CRC Bulletin May 19th 2025 – Coolamon Rotary

COOLAMON ROTARY CLUB MEETING May 19th 2025

President Adrian welcomed 22 members and two guests including Rtn. Brian Roberts from Kooringal RC and our guest speaker Jeff McCormick.

President Adrian reminded members to donate used clothing for the Jericho project in Junee.

Mary advised the members that we need one more spot to be filled on the roster for the Red Shield Appeal on the 15th June.

Grahame said that Sharon is hosting a Big Morning Tea at their home on Thursday 29th May from 10.30am Sharon is making pasties and coffee at $10 per person.

We then had dinner and afterwards President Adrian introduced our Guest speaker Professor Jeff McCormick, Associate Head of School of Agriculture, CSU Wagga Wagga.

Jeff completed a PhD on dual-purpose canola at Charles Sturt University. This work included field crop agronomy research, plant physiology and APSIM modelling. In 2010,Jeff commenced work with NSW DPI as part of the EverCrop program with Future Farm Industries. The primary focus of this position was investigating the establishment of pastures by under sowing in the mixed farming zone. In 2012, Jeff moved to Lincoln University, New Zealand, as a Plant Science Lecturer. Teaching included first year plant science, crop science and crop and pasture agronomy. Jeff came back to CSU as a lecturer in Agronomy in 2016.

Adrian said there are 6 Rotary Clubs in PNG and PNG is in D9620 a Queensland District. The Rotarians in PNG do some great work in PNG with Malaria, HIV education, Domestic Violence, Wheel Chairs and Water supply.

Tonight Jeff spoke on Paua New Guinea from an agricultural perspective and how agriculture in PNG is so different to Australia. In particular Jeff highlighted Mount Hagen with a population of 12 million. Their is a high unemployment rate in the Mount Hagen area. So the project that Jeff and Wendy de Luca are involved in is called TVET or Technical & Vocational Education & Training packages. The TVET packages are an Australian Department of Foreign Affairs programme in combination with the PNG Government.

Out of the population of Mount Hagen 85% grow their own food and 85% work in agriculture. Jeff said that the staple diets are as follows:

Sweet potato 66%
Bananas 6%
Sago 7%
Casava 6%
Taro 4%
Coconut, tea, rubber and coffee.
Palm Oil

The Mount Hagen Technical College is providing courses to improve the lives of the men and women from subsistence agriculture to a technical trade:

Mount Hagen Technical College

Jeff went on to talk about meat in PNG and said that they have chicken, pigs, goats and cattle. They produce 16,000 tonnes of meat and import a further 76,000 tonnes of meat annually mainly from Australia and New Zealand.

Jeff spoke about the limitations of working in PNG citing violence, corruption, trained human resources and supply chains for marketing crops such as coffee and tea.

An excellent presentation and with many questions. Barry thanked Jeff for his most interesting talk.

We then closed the meeting after a fines session by Cpl. Garth and his assistant Dick.

The raffle was won by Garth and the meeting closed at 9.00pm.

DIARY

N.B. You are always welcome to bring guests to most of our meetings, just advise Ian Jennings if you want to bring a guest along when you respond to the weekly dinner roll call!

You can download the full programme here and note that it will change and that will be reflected in the weekly bulletin and in The Diary on our website or the link below in pdf:

CRC Program 24-25 UPDATE

*Monday 26th May Social Meeting: In the hot seat will be PP Mark Reardon, Mark has been a member of our club for 40 years! Coolamon Sport & Recreation Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm. meeting.

*Monday 2nd June Guest Speaker: Dr Saba Nabi, Member of Rotary Club of Wagga Wagga & Multicultural NSW Board member. Topic, Multicultural communities contributing to Australian society.

Friday 6th June MHERV in Coolamon. https://mherv.com.au/

Saturday 7th June MHERV in Ganmain.

Monday 9th June NO MEETING: Public Holiday King’s Birthday.

*Monday 16th June Guest Speaker: Steph Cooke MP, Member for Cootamundra on State Issues for the Coolamon Shire. Coolamon Sport & Recreation Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm.

Sunday June 15th Red Shield Appeal details to follow.

Saturday 21st-25th June 2025 RICON IN Calgary, Canada

Calgary RICON 2025 Calgary Facebook Page

*Monday 23rd June Social Meeting: In the hot seat will be President Adrian Lindner. Coolamon Sport & Recreation Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm. meeting.

*Monday 30th June CRC 54th Annual Change Over Dinner. Coolamon Sport & Recreation Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm.

*Guests welcome to bring their partners and friends.

JUST FOR LAUGHS

ROTARY NEWS

1 ROTARY AND SOCIAL MEDIA

The Rotary South Pacific Regional Council is pleased to announce that the Rotary South Pacific Social Channels are officially up and running.

Please check us out at:

Facebook– https://www.facebook.com/RotarySouthPac
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/rotarysouthpacific/
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/rotary-south-pacific/about/

As we grow our platforms and the content, we encourage you to follow the pages and share them with your Rotary and local community connections. Read more in the link below:

Social Media

If you have any questions please contact Sr. Coordinator Communications and Public Relations, Angela Stavro at [email protected] and Public Image Director, Liz McDougall at [email protected]

CRC SOCIAL MEDIA.

Believe it or not the club has had social media since 2004 when PP Les Millis and JJG created our website using Word Press as our platform to host the website. We also have a CRC Facebook group with 25 members in that group. Adrian and Ian are administrators for our group. You can access our Facebook group and join as a member:

CRC Facebook Group

We do not have an Instagram page nor do we have a LinkedIn profile.

If any of our members wish to create an CRC Instagram page or a LinkedIn presence I am sure that our Public Image Director would be able to create both social media outlets. I have been on Facebook for 18 years now mainly for Huff n Puff. I use Instagram sparingly and I have left LinkedIn.

OUR WEBISTE

2. CELEBRATE ROTARY YOUTH SERVICE MONTH

May is Youth Service Month —a time dedicated to celebrating the local and global impact of Rotary International’s young leaders. While their impact is felt year-round, this month provides a special opportunity to showcase the leadership growth and service efforts of the 350,000+ young people engaged in Rotary’s youth programs worldwide.

Join us in celebrating Rotary’s young leaders in the following ways:

Follow @RotaryYoungLeaders on Instagram

Rotary International has a new Instagram account that celebrates and showcases the experiences of Rotary’s youth program participants! Follow along for content about Interact clubs, Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA), and Rotary Youth Exchange. Throughout May, there will be special themed content connecting to Youth Service Month.

MORE INFORMATION HERE