Meeting for August 4, 2009

First of all…
I think we all should say a big thanks to President Adam for the leg-work he put in to the snooker tournament that happened on July 29. The fellowship that happened between clubs was outstanding!

Last week’s meeting (July 29)…
There was a great, if not occasionally late, roll up of Fellows from Bathurst, Bathurst East, and Daybreak clubs. There were 11 members from Bathurst, about another 10 from Daybreak, and over a dozen from Bathurst East.

We attended the regular meeting of Bathurst East and participated in their usual business. It was nice to know that their sergeant-at-arms was just as willing to take our money as well as from his own members. As well, he was as ruthless as our own David Lowe.

We were also treated to the company of their ‘Pride in Workmanship’ award winner, the Father of the Catholic Church in Bathurst. If you ever get the chance to chat with the Father, I’d highly recommend it; he’s a really entertaining man.

By 7:30, the meeting was adjourned and we filed out to the snooker tables. Adam got those of us interested in knocking a ball around a table into teams of two to face off against a team of two from another club. It was also great to see that even the members not interested in playing still came out to the snooker tables for fellowship after the meeting.

Rules were set so that we played with only six red balls and the usual assortment of other colours so that games wouldn’t take too long. A 20 minute time limit was also set such that the team leading after 20 minutes was declared the winner. A team winning its game won their club 5 competition points while losing won their club 1 participation point (I think that’s right…).

I’ll take a moment to brag that the team of Eric & Greg S as well as the team of Eric & Andrew C won both games. I’m not sure the results of the other games but I get to brag about my own prowess becasue I'm the one writing the report. Clearly Bathurst teams won a few other games as well because RC of Bathurst won the night with a score of 20 points to 8 points each from East and Daybreak.

Next week (August 4)
Karl M will be presenting his experiences from his recent travels through Europe.

In the coming month
At the Aug 11th meeting, the DG will be visiting, so please make special note of this in your calendar. The usual meeting time applies for Fellows (6:15 for 6:30) but note that Fellows on the Board will need to arrive at 5:30 p.m. for a sit-down with the DG. Adam and Anthony will need to arrive at 5 p.m. for the president/secretary meeting with the DG. Also note that partners are welcome to the regular meeting.

Alan Brown, I believe you’re taking the lead in liaising with Peter Flude who will be attending the August 18th meeting to talk about The Victorian Bushfires?

All Fellows (and interested family members) should note that on Saturday, August 22nd there will be a garage sale at the Tutorial Centre. I’m sure we’ll get more information from Anthony in the coming weeks regarding this.

At the August 25th meeting, Anthony will again be up to bat to give us all a Technology Lesson about using the Rotary website, doing E-makeups, and the like. Thanks Anthony!

As a final note, the treasurer has asked me to remind all Fellows that subs are due in the coming meetings. Payments are $125 now and a second $125 due in January.

First of all
My apologies for not having a blog entry for last week or attending the meeting. A professional opportunity arose that was too good to refuse. I'm doing an e-makeup for the meeting and thanks to Peter Crewes for taking notes at the July 21 meeting for me.

Last week's meeting (July 21)
The guest speaker was John Cummerford who is the Director of Bathurst City Library. John spoke about his involvement, as a committee person, with the world renowned Sommerville Collection. He spoke about what it means to the town of Bathurst and what is hopefully pending for the future.

Mention was made of the Charles Darwin lecture dinner whereby the fossil museum is behind this idea. The Nov. 24 date is already listed down on our calendar of upcoming events. The club also officially welcomed back our GSE representative Danielle Ballinger who spoke on her recent experience in Italy with GSE9700. Her DVD presentation showed us visitations to Ducati, Fiat (marketing) factories, Mayoral offices, and riding for the disabled. The GSE Team also visited Rome and Florence. Danielle was more than a worthy representative of our club. She indicated she had an exceptional time and thanked us greatly. For more info on what they did, you can visit the blog they kept at http://gse9700to2070.blogspot.com/.

Next Week (July 28)
No meeting Tuesday instead there will be a combined meeting with Bathurst East on Wednesday (Snooker Night) in an effort to win the cup. One of Adam's goals in his presidency is to foster relations between our club and other clubs in Bathurst and in the district.

In the coming weeks
At the Aug 4th meeting, Karl M will be presenting his experiences from his recent travels through Europe.

Then, on Aug 11th, the DG will be making a visit. I'll mention this well ahead of time so that we can have a really good turn out for this meeting. Also note that partners are welcome to this meeting.

July 14

Last Week

First of all, a correction to my spelling of Andrew Camilleri’s last name in last week’s blog. Sorry Andrew. As well as to my spelling of Pardey (with an e).

On a technical note, I think I’ve fixed the code for printing the Bulletin from Firefox so you should have no problems now (thanks Alan for pointing this problem out). For the rest of you who have no idea what I’m talking about… never mind.

We had an excellent roll up for Adam’s first meeting as president, including Danielle’s first meeting back since arriving home from Italy. The meeting was started with the presentation of a few cheques from President Adam to:

1. Anthony Johnson - A cheque was presented that would be going towards the Tutorial Centre’s new interactive white board.
2. Steve Ellery - A cheque was presented to the PCYC, and Steve made special mention of the school breakfast program.
3. Eric Drinkwater – A cheque was presented to the Western Region Academy of Sport, and Eric made special mention of the weightlifting program and their upcoming competition.

During the Club Assembly, the first order of business was the meeting schedule (up to after the Christmas break) that Rob Barlow has put together (see below). We all know the importance of having guest speakers and ensuring that notification of who they are and what their topic is appears in the Bulletin at lest a week in advance. So please, plan your guests well ahead and don’t leave the rest of us wondering what’s going to be happening at that evening’s meeting. Even if you’re not going to be at the meeting, be sure that we’ll take excellent care of your guest. So, when you know what you’ll be doing for your meeting, let me know so I can put it in the bulletin.

Steve Ellery raised the idea of promoting the club in the community by sponsoring a Rotary Community Hero program, similar to the Jack Aubin Youth Award but for adults. In addition to raising awareness of the club, this award would also have the effect of brining to the club potential members each month. Concerns were raised that a local radio station already struggles to find nominations for a similar sort of award. As a club we agreed that it would be worth investigating.

Jack Aubin was vocal about the club’s participation in high-visibility community projects, such as the New Year ’s Eve fireworks. Notwithstanding Bob’s misspent youth stuffing crackers into letter boxes, Jack was not suggesting we have any involvement in the fireworks themselves, but that we could do a sausage sizzle or something. Danielle said she would get us more details on how to get involved.

Steve Ellery also began the discussion of Rotaract, which spurred on the discussion of our involvement into other youth programs (RYPEN, RYLA, NYSF, etc.). This also began the discussion about why not having possible Rotaract members as Rotarians. To the best of my knowledge, there was no decision made of if we would 1) pursue sponsoring a Rotaract Club or 2) invite potential Rotaract members to visit our club meetings. I’m sure discussion will be ongoing.

Finally, as a club, we all agreed that in principle we would support Arthur Cheers’ involvement with the “Ties Around the Mount” project in support of men living with prostate cancer.

This took us until 8:30 that evening so we decided to call the meeting to a close.

This Week
Attending this week as our guest speaker will be Fiona Thompson from the Bathurst’s Conservatorium of Music. She’ll be presenting to us about the Conservatorium’s role in the community and the sort of things our annual contribution to them goes toward.

In the coming weeks
Please check the schedule to make sure you know when you’ll be responsible for a guest speaker. Please plan ahead and let me know as soon as you have a plan so I can get it in the bulletin well in advance.


July 7th (Adam) Club Assembly – plan the year

July 14th (Eric) Conservatorium of music

July 21st (Greg) John Bx City Library- Charles Bean

Wed July 29th (Adam) RC BX East – inter club challenge – snooker

Aug 4th (Karl) Karl M Experiences of Europe

Aug 11th (Adam) DG – Club Visit Partners Welcome

Aug 18th (Alan) Peter Flude – The Victorian Bushfires

Sat Aug 22nd (Anthony) Garage Sale at the Tutorial Centre

Aug 25th (Anthony) Technology lesson – using Rotary website etc

Sep 1st (Frank)

Sep 8th (Adam/Chris) RC BX – interclub challenge-tenpin bowls

Sun Sep 13th EDGELL JOG

Sep 15th (Tim)

Sep 22nd (Bob) Nuclear Power

Sep 29th (Peter F) Training – food service certificate

Oct 6th (David N)

Oct 13th (David W)

Oct 20th (Adam) Club business forum - AGM

Oct 27th (Arthur)

Nov 3rd (Andrew)

Nov 10th (Adam) RC BX Daybreak interclub challenge –lawnbowls

Nov 17th (Peter C)

24th (Rob) Charles Darwin lecture dinner BMEC – fossils

Dec 1st (David L)

Dec 8th (Nev D)

Dec 15th (Chris B)

Dec 22nd (Adam) Christmas Party

Dec 29th No meeting

Jan 5th No meeting

Jan 12th (Rob) Informal cycling/walking BBQ River Park

Jan 19th (Steve E) Family BBQ, tennis, bowls, swim, badminton

Jan 26th (Committee) Aust day, duck race

Bulletin for July 7

Last week: June 30, 2009 - Changeover

SOME SPECIAL EVENTS

Induction of New Member – Andrew Camalerie

Attendance - almost 100% for members of our club. I originally booked for 36 people which ballooned out to almost 50 attending on the night. Clearly word got out that the RC Bathurst Changeover dinner was the place to be!

OTHER SPECIAL EVENTS

Toast to Rotary International by Bob Pardy

Response to the Toast to Rotary International by PDG Alan Josey

President's Report by Eric Drinkwater

Treasurers Report by Bob Pardy

Induction of Adam Schembri as President for 2009-2010 by Eric Drinkwater

Vote of Thanks to Retiring Office Bearers & Board by Eric Drinkwater:

• David Lowe (Secretary)
• Bob Pardy (Treasurer)
• Alan Brown (Membership)
• Rob Barlow and Greg Stanley (Foundation)
• Anthony Johnston (SAA)
• Peter Francis (Administration)
• Steve Ellery (Publicity)
• Adam Schembri (Service Projects & Vice President)
• David Nicoll (Past President)

Introduction of Incoming Office Bearers & Board by President Adam Schembri

• Peter Crewes (Vive President)
• Anthony Johnston (Secretary)
• Bob Pardy (Treasurer)
• Steve Ellery (Membership)
• Neville Dawson (Foundation)
• David Lowe (SAA)
• Rob Barlow (Administration)
• Peter Francis & Greg Stanley (Publicity)
• David Weeks (Service Projects)
• Eric Drinkwater (Past President)

This week: July 7, 2009 - Club Assembly

This week will be Adam's first official meeting as club president so he is planning to outline his vision for the coming year, including some major projects. This will be an excellent time for all members to voice their opinions and suggestions for the coming year. For this exercise to be successful, we need a large attendance of members.

I'm also thinking that Danielle Ballinger, our GSE team member, will be visiting us on July 7. With the Club Assembly we won't have time to get a full account of her GSE experience in Italy, but I'm sure she'll be keen to chat; I'm sure sitting next to Danielle for dinner will be a prized seat!

In the coming weeks

On July 14, our guest speaker will be somebody from Conservatorium of Music. And then, hopefully we'll all get to hear from Danielle and see some photos at the July 21 meeting. More details on these in next week’s Bulletin.