Meeting for November 17, 2009

First of all…
We were very happy to welcome our Youth Award winner for the month, Catherine Cockerill, and her dad Doug. It was also great to welcome Arthur C’s guest to the meeting, Deputy Mayor Ian North.

Once again, it was nice to see Sally join us. Hopefully we’re all taking opportunities to get to know Sally.

I’m still also hoping to hear from our secretary Anthony J regarding the minutes of the AGM. I will forward those around the club as soon as I get them from him. Anthony, if you’re reading this, can you please forward them on to me ASAP.

I’ll be circulating to members by email a copy of Peter C’s plan for a raffle next year. If you’re a club member and haven’t seen a copy of the business plan soon, then please email me.

Finally, Alan B has noticed that the attendance rate at meetings in the first few months of this Rotary year that was really great (over 90%) has plummeted to about 70%. I know this blog is almost as good as getting to the meeting, but come on Rotarians! Please make every attempt to get to meetings!

November dates to note…
Tom B has a birthday on November 28
David W and Kathy have their 28th wedding anniversary on November 28
David L’s wife Maree has a birthday on November 29
Peter C and Vicki have their 23rd wedding anniversary on November 29
Arthur C and Hilary have their 36th wedding anniversary on November 30

Last week’s meeting (November 10, 2009)…
Nev D let us know that the Christmas cakes and puddings have arrived. If you’d like personal order or have an idea of local businesses that might order cases to sell, let Nev know.

Rob B reminded us of the Darwin lecture. The Darwin Lecture will be happening on a Tuesday night (November 24) though it will not be replacing our regular meeting, as we have previously discussed.

Pres Adam gave us an update about the third instalment of the interclub challenge between the Rotary clubs in Bathurst. It is still planned to be a lawn bowls event but will NOT be on Dec 16th as Adam announced. This date conflicted with RC Bathurst East Christmas party so has been postponed to an unspecified date. Personally, I think the other clubs are just running scared of our athletic prowess ;-)!

We’ve had a few dates open up in our meetings for guest speakers or events. Greg S suggested a visit to Devro while Rob B suggested a visit to the Bell Tower. Both are great ideas and we’re looking to other members for their ideas for meeting activities, particularly for our Christmas party.

Next up, Arthur invited his guest, Deputy Mayor Ian North, to present on “Get Knotted”. This is a program about raising awareness of men’s health issues, in particular, prostate cancer (not that there is no ‘r’ so it is pronounced pros-tate, not pros-trate). It is not about raising money for research, but just to promote awareness and getting checkups.

The “Get Knotted” campaign is about collecting neck-ties… enough neck-ties that when they are all tied together there are enough to go entirely around Mount Panorama. Considering that there is not a Guinness Book of World Records record for most ties, this will qualify as a world record! Currently, they’ve got 6,500 ties and the event isn’t happening until February 11.

They currently have some heavy hitters for public support including Country Energy and the NSW Fire Service. They even have a tie signed by Australian rockers, Silverchair. Even bigger than all of those, “Get Knotted” has the full support of the Rotary Club of Bathurst!

Ian also gave us an update on an expansion on the Mount Panorama. The plan is for a 4.8 km and a 2.3 km circuit that will be able to take all kinds of motorcycle racing. The layout planed is to run around the old drive in.

This week’s meeting (November 17, 2009)…
The program this week has as our guest speaker Peter Sackett, being brought by David W. Peter is a principal with Central Design & Engineering, a consulting engineering company based in Bathurst and Orange. Pete is going to come along and tell us a bit about himself, his company and what is happening in his industry - Pete always has something really interesting going on in his work.

In the coming weeks…
Nov 24th – does anybody have any ideas?
Dec 1st - David L
Dec 8th - Nev D
Dec 15th - Chris B
Dec 22nd - Christmas Party
Dec 29th - No meeting
Jan 5th - No meeting
Jan 12th – Rob B to organise am informal cycling/walking BBQ River Park
Jan 19th - Steve E to organise a family BBQ and activities
Jan 26th – Committee - Aust day, duck race