Message from RFFA CEO Marion Bunch and the RFFA Board
L-R John Glassford Australia, “Olu” DGN Olugbemiga Olowu Nigeria. PRIVP Mike McGovern, USA. CEO Marion Bunch RFFA USA. PRID Paul Netzel USA. PDG Mark Doyle South Africa. COO Len Lanzi RFFA California.
We are going back to Africa again in late November come join us on an adventure of a life time. We are going to climb the Mountains of the Moon to raise funds for the AIDS orphans of Africa. Here is a taste of the safari and some of the animals that we will see. Come join us!
“All of us in Rotary are looking to change the world – why else would we be Rotarians? We believe that our world can be happier, healthier, and more peaceful, and that we can create that better world through our service…….We must understand that true change can only begin with each of us, and start within us. We cannot share peace with others if we do not have it to give. We cannot look after the whole world without first looking after those closest to us: our families, our clubs, and our communities.”
Kalyan Banerjee
President, Rotary International
Thanks to Sandy Springs Rotary for the clip.
Here is the latest news on what RFFA (Rotarians For Fighting AIDS) in conjunction with District 9200 East Africa are doing to combat the AIDS pandemic in Africa.
If you are a Rotarian one of the best things that you can do is to join RFFA as a life time member and to do this go to the RFFA web site:
From left to right: Susan and John Glassford (Coolamon Rotary), Anna Khuzwayo (Imizamu Yethu), Michael Dorrian (Coonabarabran Rotary), Sharon Daishe (Forbes Ipomoea Rotary), Craig Corrigan (Coolamon Rotary), Mandy Watson (Burleigh Heads Rotary), Patrick McLaughlin (Hout Bay Rotary), Peter Sparks (Griffith Avanti Rotary), “Babu” Bob Kendell (Lockhart Rotary), Peter Johnston (Hout Bay Rotary).
President Patrick McLaughlin has sent us the latest news from Hout Bay Rotary Club our Centennial Twin Club below:
President Patrick McLaughlin from our Twin Centennial Rotary Club Hout Bay in South Africa sent this very special greeting to us:
Dear President Ian and Coolamon members,
My wonderful wife has got me up to the office and to write this message to all our Coolamon friends in Australia. There’s something a triple by-pass operation teaches you and that is the value of Rotary friendship which stretches across the world. All day, every day I have had Rotary friendship and over the years Rotarian John has been a very special friend, climbing his mountains and working Rotary with such great enthusiasm. It means a lot to me to write this message.
Coolamon has special values for us all here in Rotary Club of Hout Bay because you are our twinned club and there are not too many twinned clubs in the world today. It represents a special partnership, plus the fact that South Africans and Australians are also special people, anyway.
When you drive out of our home town here there is the biggest sign on our local clinic on the Main Road which says “Coolamon House”, so your message is here big time, all the time. May that message also always declare our friendship and common values.
We wish you a happy celebration from each one of our members here and we shall toast Rotary Club of Coolamon at our Tuesday meeting.
Good on all of you. Regards in Rotary.
Patrick McLaughlin President Rotary Club of Hout Bay
One of the joys of being a Rotarian is meeting other like minded people from around the world. I first met Megan MacDonald at the Los Angleles International Convention. Megan was going to study in Kenya for 12 months in Nairobi, my home town. We have become friends ever since and I have been following her blog. Megan has now returned to America and continues to keep us updated on Kenya. Megan writes:
“On February 11 last year I came home around 10 at night and was grabbing a snack before heading up to bed. Suddenly Maureen came into the kitchen with wide eyes saying, “I think my water just broke.” I burst into a fit of nervous giggles before rounding up my housemates and jumping into the car for the two block ride to Nairobi Women’s Hospital.
I remember the distinct honor I felt to be driving this young woman to the hospital and the great sense of responsibility as we prepared for an event I had no personal experience with. I’ll never forget the nurses a few hours later asking me and my housemates how many children we had as we held hands and focused Maureen on breathing through the pain. “None,” we said.
Yet there we were, witnesses to a beautiful birth full of strength, faith, friendship and humility. Out of a forceful crime came this perfect little child, born to a girl who became a woman right before our eyes.
On Christabell’s first birthday while friends celebrated in Nairobi eating Ethiopian food and cake with the birthday girl, I said a prayer of thankfulness for this experience and continued friendship.
Look at our growing girl – in a dress I wore myself as a baby sent with love from her auntie far away.
Last night at our AGM Marg Perkin was voted in as President Elect for 2011-2012.
Congratulations Marg and we wish you well for your year as President.
Marg’s classification within Rotary is Teacher-Hearing Impaired. Here Marg is teaching children in Hout Bay Cape Town on a recent visit to South Africa.
The board for Coolamon Rotary Club for 2011-2012 is as follows:
President Marg Perkin
Secretary and Bulletin Editor John Glassford
Treasurer Henk Hulsman
Club Administration Director Garth Perkin
Service Projects Director Grahame Miles
Membership Director Ian Durham
Foundation Director Ian Jennings
New Generations Director (vacant)
Public Relations Director Craig Corrigan
Bulletin and Assistant Secretary Paul Weston
Web Site John Glassford and Paul Weston
I first met Megan MacDonald in Los Angeles at the Rotary International Convention in 2008. Megan was on her way to Kenya to study at the University of Nairobi as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. Megan has kept a blog on her activities and some of her posts are truly remarkable.
Here is an example of her writing:
WRITINGS OF MEGAN
“Have you seen The Constant Gardener? Do you remember the rolling sprawl of rusted tin roofs in Kibera? Did the movie capture the fractured earth, the plastic bag-choked bits of green amidst the ever-present brown?
I went to Kibera for the first time shortly after I arrived in Kenya to visit Red Rose School. I wore the wrong shoes, and was cautioned that were I ever to go through the gate next to the school that beckoned into the depths of the slum I better make sure my feet were covered. I’ve been back many times since to the inner Toi market (fabulous used clothing market, I have a friend who got an authentic Louis Vuitton for under $1) and Makina market where my tailor is. All these visits allowed me to say, “yes, I’ve been to Kibera” though none of them in anyway conveyed the reality of the place I visited for the first time today. The border does not betray the inner sanctum’s reality. No, it does not
It is hard to reconcile my ability to see the beauty, joy and goings on of life in the slum, with the revolting site you have to process in order to know it must be changed. The land is sucked of the green. The water is scarce, the trash unbelievable. Children meander through filth, shining their glorious youth and innocence in order to make it human, to make it bearable.
There is music, constant music. There are babies being held, old men shooting the shit, hunched grandmas walking together. It is life, at the same time as it should, and never should, be.”
Megan MacDonald Nairobi, Kenya 8th June 2009. From Megan’s blog “There She Goes”.
It took her eleven months, but Kate Leeming is finally back at home in Melbourne after becoming what is believed to be the first person to cycle from the most western point of Africa across to the east coast.
Her 23,000 kilometre adventure aimed to find the causes and consequences of extreme poverty in Africa.
Breaking the Cycle from Stuart Kershaw on Vimeo.