Wow, what a great night last night when all but two of our members were apologies but it was a full house! It certainly made a difference when we're all there, are having fun with catching up with the chit chat and having a laugh. Of course, it does help too having a superb guest speaker who spoke to us about an interesting topic that got us thinking and planning how we can get involved.
Jo Saunders is the Executive Officer from the Caroline Chisholm Foundation. It is an independent charitable trust supported by the Chisholm Institute of TAFE and it encourages and supports members of the community experiencing hardship to participate in vocational education. How do they do this? By providing scholarships for youth to apply for to undertake their trade training. Many Rotary Clubs (but only two others from this District) have been involved and this is something that I hope our club may contribute to as part of the Vocational Committee or jointly with New Generations. (Don't forget that this concept isn't new for our club. Recall that we are also sponsored a lass through her studies supported by the Bentleigh Youth Centre). So here's a Foundation that will be able to work with us to come up with some scholarship guidelines, find the applicant on our behalf and we can support them through their studies with a scholarship under our Rotary name. If you want to read more about the foundation, check out:
http://www.carolinechisholm.org.au/Pages/default.aspx
Last night we also welcomed back Bruce from his leisurely European river cruise and we said goodbye to Ian who will be holidaying. Syd will be taking over seargeant duties while Ian is away. Some of the members also stayed back for a brew and a chat outside which was a good way just to chill out after the meeting and continue with the socialising.
I also mentioned that there are some action items being undertaken by the Membership Marketing Committee already. Greg and Yvonne are in the process of organising a Rotary Billboard to be erected at the Kingston Centre as well as exploring an opportunity to assist with car parking at the Kingston Centre's Centenary in September. This is a wonderful opportunity to get out there and hand out membership flyers and brochures to spread the word about Rotary. With more details, I am sure that we can organise a roster for the weekend to have people assist. Similarly, I'm talking with the Kingston Business Directory to organise some guest speakers for our November Business Month and will get back to you with more details. However, should you know of anyone who works in the local area and would like to come along to these nights in November, let them know! Or else, you may have someone who you think would be a great guest speaker - let me know so that we can invite them along. I'm trawling through the local newspapers too seeing what inroads and successes are being achieved by local businesses and earmarking them for as potential guest speakers.
Don't forget that next week is our respective committee meetings. How are we going to play this?
Two groups (Group 1: Bill, Jim, Geoff, John H, Graeme, Ian and Paul) will concentrate on International/Foundation matters and Group 2: Sheila, Laurie, Syd, Philip, Greg, Bruce, Susan, Yvonne, John P, Andrew and Robert will concentrate on Community/Vocational/New Generations. It is going to be an informal evening and up to the Directors on how to handle the meeting but the aim is to achieve a small list of actionable items complete with potential dates and responsibilities so that we can work this into our annual calendar.
Outline for the Evening
6:30-6:35: Rotary Introductions/Toasts/Apologies/Makeups/
6:35 - dinner served: Break up into respective groups to discuss projects and action items to complete
After dinner - 8:00pm: Continuation of meetings with Directors to aim to have a list of items that have been discussed ready for Board Meeting (plus trialling out the cupcakes)
8:00pm: Close - Board Meeting commences
In the interests of time, let's hold off on the Seargeant's session or door prizes). The intention for this night is to re-invigorate and re-introduce committee meetings to have a team approach for projects and a joint effort in planning various projects and events throughout our calendar - but not forgetting the social aspect to it all. Remember, our partners and Rotary Family can help us in many of these projects.
But it doesn't have to be all serious! Guess what? It's that time of the year again when the RSPCA's National Cup Cake Day is on. So please bring along a few cupcakes and place them on your table to eat for dessert. To participate, it's a gold coin donation (or however much you can spare) when you are paying your registration.
Quick reminder that you will need to have your Board reports into Graeme this week ready for our Board Meeting next week!
Hope you have a lovely week and if I can leave you with a pun from my favourite Punmeister Extraordinaire, Tim Vine: "I saw a bargain the other day, a television for 1 pound. Only problem was the volume control was stuck on full. Come on, how can you turn that down?"
Okay while we're on it, here's another one:
"I took my dog for a walk and it was really angry - well, it was a cross breed!"
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