PP Grahame Miles advised the meeting of the visit of Terry Jones on Monday 9^th August.  We were all asked to make an effort to get as many people along to hear Terry a brilliant raconteur and has many wonderful tales of his time in Griffith as a reporter.

Terry will be speaking on “Rotarian Don Mackay’s Exposure of Underbelly”

Terry is currently Editor of the Bathurst Newspaper, the Western Advocate.  In the 1970s he was Editor of the Griffith Area News and has a wealth of knowledge of the events before and after Donald Mackay’s disappearance.  On the evening of July 15, 1977, Donald Mackay disappeared from a hotel car park after having drinks with friends. He was never seen again.

Please advise Marg and Grahame of your attendance.  6927 3377 Marg or 6927 3274 Grahame.

The Statue of Donald Mackay in Griffith {Click on thr thumbnail to enlarge}

Bill Gates says he is impressed with the progress Nigeria has made against polio and urges partners in the fight to eradicate the disease not to let up.

Gates, cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, shared personal observations from his June trip to Nigeria on his blog, Gates Notes. The post, along with others about polio, are appearing this week on the Gates Foundation blog, Foundation Notes.

In addition, the Gates Foundation website is highlighting two videos produced in June for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

“I was very excited to visit northern Nigeria in June, because the progress there since my last visit in February 2009 has been especially impressive,” Gates writes. As of 20 July, only six cases of the wild poliovirus have been reported in Nigeria this year, compared with 346 during the same period in 2009.

Full Story Here

A community development project takes root beneath the forest canopy in Guatemala.

I n 1991, Steve Dudenhoefer sold his successful landscaping business and abandoned his comfortable surroundings in southern Florida, USA, to dedicate his life to alleviating the plight of an indigenous community in the rain forests of eastern Guatemala.

Dudenhoefer says about 60,000 indigenous Maya from Guatemala are living in southern Florida, many of whom fled to the United States to escape the violence brought on by a decades-old civil war. He observed firsthand the challenges facing migrant workers from the Central American country.

“I was struck by the tremendous sacrifice it was for these men to live in the U.S.,” says Dudenhoefer, who became a Rotarian in 1997, when he founded the Rotary Club of Puerto Barrios, Izabal. “It was the only way to ensure safety, health care, and education for their families back home.”

Dudenhoefer moved to Guatemala in 1991 to become a full-time volunteer. While working at a local orphanage, he was struck by the needs of the people there, particularly those of the Q’eqchi’ Maya living in the rain forests.

A year later, he helped establish Ak’Tenamit, an indigenous community development organization that promotes long-term solutions to poverty through education, health care, income generation, and cultural programs.

Rerooted from Rotary International on Vimeo.

FULL STORY HERE