Bulletins

Country music legend Dolly Parton says reading to a preschooler is the best way to prepare for the day when that child first heads off to school.

Parton was a speaker at the 2010 RI Convention in Montréal, Québec, Canada, in June, where she received Paul Harris Fellow Recognition and shared her appreciation for Rotary’s efforts to promote literacy. RI News caught up with Parton in Montréal for an exclusive interview. Watch the video above for the interview, and for more from her convention appearance.

Rotary International and the Dollywood Foundation’s Imagination Library are collaborating to promote early childhood reading. The Imagination Library provides preschool children with a free book each month from birth until age five. The program has received support from more than 115 Rotary clubs and has grown from its base in Parton’s home state of Tennessee, USA, to other communities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Dolly Parton Teams Up with Rotary International from Rotary International on Vimeo.

Past President Grahame Miles was the main force behind our Rotary Community Day this year.  Grahame also drove the monster raffle and as a result we as a club were able to provide a total of $6,767  to most of our local schools in the Coolamon Shire.  Here we see Grahame presenting a cheque for $625 to the Marrar Public School Captain Adam Wallace recently.

Thanks for all that you do for the community Grahame and for being a Rotarian.

Shelterbox

Shelterbox, a Cornish charity that helps people all over the world.

Sakuji Tanaka, a member of the Rotary Club of Yashio, Saitama, Japan, is the selection of the Nominating Committee for President of Rotary International in 2012-13. Tanaka will become the president-nominee on 1 October if there are no challenging candidates.

Tanaka said he would like to see Rotary “continue its vital work as the force to improve our communities.”

For 32 years, Tanaka was president of Tanaka Company Ltd., a wholesale firm that went public in 1995 and later merged with other leading wholesalers in Japan. Currently, he serves as vice president of the Yashio City Chamber of Commerce and adviser to Arata Co. Ltd., an animal feed and pet food wholesaler. He also chaired the National Household Papers Distribution Association of Japan for eight years. Tanaka studied business at Nihon Management Daigakuin and Tokyo Management Daigakuin.

Our guest speker this week was Terry Jones from Bathurst:

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.

Terry gave an inspiring and excellent talk on the events in Griffith from the early days, long before Don McKay was murdered, through to the latest drug busts etc.  Terry covered it so thoroughly that there were only two questions asked at the end.  98 people attended this special event in Coolamon.

ShelterBox tents are now up and providing immediate shelter to around 1,000 families displaced by the recent flooding in Pakistan.

The flooding is the worst in 80 years and has caused wide-spread devastation, particularly in District Mianwali, Bhakkar & Khushab and Punjab Province.

SHELTERBOX WEB SITE

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