Meeting of March 23

First of all…
Alan B has noted that we set an attendance record for 2010 with over 90% on March 16. That’s a great effort so let’s keep it up! Remember that if you can’t physically attend a meeting you can attend an electronic one on-line. See my posting on Sept 1, 2009 for instructions on how to do this.

Also, be sure to check below for your role at meetings. Can you please let me know who your guest speakers are well in advance so I can fill them in to the blank spots and make everybody aware of what’s coming up? Note that in the schedule, “Welcome” was actually supposed to read “Registrar” which means showing up a bit earlier than you might usually so you can collect dinner money, write names onto the attendance and hand out door-prize tickets.

Finally, we’re all keeping May 2nd clear for the Golf tournament and the Bathurst Half Marathon.

March dates of note…
Nev has a birthday on the 24th.

Last week’s meeting…
We had a few guests to welcome this week. Firstly we had Jack’s youth award winner of the month; James Sewell. We also had Tim’s guest speaker for the night; Elizabeth Randall.

In addition to our two club guests we also had two visiting Rotarians who arrived in Bathurst early for the District conference; Les and Mary Dale from the Rotary Club of Henty where they run an IGA. Les tells us that their club had been around for 50 years and has about 20 members. Les was certainly an enthusiastic speaker about one of their big events: the Henty Field Days in the third week of September.

We got a final report from David W about the district conference. David tells us that there are over 300 attendees though the golf has been cancelled due to a lack of interest.

Regarding the Art Union, Peter C filled us in a conversation he had with the McGrath Foundation. To have an Art Union we are looking for a charitable organisation to affiliate with, but unless there’s $350K involved the McGrath Foundation is not interested. This means that we’re still looking for an affiliate. Sally had a suggestion about the Richmond Fellowship. There are two ways to think about their low recognition rate. One is that it would be good to support a charity with a local branch that could really use our help. The other is that we probably wouldn’t get much publicity for our club. I’m sure this discussion will be ongoing about trading one off for the other.

Sally’s forward thinking must have won her good karma because she went on to win the Heads-and-Tails.

We then presented James with his award. James is an outstanding musician involved with Swing Factor as well as other church bands and show bands. In his words, he’s been mentored a lot to get to where is and now wants to pay some of it back. Again, good karma won the day and James took home the door prize (cake, not the wine).

We then heard from Tim’s guest (and daughter), Elizabeth. She’s heavily involved in music education so came to use prepared to speak about the values of music and how the benefits spill-over into other area of education and life.

Elizabeth first spoke of how music is generally considered a second tier subject… a “side dish” of the education system rather than a “major food group” as it is in Finland. She presented us with the general skills necessary to be a musician, such as discipline, empathy and resilience, and asked us to consider how hard it would be to fill a job with a person that had the 16 skills she listed.

New South Wales spends just 98 cents per person per year on music. However, considering the 12 benefits of music she outlined (including improving maths, reading, language, spatial awareness, craftsmanship, team work, and university attendance), Elizabeth was in little doubt that spending more on music would pay huge dividends in other areas of education too.

Meeting of March 23…
This week we’ll be hearing from Andrew C on using Microsoft Outlook. It’s a very powerful computer program for making schedules and sending emails.

In the coming weeks…
Head’s up to David N. You’re on for next week.

March 30 – Guest Speaker: David N (VoT: Danielle; Welcome: Chris B)
April 6 - Guest Speaker: David W; VoT: Anthony J; Welcome: Greg
April 13 – Guest Speaker: Alan B; VoT: Steve E; Welcome: Karl
April 20 – Guest Speaker: Frank S; VoT: Peter F; Welcome: Peter C
April 27 – Guest Speaker: David S; VoT: Chris B; Welcome: Sally
May 2 – David W (Half Marathon)
May 2 – Bob P (Gold Tournament)
May 4 – Guest Speaker: Nev D; VoT: Peter C; Welcome: Tim
May 11 – Guest Speaker: Danielle; VoT: Sally; Welcome: David N
May 18 – Guest Speaker: Anthony J; VoT: Andrew C; Welcome: David W
May 25 – Guest Speaker: Steve E; VoT: Tim; Welcome: Eric
June 1 – Guest Speaker: Peter F; VoT: David N; Welcome: Frank
June 8 – Guest Speaker: Chris B; VoT: David W; Welcome: David S
June 15 – Guest Speaker: Greg S; VoT: Eric D; Welcome: Nev
June 22 – Guest Speaker: Karl M; VoT: Frank S; Welcome: Danielle
June 29 – Adam S / Peter C