Coolamon Rotary Bulletin for Week of 17/03/2024
Meeting of Monday 11th March
President John Bond “Bondy” welcomed 22 members including Vicki Langtry who will be inducted into our club next Monday. We started with the raffle which was won by Grahame Miles and some cucumbers were won by Anne and Garth courtesy of Albert Suidgeest.
We then went into discussing some general business including:
- Garth Perkin on the Tandem Polio Plus Bike Ride from Adelaide visiting Coolamon on Monday May 20th.
- Henk Hulsman on upcoming guest speakers. (See the diary).
- Henk Hulsman reported on the CRCTB 2024 Committee meeting.
- Henk Hulsman requested that every member MUST have their Working With Children Check #s updated and current. Henk will gladly help any member having trouble getting theirs done.
- Area Governor Garth Perkin encouraged all members to attend the upcoming District assembly and PETS training in Cootamundra.
- PE Adrian Lindner gave a detailed report on the PETS and District Assembly held in Batemans Bay over the past weekend. Some points of interest:
- The Rotary Foundation is till the leading charity in the USA as announced by Charity Navigator. In the main due to the accountability and transparency of our Foundation and the low % of administration costs that our Foundation charges.
- There was a very good brain storming session on What is Rotary?
- Presentations on RAWCS, RAM, Polio Plus, Shelter Box and Youth Exchange.
- Governance of a club all members need to know how to look after the club’s responsibilities these include insurance and good record keeping.
- Child protection and screening volunteers.
- members are encouraged to use the My Rotary website and here a member needs to register to get the most benefit from the My Rotary website which has a lot of very useful information.
- Regionalisation was discussed as in 2025-2026 as we in RI Zone 8 are trialling a pilot scheme for centralisation of Rotary in Zone 8.
- Discussion on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as well as programmes for the prevention of Domestic and Family Violence.
- Adrian concluded that there was plenty of information available and encouraged all of our members even those not on the board to attend the District Assembly and PETS at Cootamundra on the 23rd and the 24th March i.e. 1.5 days.
- Grahame Miles encouraged all members who are interested to attend the meeting to form the Advance Coolamon Committee at the Sports Club.
- Daryl Breust spoke about the “new” table settings and believes that the way the tables are set up is not conducive to good fellowship and social arrangement. Most agreed and the tables will go back to the way they were next week.
- Paul Weston advised the members that Vicki Langtry’s membership application has been approved and there were no objections to Vicki becoming our newest member. Vicki will be inducted next Monday night by President John Bond. Welcome Vicki!
- Albert Suidgeest announced a new competition involving diet. Since Albert gave up smoking 12 months ago now he is organising a weight loss competition with those who want to join in giving $10 to enter. Scales will be required to have a weigh in for those competing. So far 7 members have entered.
S@A Dick Jennings and Cpl Garth Perkin then went on a fines rampage and every member present were targeted. As always a great session by these two which raises funds for our club.
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 March 18th Board Meeting – Coolamon Sport Rec Club, 5.00 for 5.15 pm.
*Monday March 18th Guest Speaker Jill Armstrong/Iverach – Coolamon Sport Rec Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm.
PETS & Learning & Development for all incoming Presidents Elect, Board Members, New Members and Directors.
- Fri Mar. 22, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. – Sun Mar. 24, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. Cootamundra Ex-Servicemen’s & Citizens Memorial Club, Cootamundra.
*Monday March 25th Guest Speaker Nicole Nixon Artist – Coolamon Sport Rec Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm.
*Monday April 8th Guest Speaker PE Adrian Lindner on their trip to Nepal – Coolamon Sport Rec Club, 6.30 for 7.00 pm.
Sunday April 14th– Wagga Cycle Club Event: CRC catering lunch and dinner for cycling event at the Pomingalarna Reserve Wagga Wagga. Volunteers needed. Details to follow.
Saturday May 11th: Health Van visits Coolamon.
*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. END POLIO NOW TANDEM BIKE RIDE
Following up on our phone conversation today, thank you for agreeing to a presentation at Coolamon and for offering hosting. I have copied the email sent on 19th Feb to give you some info about our ride.
My wife, Joyce, and I are Rotarians in our mid seventies who are about to embark on a 3000km unsupported ‘End Polio Now’ tandem bike ride from Adelaide to Sydney via Melbourne. We plan to visit as many Rotary clubs as possible en route to make presentations and to solicit club donations, following the same pattern we used on a similar ride from Perth to Adelaide in 2022 when we raised about $38000 for the cause.
Our itinerary will bring us to Rotary Club of Coolamon on Monday May 20th at 18.30 and we would love the opportunity to make a presentation and to solicit a donation from your club at your regular meeting on that day.
Our ride is not only self supported (no vehicle back up) but also self funded, so that we will pay for our own expenses along the way and would therefore very much appreciate the offer of hospitality by one of your members on the night we present.
We fully understand that Rotarians suffer from ‘polio fatigue’ after decades of this campaign but recent events on our doorstep in Indonesia have shown that we cannot afford to take our eyes off the ball and unrelenting immunisation pressure must be maintained. As you will be aware any money Rotary raises is matched $2 for $1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Of the $38000 raised on our last ride, more than 50% came from Rotary clubs, with the great majority of the remainder coming from our personal contacts and very little through our quite extensive exposure on TV, radio and the press. We cannot ask our contacts again this time but would very much like to expand the pool of donors outside of the Rotary world. This is not easily done for a cause unfamiliar to most Australians, who don’t seem to have much understanding about polio and its severity and who view many other causes as more pressing.
Our strategy is to solicit small, almost trivial, amounts from a large number of people via social media and our slogan is to ‘hit polio for six’ with a $6 donation via the Rotary donation portal. This portal will be developed with help from other Rotarians and will link to a video with some basic polio background information. With this in mind our presentation will encourage your members to circularise all their social contacts asking for a $6 donation.
We would be very grateful for the opportunity to address your members on May 20th.
Regards,
Phil & Joyce Ogden
Rotary Club of South Launceston
MARCH IS WATER, SANITATION AND HYGIENE MONTH
Graphics by Debbie Vance from Canada
ROTARY CLUB OF COOLAMON Inc. 2023-24
Chartered March 3rd, 1971; Sponsoring Club Narrandera Rotary Club
- President: John Bond
- President-Elect 2024-2025: Adrian Lindner
- Secretary: Paul Weston
- Treasurer: Mary Potts
- Membership Director: Leslie Weston
- Service Projects Director: Adrian Lindner
- Youth Services Director: Scott Mudd
- Club Admin Director: Henk Hulsman
- Public Image Director: Grahame Miles
- Sergeant @ Arms: Dick Jennings
- Immediate Past President and Vice-President: Paul Weston
- Bulletin Editors: Paul Weston and John Glassford
- Webmaster: John Glassford