 20th.  2016

What a great roll up for the last meeting of 2015-2016.  Our guests included:

John Bond, Wendy and Stuart Jennings, Dr. Sumera Amir, as well as partners Marilyn Jennings, Helen Lewis and Susan Glassford.

Guest Speakers Rylarians Lyndal Jennings and Lauren Exton.

We had 18 members attend President Wayne’s last meeting as President.

Wayne welcomed all our guests and members.

Short reports made by PP Garth Perkin on the Rotary Leaders Symposium in Young and Myffy Collette spoke on the progress of the Coolamon Community Chronicle.  Myffy asked for contributions and for advertisers to kick off the paper.  The Coolamon Central School will be playing a very important role in this Rotary Coolamon publication.

GUEST SPEAKERS

We sponsored these two young ladies to RYLA [Rotary Youth Leadership Awards], held at the Charles Sturt University campus in Orange recently.  RYLA 2016 was conducted by the Rotary Club of Orange Daybreak.

Lyndal Jennings and Lauren Exton were our guest speakers tonight and gave a excellent presentation on the week long camp at RYLA.

35 young adults 18-28 attended from all over our Rotary District 9700.  They made many new lifelong friends, were involved in many activities and a good line up of guest speakers.

RYLA provided them with teamwork activities both outdoors and indoors with some excellent memory challenges.  They also participated in a few hours of community service with the Salvation Army and the PCYC in Orange.

On their last night they put on a concert for and with the Orange Rotarians.

Both Lyndal and Lauren thanked Coolamon Rotary for this opportunity and they recommend that we continue to sponsor young adults to RYLA.  We look forward to the day when both Lauren and Lyndal join us as Rotarians.

The evening concluded with a vote of thanks by PP Neil Munro to Wayne and Helen Lewis for a job well done.

The raffle was won by Ian Durham and Ted Hutcheon conducted a heads and tails for 2 bottles of port.

Diary Reminders

Friday 24th June Red Nose Day Rural Style in the Ganmain Hall. 10.00 am-2.00 pm Wear Red free entry and BBQ Donations appreciated Contact Bron Hatty 0418 114 750

Saturday June 25th D9700 Change Over in Orange Hotel Conobolas.

*Monday June 27th Change Over Dinner at Coolamon. 

Monday July 4th President Don Dyce’s FIRST Meeting 2016-2017

Saturday July 17th Street Raffle in Coolamon.

*Partners and Guests Night.

Apologies for Monday meetings call Ian Jennings on 0428 492 157  BY FRIDAY 12.00 pm.

REFLECTIONS

This will be my last bulletin as your Bulletin Editor.  PP Paul Weston becomes our Bulletin Editor for 2016-2017.

It has been fun and most enjoyable preparing this bulletin on a weekly basis now for several years.  So my last bulletin will be reflecting on the past.

Coolamon Rotary is on good shape with 25 members now getting back to where we used to be when I joined in 2003.

As with any club there have been some significant moments where we have had new members join us and continue to  stay the course and work hard for our community both here and over the seas.  Slowly we are getting more women to join us and that is a great thing for our future.  Leslie Weston, Myffy Collette and Bernadette Milne make up a trio of dedicated members in our club.

Also the injection of youth into our membership with Alex Thompson joining us, is a great step forward for this club.

Our leadership under President Wayne Lewis this year has been of the highest quality and we look forward to another great year in Rotary Service with incoming President Don Dyce and his Board.

I look forward to working with you as DG in 2018-2019 and my work starts from July 1st 2016 as DG Nominee and in effect it is a 4 year stint.  It is humbling and an honour to have been selected and as the first DG for our Coolamon Rotary Club a rare event indeed.

So here are some memories to contemplate as we move forward together.  In no specific order just 150+ pics!!!

CLICK ON THE THUMB NAILS FOR A LARGER PHOTO.

John Glassford signing off!

See you all at the Change Over Next Monday Night 27th June.

Bulletin Editor and Web Site:  John Glassford

Coolamon Rotary News Bulletin #44

SEOUL RICON 2016 SPECIAL EDITION

JUNE IS ROTARY’S

FELLOWSHIP MONTH

This week we feature the Beers Rotarians Enjoy Worldwide Fellowship.  Seen at Seoul last week.

Beers Fellowship Launched at Sydney 2014

Beers Fellowship Web Site.

MEETING MONDAY JUNE 6th.  2016

We had a very good role up for a Club Assembly last night 17 members present.

It was our last assembly for President Wayne Lewis’s year and it was a raucous occasion with some business being conducted.  Many jokes were told some good some not so good.

In the upcoming retirement of John Glassford as Foundation Director the members nominated Alex Thompson as Foundation Director 2016-2017 and the Board will ratify Alex’s nomination on Wednesday night.  Alex will become the youngest Director of our club in memory.

Grahame Miles reported on Bingo and Dave McKinley on Moo Poo and also requested absence of leave as Dave is going to the Outback for some R&R.

The raffle was won by Henk and Ted conducted another amusing sometimes hilarious fines session.

There will be no meeting on Monday 13th June as it is the Queen’s Birthday holiday weekend.

John Glassford called for members to form the 2019 DISCON working committee in conjunction with the RC of Griffith.

Reminder that Bingo is on this Thursday.

We need names for our change over dinner please advise Henk Hulsman or Ian Jennings.

Diary Reminders

Wednesday June 8th Last Board Meeting for 2015-2016.

Thursday June 9th BINGO: Henk Hulsman (Capt), Trevor Parkes, Ted Hutcheon, Dick Jennings.

Monday 13th June NO Meeting Queen’s Birthday

Monday 20th June LAST Meeting for 2015-2016

Saturday June 25th D9700 Change Over in Orange Hotel Conobolas.

*Monday June 27th Change Over Dinner at Coolamon. 

*Partners and Guests Night.

Apologies for Monday meetings call Ian Jennings on 0428 492 157  BY FRIDAY 12.00 pm.

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

This week here is the Korean interpretation of how to boil an egg in a microwave.  Seen in the breakfast room of my hotel in Seoul click on the images for a larger picture:

My hotel, The Hotel Icon Anguk, Seoul.  Hard to find but a quarter of the cost of the official hotels.

It was FUN!  Especially the shower in a basin.

HOTEL ICON WEB SITE.

REPORT FROM JOHN GLASSFORD COOLAMON & RAGES DELEGATE TO SEOUL RICON 2016

Be a Gift to the World – Mahātria Rā, Spiritualist

This is one of the sessions that I missed however you and I can watch him here.

Happiness is the way I saw the whole convention and my first visit to Seoul.

The best part for me was meeting every day Koreans on the metro every day.  Finding small eating places with wonderful food.  The Koreans’ happy faces, no policemen with guns, only one baton.  The efficient and super clean metro trains, zero graffiti.  So many happy memories that reminds me what the Object Rotary is all about, friendship through acquaintance!

I do not have enough space here ot convey all of my memories however here are some photos in thumb nail format.

PRESIDENT K.R. RAVINDRAN “RAVI”

RI President K.R. Ravindran closed the convention in Korea on Wednesday, 1 June, with a poignant story about his mother’s fight to survive polio at age 30.

When Ravindran was 11 years old in his native Sri Lanka, his mother awoke one day feeling weak and short of breath. Sitting down to rest, she found herself unable to move. The polio virus had quickly invaded her nervous system, resulting in paralysis.

She was placed in an iron lung at the hospital to enable her to breathe, and was told that her chances of walking, or even surviving without a ventilator, were slim. But most Sri Lankan hospitals were not equipped with ventilators in 1963.

Ravindran’s grandfather, a Rotary member, hosted a club committee meeting in his living room the evening after his daughter was rushed to the hospital. Rather than simply offer consolation, his fellow members went to work, using their business acumen and professional connections to find a ventilator.

One of the members was a bank manager who called a government minister to facilitate a quick international transfer of funds. Another member, a manager at Swiss Air, arranged to have a ventilator flown in. The next day, it arrived at the hospital.

FULL STORY HERE.

Find out how Rotary members are improving the lives of mothers and children in Nigeria and Pakistan. http://on.rotary.org/1QXrPQj

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined us at the Rotary Convention and shared that “Rotary’s Polio Plus has helped to avert massive suffering. Some 16 million people who otherwise would have been paralyzed by polio can walk now. Around a million and a half children are alive today thanks to Polio Plus. I thank you for such a great contribution.”

District 9700 Web Site

ROTARY INFORMATION

This week we concentrate on the Rotary International Convention Seoul 2016.

Here is a summary of the event from PP Ron  Ron Nethercutt RC of Mabalacat, The Philippines and  D 3790 Information Chair & Fellowship Director.  Ron is also Past Chair of ROTI and a great friend.  (Rotarians On The Internet Fellowship).  You can down load the report below in pdf, this was published in the Korea Joongang daily newspaper.

This is a very good report and worth reading.

RICON 16

Members of Rotary and Rotaract, wearing traditional Korean attire, get ready for the Walk for Peace in Seoul Plaza on Saturday, 28 May. Photo Credit: S.J. Cho

Korean Pop Icon PSY set the hall on fire with his electrifying performance. His internationally acclaimed ‘Gangnam Style’ had the audience up and dancing, and ended up with some amazing performers from around the world BUT that is a  story for another time.

RAGES NEWS

This week we look at the RAGES booth at the Seoul Rotary International Convention 2016.

Our booth was just behind but hidden by the RI Resource centre.  We were located with all the other Action Groups.

I attended the Action Groups Chair meeting run by Marion Bunch.

We had plenty of material for our RAGES booth and did not run out of forms or cards.  I had my lap top with a power point presentation on loop at all times.

If I may make a comment; we in the Action Groups area had one or two unmanned booths.  We were located behind the RI area right at the back end of the massive hall.  We experienced a very low visitor rate.  No Korean no Japanese Rotarians stopped at our booth and only a few I am told stopped at the other Action Groups.

My observations indicated that the Koreans and Japanese only came for one day and the opening ceremony.  I maybe wrong but I do not think so.  However the visitors that came to our end where genuine and most sought us out.  So quality v quantity in Seoul.  The RI staff also wrote to a couple of the Action Group booths to say that they must stay until closing time and not leave early.  Fair enough.

I have no complaints even though I missed every plenary as I wanted to be at the RAGES booth.  My sincere thanks to PDG Barbara Shayeb-Helou for all the help on our booth which gave me time to go do some souvenir shopping and have a break.

Our break out session was very well attended and our Moderator PRIVP Anne L. Matthews did a very professional job and thanks so much Anne for being there.  On the panel was Moderator Anne with PDG Barbara Shayeb-Helou and PE RIBI Eve Conway.  Plenty of genuine questions from the floor and we finished on time and in time to get to the closing ceremony.  That was something special for another day.

The organising committee are to be congratulated.

The RAGES booth before the opening all ready to go!

The RAGES shirt with Tears of the Rhino got a lot of attention!

Above Rotaractor Oyumaa Davaajav from the Rotaract Club of Nairamdal Mongolia.  Oyumaa wants to save the remaining 22 Mazaalai bears from extinction in her country Mongolia.  Oyumaa also made us aware of the plight of the White Tiger in Mongolia.

Nairamdal Rotaract Club Facebook Page

Mazaalai – this simple mongolian world means Gobi Bear who inhabits in the Gobi desert of Mongolia. No other place on the entire Earth is home for this rare specie of Bear. Its scientific name is Ursus Arctos Gobiensis. It’s listed in the Red Book of Mongolia with a status of VERY RARE. They were found in the Desert of Aj Bogdo of West Altai mountain ranges in early 1920s. Mazaalai is near extinction & globally threatened bear.

The last 22 members of this brown bear subspecies (known in Mongolian as mazaalai) live near three oases in the Gobi Desert, where the golden-coloured animals subsist on a mostly vegetarian diet of hardy desert roots and other plants.

But rising temperatures appear to have already started reducing the available water in the Gobi, making those plants harder to find and threatening the future of the bear.

 

RAGES WEB SITE       JOIN RAGES HERE.

ONLY IN AFRICA KOREA

FOOTNOTE

Coolamon Rotary News Bulletin #43

MEETING MONDAY MAY 30, 2016

We had another good rollup on Monday, which included 20 members and 3 guests.  One of the guests was Shane Bullock, Coolamon resident and manager of Jindalee Feedlot (located near Stockinbingal).  For those that don’t remember, Shane was instrumental in providing the processed cattle byproduct that we sold as “Moo Poo” last year.  Shane explained how the feedlot fits in with the beef production system run by Teys (they also have large feedlots in Condamine, Queensland and Charlton, Victoria).   Thousands of cattle pass through the feedlot each year, ending up in grocery stores throughout Australia and other countries as well.  It was amazing to hear the high-tech approach taken in managing the weight-gain of the cattle, and the precision in managing the inputs and monitoring the results.  Dave McKinley thanked Shane for his very informative talk, and presented him with a kangaroo coin pouch as a token of appreciation.  In addition, Dave presented certificates of appreciation to Shane, Dan Fisher (manager of Delta Ag who provided bags for packaging the Moo Poo last year) and Wayne and Helen Lewis of Lewis Transport (which transported the manure last year from Jindalee to Coolamon).  Shane has agreed to provide product for our fund-raiser again this year.  Thanks for your contribution, Shane!  Pictured below is Dave giving thanks to our guest speaker (left) and presenting certificates of appreciation to Dan Fisher and Wayne & Helen Lewis.

Myffy Collette gave an update on the Coolamon Newspaper project, which is proceeding apace.  The shire is very supportive of the project and has offered the services of Jess Inch, a shire employee who works at the library, to assist wherever possible with the project.  Myffy announced that we’re on track to have our first issue ready for distribution in August.

Mark Reardon and Ted Hutcheon provided a rundown on the Red Shield Appeal that our club collected for over the weekend.  Between the footy games in Coolamon and Gainmain and Foodworks on Saturday and Sunday, we raised close to $1800 for the Salvos.  Thanks to all who assisted (Dick, Trevor, Wayne, Daryl, Ian J, Steve, Myffy, Bern, Garth) and especially to Mark for organising the event and Ted, who went above and beyond (manning the table at Foodworks both days and the footy afterwards on Saturday).  Pictured below are Ted & Daryl; Trevor & Wayne; Garth, Dick & Mark; and Steve.

Our intrepid globetrotter and champion of endangered animals, John Glassford, is attending the RI convention in Seoul, South Korea and has sent some photos of the sights.  John will be providing a full report on his return.  Below are a few random pics from the convention.

Diary Reminders

Monday, June 6th – Club Assembly (Coolamon Sport & Rec)

Wednesday, June 8th – Last Board Meeting for 2015-2016 preceded by a Newspaper committee meeting (7 pm, Coolamon Sport & Rec – no meal)

Thursday, June 9th – BINGO: Henk Hulsman (Capt), Trevor Parkes, Ted Hutcheon, Dick Jennings.

Saturday, June 25th – D9700 Changeover in Orange, Hotel Conobolas.

*Monday June 27th Changeover Dinner at Coolamon. 

*Partners and Guests Night.

Apologies for Monday meetings call Ian Jennings on 0428 492 157  BY FRIDAY 12.00 pm.