First of all…
It’s very important to note that bowling is cancelled for tonight. Apparently school groups have all lanes booked out on Tuesdays until early October. More information will be coming for the new date of the second inter-club challenge. It’ll still be a ten-pin bowling night hosted by our club, it just won’t be this week…
We should say a big thanks to those Rotarians who brought guests to last week’s meeting. Greg S brought Dominic and Judy who were visiting from Melbourne, Steve E who brought his guest David, and Rob B who brought Ash back to be our guest speaker. We also had a visiting Rotarian, Graham.
We also welcomed back Jack A. Good to have you back in the ranks mate.
September dates to note…
David N’s birthday is on the 10th
Anthony’s wife Bronwyn has a birthday on the 25th
The 42nd wedding anniversary of Bob and Jenny is on the 30th
Last week’s meeting (Sept 1, 2009)
Apparently, Tim S is having trouble booking a guest speaker on September 15th so he is looking for suggestions or for somebody to help him out. Anybody with any ideas should contact Adam or Tim ASAP.
Peter C represented our club at the Bathurst Base Hospital’s ‘Health and Art’ tour. Turns out it was mostly a dog & pony show to hit us up for donations. Any individual members who want to make a donation should contact Pete but we won’t be making a donation as a club.
President Adam reminded us of the Edgell Jog happening this Sunday (September 13th). Any Rotarians wanting to sit and record finish times of runners should show up at the Bathurst Court House this Sunday. This is one of those things where many hands make light work, so the more the merrier.
Adam also reported about hearing from a former member of our club, Bill F. Bill is apparently involved with a group looking for help to build some fencing around a riding arena. Since we’ve never been a group to shy away from getting our hands dirty there were nods from around the table that we should chip in to get involved. Considering my ability in wielding tools is worse only than a Spanish princess, I’ll volunteer to run the BBQ to feed the troops. More detail on date and time to follow.
We also had a sobering moment from Peter C who announced that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. True to Pete’s form, he announced it with his head held high. Then, with a smile on his face he announced his plan to beat it and that his odds are strong.
Our guest speaker for the night was Ash B who had a photo presentation of his trip to East Timor. He and his wife are looking to launch an aid program because, as Ash called it, it's “the poorest place on Earth” where the average family income is less than a dollar a day. While the country generates some income from oil and coffee, it certainly can’t be a promising sign when most of your country’s income ($13.5 B) is foreign aid. Combine that with the destruction caused by the militia and the Indonesians in 1999 and there was very little in the way of intact buildings.
Still, Ash didn’t focus much on the poverty. Ash was much more impressed by the resilience of their spirit. He took a lot of photos of happy children who didn’t seem to want for anything. He was particularly impressed with their capacity for sustainable living, such as their use of bamboo. They used bamboo to make everything from irrigation pipes to their houses to rope. With kids this happy, Ash wondered what the social cost of our modern conveniences is.
Of course there were many problems too. In particular was paying for children to go to school and the sanitation of conditions… particularly when, several years ago, the militia blew up the toilet block of a school of 467 children. The school still teaches students, but does not have a toilet block to speak of. There’s also still a lot of civil unrest and guns are commonplace.
So thanks Ash for an enlightening photo presentation. While East Timor still has its share of problems, the resiliency of their spirit clearly still continues on it their day to day lives.
Next meeting (September 8)…
With the bowling cancelled I’m not sure what’s on the cards for this week. I guess you’ll just have to show up tonight for a batch of “President’s Surprise”.
In the coming weeks…
On September 15th, Tim S would like some help coving a guest speaker this week.
On September 22nd, Bob P will be presenting on nuclear power. With world power consumption to increase by 40% by 2050, I hope to hear some of Bob’s ideas to where it’s all going to come from.
And on September 29th, we have in the schedule that Peter F will be following up on the food services training. Can anybody who sees Pete get some details on this for me?
No comments:
Post a Comment