Week of August 17th

We’re fortunate to be able to continue to meet in person (with appropriate social distancing) considering the restrictions on gatherings in New South Wales.  We had a good roll-up at our weekly meeting, and those in attendance were rewarded with free drinks courtesy of Bern, whose horse Man of Peace won again at Randwick.  The evening feature our first guest speaker of the Rotary year (more on that later) as well as a special ceremony acknowledging the contributions of one of our members.  Howard kept the members in suspense as he described the contributions of this member, most notably extensive involvement with Gears and Beers and the construction of the food van shed.  Those who hadn’t already guessed the person were clued in when Howard noted that this person had served as president for 1-1/2 years, which could only have been Daryl Breust, who served as president in 2018-2019 and for the second half of 2019-2020.  For his dedicated service, Daryl was named a Paul Harris Fellow, an award that was richly deserved.  Daryl was soundly applauded for this accomplishment.

Our guest speaker was our entomologist member Paul, who spoke about dung beetles and the project that currently employs him, the Dung Beetle Ecosystems Engineers project.  Paul shared some interesting life history facts about dung beetles, especially the tunnelling species that were introduced by CSIRO to take care of livestock dung which began accumulating in the landscape after the British colonists introduced cattle and other livestock to Australia.  Paul described the many benefits that dung beetles provide to Australian agriculture and introduced the Dung Beetle Ecosystems Engineers project, which is a multi-million dollar project funded by the federal government and Meat and Livestock Australia with many objectives and cooperating institutions.  CSU is heading up the project, and Paul and Leslie are heavily involved in the project.  For more details, visit the Dung Beetle Ecosystem Engineers (DBEE) website (https://www.dungbeetles.com.au/).  The presentation inspired many questions from those in attendance.

Albert led another entertaining fine session, which left those in attendance with a smile on their faces and a few less coins in their pockets, especially Grahame.

OTHER NEWS

The Coolamon Rotary board of directors held their monthly meeting at the Coolamon Convent on Wednesday.  Although there were not a large number of resolutions passed, there was much productive discussion on a range of topics.  The minutes will be distributed to members shortly.

REMINDERS

THE PUZZLER

Answer to the last puzzler: The speaker of the riddle is a pear, and the other item is a pair.

How many of these rebus puzzles can you solve?

ROTARY NEWS

1.  D9705 Bush fire recovery update

2.  Spring into Alice, September 19-20

3.  District Governor Dr. Michael Moore, AM, PhD

DG’s Message – August 2020

JUST FOR LAUGHS

August is Rotary Membership and New Club Development Month