First of all…
I’ll apologise, particularly to those of you who depend on the blog to keep up to date with what’s happening in our club, for missing the past two weeks. I’ve been away but will update you with what I’ve been up to later in the blog (keep reading!).
October dates to note…
David Lowe has a birthday on the 26th.
President Adam and the first lady Liz have their 10th wedding anniversary on the 30th.
Last week’s meeting (October 20th)…
We kicked off straight into H&T with honours being taken by Greg S. The kitchen was quick with dinner so, being in the president’s chair, I delayed the rest of proceedings until after dinner (I was REALLY Hungry and got a nice pepper-steak).
Once we were all fed and watered, we had apologies from Nev D, Tim S, Steve E, and Peter C. Bob P reported to us that Peter C is on the mend after his surgery which we were all relieved to hear. We also heard that Steve's wife was not well, so all our best to Steve and Lisa.
Bob reported to us about the food safety program he had completed on-line. Danielle B had circulated to some of us an on-line food safety training program that the Bathurst council uses. Unlike the other program that Peter F had recommended, this one is free. Bob reckons it takes about 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete. He tells us that you need to turn the pop-up blocker off in your web browser and also suggests to turn your sound off; while you can have the training program read the entire thing to you, it’s faster and far less annoying for you to just read all the information yourself.
Bob tells us that it won’t let you fail the certificate so it’s easy enough.There’s no reason why we all shouldn’t do this certificate, so if you can get on-line please go to www.bathurst.imalert.com.au to do the training. I've already heard through and email update that Alan B has completed it too.
David W gave us a quick update on the District Conference being organised by RC Bathurst Daybreak. As a remained, the conference is being held on March 19-21, 2010 so we should all make an effort to attend. David also told us that they are looking for a volunteer to liaise between the speaker at the podium and the AV department. This is to ensure the slides, video, and audio all match the speaker’s presentation. While it shouldn’t be a hard job, it will involve attending all sessions for the entire duration. If you’re interested in this role then please speak to David W.
Bob P, speaking on behalf of Rob B, spoke about the schedule of guest speakers. Please arrange your guest speakers well in advance. By doing this, I can keep everybody up to date with what’s coming up so we all know what to expect when we show up on a particular evening.
On a related issue of upcoming events, Daybreak will be hosting a movie night on November 11th. They will be showing “Amelia”, a movie about Amelia Eirhart. She was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross awarded for becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. In her attempt to fly around the world at the age of 40 in 1937, she went missing and was never hear from again. Note that Daybreak’s movie night on November 11th will not replace our meeting on November 10th.
We were supposed to be holding our AGM tonight but there were quite a few members not in attendance so we decided to postpone it for another date (to be announced soon). This allowed for us to have a truly brilliant impromptu guest speaker… but I’m trying to remember who it was… hmmmmm… who was it? OH, WAIT! It was me! Truly brilliant!
I’ve been off doing some consultancy work with Nike (pronounced Nike-ee) at the Nike World Headquarters in Portland, Oregon. It’s a truly amazing facility of 200 acres holding 17 buildings and 4,000 staff. They have their own research labs, mini-manufacturing facilities, chemical engineers, Nike-sponsored athletes… truly amazing!
Nike are developing a program to add value to buying Nike products. The analogy the marketing guy gave was that if you buy a high-performance car, like a Ferrari, they don’t just sell you the car and off you go… they take you to a track and teach you how to drive the car properly so you get the most benefit. It’s the same thing if you buy a Land Rover… they take you to an off-road course to teach to how to drive off road. Clearly, I never got such attention when I bought my little red Suzuki...
Nike’s program will involve a series of fitness tests that you can download on-line and do on a local basketball court. There will be tests for jump height, straight-line speed, as well as agility. The customer then enters their test scores in to the website. The website then assesses their scores and tells them what the need work on. It will also give them some training drills about how to work on it. They are calling this system SPARQ (Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, Quickness). So a customer may have great straight line speed but has trouble taking that speed into another direction (i.e. agility). So the website will give them a bunch of agility drills.
They’ve been holding closed testing sessions and have accumulated thousands of test results form basketball players on a pilot system (http://www.sparqtraining.com/basketball/protocol). Unfortunately, Nike does not employ data analysts… particularly ones with a real interest in sport or experience with elite basketball programs. This is where I came in.
I spent the week stratifying the level of players that they had tested (high-school, those who received collage scholarships to play basketball, and those with professional contracts) and correlating them to test scores. I found that there were clear relationships between competitive level and fitness… that if a player was weak in any area of their fitness it could cost them a collage scholarship or a pro career.
We also spent a lot of time with basketball coaches from around America developing new tests and drills to train weaknesses.
This week’s meeting (October 27)…
The program for the meeting this week is in the hands of Author C. I haven’t heard what Author has planned so this week will be a bit of a mystery.
In the coming weeks…
November 3rd – Andrew C is on schedule. Andrew, can you please let me know what your plan is?
November 10th – On the schedule was the third event in the challenge between the Rotary Clubs in Bathurst. It was supposed to be Daybreak’s event and was to be lawn bowls but the roumor is that this has been postponed. Maybe Anda can give us an update?
November 17 – Was to be Peter C’s night but has been taken by David W. Our speaker will be Peter Sackett. 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.
November 24th – Rob B has something about the Charles Darwin lecture at BMEC. Rob, can you please let me know if this plan is confirmed and fill me in on the details so I can post the specifics?
