Meeting of April 20th

First of all…
The countdown to the golf tournament is on, just a fortnight away. We’re still in need of sponsors so please think of a local business (ANY local business) and ask them to sponsor a hole. It’s no harm and takes very little time to ask for the manager with a letter explaining the sponsorship process.

April dates of note…
Adam’s wife Liz had a birthday on the 1st
Alan B had a birthday on the 8th
Steve E had a birthday on 15th
Karl and Eva have a wedding anniversary on the 23rd
Nev and Jo have a wedding anniversary on the 24th

Last week’s meeting (April 13th, 2010)…
This week we learned that Anthony J is probably the next “go to” guy for singing if Rob B is not available. Anthony led us in a not-too-bad version of Rotary Grace.

Once we’d all taken our seats Jack A introduced our Young Citizen of the Month award winner, Clancy. Alan B also introduced his guest for the evening, John Pearson.

We had apologies from Danielle, Rob B and Steve E. Pres Adam has also relayed to us that Steve has requested a 6-week leave of absence due to family commitments.

A quick round of H&T followed in which Nev D took home the bottle of red. While Marie Antoinette might have said “Let them eat cake”, it was I who took home the cake for winning the door prize! A big thanks to Clancy for drawing my ticket.

Anthony relayed two weeks of correspondence, part of which included a thank you letter from the Riding for the Disabled group and a request for hands to do some jobs around their facility. They didn’t give us any specifics of what jobs and when so Anthony should report back in the next week or two with a few more specifics.

Next up, Clancy was presented with her award. Clancy is a year 11 student at McKillop College and is being recognized as a student leader, her sporting achievements (the most important acheivement as far as I'm concerned) and as a musician (guitar).

Finally, Alan B introduced his guest (and next door neighbor), John Pearson. While John has just recently retired, since 1986 he’s been operating an exchange program as a home business. John started the business in response to a one-off request to billet Japanese students and found that he’d done such a good job that the requests to do the same just kept on coming.

One branch of his business has been in “Rural tourism”, billeting small groups from all over the world onto local farms for up to a week. Billeting families would get paid a fee by John ($86 per day) and the group would get the “rural experience” of living on a farm. John would routinely find billets for groups of 20-40 people.

The other branch of the business was in billeting of visiting Japanese students. Students were school age (from 8 to 16 years old) and would come over in groups of up to 300 for up to 8 days! I think many of us struggled to wrap our heads around the magnitude of the operation. While many of us have seen Japanese students wandering the Stockland Shopping Centre, we had little idea of what they were doing there or where they were coming form. Now that John has retired, don’t expect for these groups of students to stop coming because he’s simply passed on the business to somebody else in Bathurst.

We’re all aware of cultural differences between Australia and Japan, so many of us wondered if cultural clashes were a recurring problem over John’s career. John told to us that main cultural differences were explained to students before they came over; they knew what to expect about the basics of the Australian culture such as what to expect to eat, or that showers are the norm here (as opposed to baths which are the norm in Japan). The students were coming to Australia for the Australian culture and were already prepared for things to be different. After many years in the business, John was apparently quite good at preparing visiting groups.

This week’s meeting (April 20th, 2010)…
This week our guest is being organised by Frank S. It will be Steven McKelvie from Country Link. Also note that VoT will be Peter F and the registrar will be Peter C. Perter F and C should both be aware of their duties and perform them diligently or face heavy fines.

In the coming weeks...
• April 27 – at the meeting on April 13 we discussed having our guest to be our NYSF representative. Has anybody contacted her about this?; VoT: Chris B; Registrar: Sally
• May 2 – David W (Half Marathon)
• May 2 – Bob P (Golf Tournament)
• May 4 – Guest Speaker: Nev D; VoT: Peter C; Registrar: Tim
• May 11 – Guest Speaker: Danielle; VoT: Sally; Registrar: David N
• May 18 – Guest Speaker: Anthony J; VoT: Andrew C; Registrar: David W
• May 25 – Guest Speaker: Steve E; VoT: Tim; Registrar: Eric
• June 1 – Guest Speaker: Peter F; VoT: David N; Registrar: Frank
• June 8 – Guest Speaker: Chris B; VoT: David W; Registrar: David S
• June 15 – Guest Speaker: Greg S; VoT: Eric D; Registrar: Nev
• June 22 – Guest Speaker: Karl M; VoT: Frank S; Registrar: Danielle
• June 29 – Adam S / Peter C