President’s Report 15.2.10
Hello Everybody
It is quite late at night and I am a bit exhausted after a weekend in town celebrating the Year of the Tiger and doing Chinese New Year things such as catching up with my Chinese relatives and eating a lot. Yes, my great-grandfather was from China. He was a gold buyer and owned a general store in the North East of Victoria. He married an Australian girl and they had 8 children, who went on to grow hops and tobacco and in fact, owned the largest hop farm in the Southern Hemisphere at Eurobin, just out of Myrtleford. Unfortunately, my grandmother didn’t manage to retain much of the family wealth!
At our last meeting, Susan Heron from the Cancer Council of Victoria talked to us about the Relay for Life program which is the biggest fundraiser for the Cancer Council. I am sure that we will be putting together a good team to walk through the night and day – as “Cancer never Sleeps” – at Ballam Park in Frankston. We have also been asked to run a sausage sizzle for competitors with money raised going to the Cancer Council of course.
Our Rotaractors, Laura and Carlee visited the club for brekky showing us that they are still very keen on getting their club up and running very soon.
Sunday 7th February was the Bunnings Sausage Sizzle. Thank you to all who helped us raise over $1,400.00 on the day, which was a bit quieter and hotter than usual. Nevertheless, a great result.
Just in case you are having sausage sizzle withdrawals, Wednesday, 17th February is the Mornington Cup . If you can make it to help on the sausage sizzle to raise money for Aimee Carter’s Ashan Development in Ghana, please ring Tony to tell him you are available.
Next Tuesday, 23rd February is the Rotary 105th Anniversary BBQ at George Pentland Gardens. AG Sam tells me that there are about 160 going, so if you haven’t already put your name down to attend you can still make it. After all the caterer is our very own Tony Carter, so I am sure he will allow last minute acceptances. We will actually have a pretty good representation from our club even though most of them are my friends, who seem to have got a bit carried away and invited other friends!
A very full Rotary week will culminate in the District 9820 Conference at Sale. If you have read your DG’s Newsletter, you will already know that there are over 650 people attending the conference. I am looking forward to another very full weekend. More eating and drinking with plenty of interesting Rotary content thrown in for good measure. Maybe you should all start saving up for next year’s conference, the destination for which will be announced at Sale at the end of the conference.
Nici will be heading off on Sunday for the Ride to Conference and I am sure that she will gratefully receive any contributions to her fundraising for the event. The Youth Exchange Students will be raising money for Shelterbox. The ride normally raises around $60,000 every year. So make sure you bring some spare cash with you on Thursday for Nici. Also if you are not going to the BBQ on the 23rd and you would like to donate $10 or $20 to The Rotary Foundation PolioPlus program, it all counts towards credits for a PHF for the club. All donations for whatever cause will be gratefully accepted!
More news about the Golf Day will be announced on Thursday. It looks like it will be April 23rd at the moment.
Cheryl Carter is still trying to organise the date for the Africa Night which will be a fundraiser for Gwen Jones’ orphanage in Tanzania and Ashan Orphanage in Ghana and also the Children First Foundation. We are trying to get Moira Kelly, Children First Foundation and guardian of the twins from Bangladesh who were separated a few months ago. She is a fantastic speaker and should create a lot of interest and hopefully will attract a lot of people to the function to be held at Mornington Racing Club. More information on this as soon as we get a date!
I notice in the DG’s Newsletter that our club attendance is the worst in the District. This needs to be rectified immediately as we are also losing money at our current meeting place as we have to pay for 20 meals every time we meet. If we get less than 15 members in attendance we are in deficit. We only meet twice a month so please, please make the effort to be here every time we meet. More members also makes for a more vibrant meeting, so those of you who haven’t been for a while please do make the effort. If you can’t come, please email Emily or myself to apologise.
See you all on Thursday and some of you on Wednesday!
Cheers
President Judy