It was a mixed bag of a meeting today with a bit of everything. Rick Priest had visited Laurie Blowes and found him very frail after major orthopaedic surgery, and his wife was not much better. The board agreed to arrange some Xmas largesse to $300 for Laurie and Del, and agreed by the meeting.

 

We then had an impromptu talk by Rick about Australia's borders and their origins; an off the cuff report, but fascinating research. Greg Conkey gave a brief talk about Rotary and its history of donations; over eighty million dollars since it's inception. Our club is successful in raising money for the community and we can be proud of that, especially with the amount of work involved by club members over many years.

 

The meeting also ratified donations of $3,000 to Anglicare and to The St Vincent de Paul Society, and $1,000 to the Riverina Summer School for Strings. There was no guest speaker this week and that allowed more fellowship.

 

Many members present wore a fascinating variety of hats today. Phil told us the story of his hat; bought in in a shop in Spain and lost his tour group, but eventually reunited at their hotel at the end of the day. It was  a very expensive hat in the end!! Thanks to all who made the effort.
The markets are this coming weekend. I just hope there will be no more impounding of signs. We were assured all the signs would be OK; lets hope so!
Have a good week all.

Hi all.

Another well attended meeting. No guest speaker, but two good presentations by Paul Murray and Doug Conkey.

Paul's presentation on AAAFM was very informative and demonstrated strong connections between Wollundry Rotary and AAAFM now and over the years.

 

Doug spoke on Honorary Membership, and Rotary membership in general pre and post 1989. Stuart Heriot gave the pot a little stir at the end.

 

It is sad to receive a resignation from Robert Nicholson. Well done for your time at the Club Robert and all the best to you and Cassandra for the future.

 

The WWCC rangers are having a field day impounding our Saturday Market signs. It is advisable that we use only those sites for sign hanging that have been listed in our agreement with WWCC, at least until we can come to other arrangements. We are running out of signs and WWCC is now asking $95 per sign for release.

The agreed sign posting points are:

Diary Dates:

 

Kind Regards,

Secretary Phil

 

 

  

Romanos again, some on Zoom, an additional table set up to seat all the crowd. Five tables each with eight or nine Rotarians physically seated. James Hamilton, we sense your excitement.

 

 

We had a guest - David Benn had invited David Maloney along to the meeting. It's convoluted, but David Maloney is a relative of mine, (the Bulletin Editor), so I feel some guilt in not recognising a potential Rotarian. The truth is, he belongs to my children generation - too young!!!!

 

David works in the finance industry, for David Cannon Finance, and I have not yet adapted to that industry working in Polo shirts - no Tie.

 

Doug Conkey was called upon to present Rotary Information, and his first topic was "Honorary Membership".

This was recently conferred upon Paul Milde, and there were cynics that inferred that Paul Paul worked hard to constantly be seated at the Head Table. The effort that Paul put in to see our club run so smoothly for years was demonstrated when he left us and 15 members were conscripted to fill the gaps created.

 

Doug ran through a list of previous Honorary members of Rotary Clubs, which included King of Sweden, King George VI, Winston Churchill, Albert Schweitzer, Charles Lindberg, Edmund Hillary, Walt Disney, Bob Hope and Margaret Thatcher. 

 

Doug continued the information session with some history of the acceptance into Rotary of Women.

 

In 1978, the Rotary Club of Duarte in California had three women nominated for membership. They must have inducted the women, because Rotary International withdrew the club's charter. Expensive litigation followed, involving California Supreme Court, and then the USA Supreme court.

The eventual outcome was that in 1989, Rotary changed it's constitution, and women were allowed to join Rotary.

 

During his Secretary's report, Phil Burgess advised that the Wagga Wagga Womens Health Centre would be holding a BBQ in the Victory Memorial Gardens on Wednesday Dec 1. Steve Anderson's wife, Leah, is a Lead Clinical Trauma Counsellor with the Health Centre, and expressed disappointment that there had been no publicity for the event through Rotary.

 

Phil advised that he expected to attend the BBQ, and subsequently provided the photo. I can recognise Steve, second from left.

 

 

Paul Murray was rostered to provide the Members Choice segment, and he had selected the Community Radio station, 2AAA as the topic. The first transmission of the station was in July 1981, so the co-operative that operates the station is close to the same age as our club.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There have been many connections with the station - and three are current. Greg Conkey, Paul Murray and Michael Knight are trained presenters on air, but other names that link the two entities include Michael Georgiou, Gina Hamilton, Noel Bottrell, and Wayne Jenkins. Within the wider Rotary Community, Peter Keith, Alan Lean and Mark Horton are links.

 

The station operates from studios in Young Street, near the TAFE, on land leased at peppercorn rates, from Riverina Water. The co-operative acknowledges the generosity involved in this arrangement.

 

Mark Horton became Chairman, we believe in 2017, and immediately motivated the committee to renew and invigorate the station. The station manager had health issues and retired, and a new manager, Mick Toshack was appointed. Community grants were pursued, and as cash became available, projects were undertaken, such as disabled access, updated studios, compliant parking, and technology updates.

 

Courses to train new presenters are ongoing, and there is regular "churn" of personnel, so the opportunity to gain the skills, in communication, in technique and in musical knowledge is available.