Coolamon Rotary Bulletin for April 21st 2024

Coolamon Rotary Bulletin for Week of 21/04/2024

Meeting of Monday 15th April

President John Bond “Bondy” welcomed 21 members and 2 guests of Lexi Furner, PP Bruce Giles and his wife Robyn Giles. Bruce is a member of the Tumut RC and was visiting our area.

A good turn out of members and we enjoyed ourselves with good banter and conversation. Some Rotary business was done including:

Paul Weston spoke about our printer which now has a security code which will stop other people from using our printer. The code will be available to all bone fide users.
Paul also advised our Board members that the next meeting will be on Monday 22nd at 5.15pm.
Albert Suidgeest gave the results of the weigh in and this week Barry Langtry was the winner. Albert reminded all members that they meet at 7.00am at the Golf course for a morning walk and all are welcome to join in.
Mary Potts reminded us that the Means Health Van MHERV will be in Coolamon on Saturday May 11th from 9.30am to 3.30pm. The project has received a grant of $1,500 from the Murrumbidgee Local Health District. This will go to printing flyers for the day and for the accommodation and expenses for the nurse accompanying the health van. Scott Mudd offered to help with the printing of the flyers. N.B. This health check is for women and men in our community.
Anne Rzeszkowski gave a run down on the Wagga Cycle Club Event: CRC catered for lunch for the event held at the Pomingalarna Reserve Wagga Wagga. CRC volunteers included Albert, Dick, Bear, Anne, Adrian and Wendy. Anne said that it was a very good day and thanked all the volunteers.
John G reminded members that Rotary usually lays a wreath in Coolamon on ANZAC Day.
John Nulty gave a brief talk on his cousin who was in the USA Armed Forces and served in Vietnam. John passed a photo album around showing the ceremony of his cousin’s burial in the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. There are 400,000 graves in Arlington, including President John Kennedy.

Lexi Furner then introduced PP Bruce Giles as Bruce wanted to give an impromptu talk about Tumut Rotary and his journey as a liver transplant recipient.

Bruce joined Rotary 6 years ago in Tumut. Bruce and Robyn used to have an orchard in Batlow and had two children. They retired to Tumut as their family has moved. Bruce was a recipient of a liver transplant 10 years ago and Bruce said that there are 1,400 people on the waiting list in Australia for a transplant.

Bruce is a keen cyclist and won gold for Australia at the 2017 World Transplant Games in Malaga, Spain, where he also mentored the younger members of the team. With over 40 years of cycling experience under his belt, Bruce was an asset to the Aussie team, who came 6th overall in the medal tally, advising and encouraging teammates, and picking them up after a defeat.

Bruce Giles Gold

Bruce spoke about Tumut RC and said that they have conducted three membership drives in his time there, of which one resulted in his joining Rotary. The success of these drives has been excellent and they managed to recruit 5-6 members from each drive. They now have 24 members. New members new ideas!

In 2022-2023 Bruce was joint President of Tumut RC and they did a lot of excellent work.

Tumut Rotary’s main project for the year was to purchase two tricycles to give elderly and disabled people, who can’t ride themselves, an outing with a ride along the Tumut River Walk and Wetlands trails.

Rotary also purchased a defibrillator from a donation from the Tumut Show ‘n’ Shine, panted native trees at Junction Park in a joint project with Tumut Lions, distributed approximately 80 column oil heaters to people in need, held Carols by Candlelight, manned checkpoints at the Snowy Classic Cycle event, and supported and assisted with countless other local events.

They also wound up their Sunflowers for Ukraine fundraising project.

Tumut Rotary club project below “Tricycles for Elderly & Disabled”

President Bondy thanked Bruce and Robyn for their visit and Bruce’s talk which was most interesting.

The meeting concluded with the raffle which was won by Mary Potts and second prize was won by Albert Suidgeest which we are told will come in handy for Albert on his upcoming trip with Dianne to Europe!

Stand in S@A Dick Jennings then fined everyone he could and as usual with plenty of humour. Leslie Weston was fined for her work in finding ways of getting rid of the hairy panic grass menace!

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!

Monday April 22nd: Board Meeting Coolamon Sport Rec Club, 5.15pm.

Monday April 22nd: Normal Club Meeting Coolamon Sport Rec Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm.

Thursday 25th April: ANZAC DAY the 109th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli/Çanakkale Savasi.

Monday April 29th: Normal Club Meeting Coolamon Sport Rec Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm.

Saturday May 11th: Rotary Health Van visits Coolamon.

9.30-3.30pm

Free Men’s Health Check in Coolamon

Cowabbie Street contact Garth Perkin on 0428 695 117.

*Monday May 20th Polio Plus Tandem Bike Riders visit Coolamon.

Saturday 25th – Wednesday 29th May 2024- Rotary 24 SINGAPORE Convention.

https://convention.rotary.org/en-us/

*Friday 25th- Sunday 27th October 2024. D9705 Conference. Mittagong RSL. Bookings open now for early bird registrations: https://www.discon24.com/

JUST FOR LAUGHS

N.B. ALL of the above images were obtained from Facebook

ROTARY NEWS

1. WORLD IMMUNISATION WEEK

PDG MURRAY VERSO, END POLIO NOW COORDINATOR — APR 8, 2024

World Immunization Week (24-30 April) is a perfect time for Rotary clubs to share the incredible progress Rotary and its partners have made toward eradicating polio.

Article by Murray Verso, End Polio Now Coordinator

World Immunization Week 24-30 April 2024

This year there are significant anniversaries to celebrate:

10 years since the World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia Region was certified free of polio
30 years since the WHO Americas Region was certified as polio-free
50 years since the launch of the Expanded Programme on Immunization, which ensures equitable access to vaccines (including polio vaccines)

FULL STORY HERE.

2. NEWS OF A FORMER MEMBER OF THE CRC.

Those of us who remember Julie Clark might be interested in Julie’s journey since she left Coolamon.

Julie’s Facebook page gives a wonderful pictorial account of her travels around Australia. Julie is also an accomplished photographer and here is a brief look at where she has been.

“The last sunset photo of my mining career. I’m excited but sad to be leaving. Mining has challenged me in ways that I thought I would break, l didn’t I became stronger. l have made some lifelong friends and I will always be grateful and cherish these friendships.

So what next, as some of you know I’ve bought myself a caravan. My plan is to travel catch up with family and friends and the big one is to challenge myself and grow my photograph. So be warned there will be photo overload coming to facebook.

My first milky way photo for this year, I had to share the jetty with a couple of other photographers. I’m not used to having other people around at night time. It was fun meeting new people who enjoy night photography. The air glow turned the sky orange which is a bit different.”