Kiva Credit is Now Available

For those of you who remember that I won $100 last year in the Joker prize, I got online through the microcredit site Kiva (http://www.kiva.org/) and gave $50 to a group of ladies in Mexico who wanted to set up a dressmaking business. I lent another $50 to Namsarev Demberel, a lady from Mongolia who was setting up a stall and wanted to buy underwear garments to sell.


Already the Mexican ladies have repaid their debt and are now in business. Similarly, Namsarev from Mongolia is on track with repaying her loan and has paid back 25%. Here is a photo of her at her stall:


Therefore there is credit in my account and once all debts are repaid, I will further lend another 2 $50 lots to a couple of others who are trying to establish a business and provide for their families.

I would thoroughly recommend Kiva site if you want to assist people as it provides regular updates on the businesses and it's an easy-to-use and reputable website. (I'm impressed with it so much that I even volunteered my services to help out writing the stories of the people).

Helen's Headlines - Monday 24 October 2011

Yesterday was World Polio Day and we celebrated it with orange balloons at the tables and having our trivia proceeds go towards polio eradication. I encourage anyone who would like to contribute to the polio fund to go to the RI website as for this week only, there will be a 2 for 1 recognition for donations over $US100. See more: http://www.rotary.org/en/ServiceAndFellowship/Polio/Announcements/Pages/111013_annc_double_rec.aspx

Last night Paul Towers, Head of Fundraising from the MS Society gave us a short presentation on the crippling disease that affects over 20 000 Australians. Through our charity golf day, we presented a cheque for $11 000 that will be used in its entirety for McKinnon House, a local 6 bedroom home that houses and supports younger members with this disease and provides 24/7 care.

We also had a couple of visitors, Colin from RC Nunawading to promote the Christmas puddings (see Paul de Smit to put your order through) and Graeme from RC Mordialloc who was promoting their club's 40th birthday event at the Woodlands Golf Course on Saturday 12th November (cost $55 with guest speaker John Bertram).

During our club forum last night, we went through the final outline of the Rotary Business Month that commences next week. Already, things are in place and it's just a matter of waiting for the day to come around. I know I keep harping on about it but we need everyone's support on these events. This means having a chat to your local tradesperson, dropping flyers, speaking to friends and family of those who are in business. In order to make it successful, we need as many non-Rotarians there as there are Rotarians.

I have contacted the local Leader newspaper and spoke with the editor of getting a photo and story in the paper over the next couple of weeks. Bill has kindly agreed to have the photo shoot at his business with the angle of how Rotary has supported his business in the water and sanitation business; how it helped him when he was growing his business; how valuable it would be for younger people in business starting out to have a network of people whose knowledge, skills, experiences you can draw upon.

My vision for this is to get back to basics. Rotary started out as a vocational service club that used the member's skills and knowledge to give back to the community. Bill mentioned last night that we cannot always be seen as a club that gives out money to charities who need it most - I believe we can do so much more. With more people from various vocations, trades, professions, jobs, we can provide knowledge. We can provide our expertise and our own networks more than just handing over a cheque can do. You only have to see what places like www.goodcompany.com.au are doing where they match the skills of a person to a charity that needs those skills.

But in doing so, I don't want to lose the friendliness and the fun of the club because it cannot all be about work. It has to be fun. Our meetings must be enjoyed by our members, that you enjoy coming every week and seeing your friends. So in the new year, we will continue to have an active calendar of events but I'd like us to try and come up with a signature event that we can do as a club that will involve everyone in the club playing their part. Something different, something unique, something fun. So put your thinking caps on!

Maybe I can run a workshop at the next club forum where we can brainstorm this event and have it as some competition of who can come up with the most interesting event and vote on it? Mmmm...I'll give it some thought.

We also had our Board meeting last night that had some friendly heated discussion and debate. The time has come for us to decide who would like to be the next President for our club so I encourage everyone to put their bids in for this esteemed position.

In all honesty, even though I'm 3 months into the role, I'm still learning and I know that I have done plenty of mistakes along the way so thanks to those who steer me along the steady path and prod me at various times to undertake things.

Celebrate World Polio Day - Wear Something Orange to our Meeting on 24th October

This message came to my inbox this week and it's a great opportunity to contribute our trivia session proceeds to polio next week. Also why not wear something orange to our meeting on Monday?

Show your support for World Polio Day on 24 October!

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Message from Bill Boyd:

With your help, we have made tremendous progress in the fight to eradicate polio. We are at an historic moment -- less than 1% away from the end of polio forever. In honor of World Polio Day on 24 October 2011, we are asking for your help to tell the world about Rotary’s achievements and to finish the job.

We would like you to encourage your members to participate in two major online initiatives: a 2-for-1 donation recognition campaign and a social media push promoting Rotary’s global polio eradication efforts.

2-for-1 Recognition During the week of 24-28 October 2011, donors will receive 2- for-1 recognition for every online contribution of US$100 or more made to PolioPlus on www.rotary.org/contribute. We need your help to encourage members to donate online to make this promotion a success. You must be registered with Rotary’s Member Access prior to making an online contribution. Member access provides Rotarians with online services and other important features. To register for Member Access, please visit www.rotary.org/memberaccess.

The promotion will begin on 6 a.m., Central Standard Time (CST), on Monday, 24 October, and end at 12 noon sharp (CST), on Friday, 28 October. Please note that contributions on www.rotary.org/contribute are in US dollars and 11 other Rotary supported currencies, including AUD, CAD, CHF, DKK, EUR, GBP, JPY, NZD, NOK, SEK, ZAR. Also, online contributions cannot be made on behalf of another individual, club, or district. We expect to have a high volume of online traffic associated with this promotion. Please allow 4-6 weeks for the promotional recognition to appear on your account and to request recognition materials. Clickhere for more information on the 2-for-1 recognition promotion.

"This Close"Rally your members and spread the word to friends and family to participate in an exciting online campaign. To encourage widespread support for the effort to eradicate polio, Rotary has recruited a select group of notables for a “This Close” public awareness campaign. These public service announcements emphasize that Rotary is 99 percent toward its goal to eradicate this disease.

You can join the ranks of high-profile participants right now by creating your own “We’re ‘ThisClose’ to Ending Polio” image, sharing with members of your social networks, and encouraging them to do the same by visiting www.thisclose.net. Clickhere for suggestions on how to create your ad and maximize your social media reach.

Together we can celebrate this year’s World Polio Day by bringing global attention to Rotary’s work to eradicate polio. Thank you for your ongoing commitment to Rotary’s End Polio Now campaign.

Sincerely,
Bill BoydChairman, The Rotary Foundation Trustees, RI

Helen's Headlines - Monday 17th October

Thank you to all who attended last Monday night's meeting to see DG Juliet Riseley present 'What Rotary Means to Me' to our club. Juliet showed us that Rotary means many things to many people but she doesn't want it to be around the 'M' word - that is, meetings!

(For those of you who know me, know how much I hate meetings unless they are planned, co-ordinated, there's an agenda, action item list made up so that responsibilities are allocated and followed up. That is, meetings to me must have a reason. I believe it's because in my usual job, I can be in and out of meetings all day and many of which achieve nothing and yet the outcome is that I still have to do the work that comes out of them. No wonder I have a cynical attitude about them!) Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.

I also have to thank everyone in the club making a real difference to the projects. Sheila, for taking a proactive approach to community service and establishing relationships as well as getting us all to help out in our little way through donation of food and clothing.

Thanks to Geoff for his tireless work in Foundation and helping us find Engineer Extraordinare Andrew Boast who was selected for the Australian team to Texas on the Group Study Exchange 2011. We hope to see Andrew at our meetings as much as possible!

Thanks to Bill for his work with the Rotary Action Groups in Cambodia and promoting the importance of water and sanitation.

Thanks to Philip for work with the club service and co-ordination of the Presidents Cup and all the administration to ensure the club runs smoothly.

A big thank you to Ian for your trivia sessions. We enjoy them so much but not only go away lighter (our coins are emptied from our pockets) but we go away richer in new and useless knowledge that may come in handy in the future. Fear of long words? Really now.

Thanks also to Paul for volunteering to help Laurie out with the Plum Puddings and to Laurie for his exceptional work with the naturalisation ceremony - only having missed them twice in his years of helping out. Your work is appreciated and recognised Laurie and we hope that you have a smooth transition into your new living arrangements.

Thanks to Greg for your work on the bulletin. I enjoy and eagerly await the bulletin's arrival into my email every week. It's an important job and you do a stirling job especially with the crosswords that you include to keep us mentally active!

Really thank you to everyone who helps out in the club and it's nice to see that we all have our little roles to play to keep the club ticking over and in the near future, I hope that the "Connecting Business with Community" events will inspire some new faces to come along to our meetings so that we can promote Rotary and our club.

In the new year, I'd like us to rally together as a club (and our partners too - whoever is interested) to create a signature event or fundraiser that is going to be fun and enjoyable and get us all involved. I'm open to ideas - theatre restaurants; theatre night; movie night; cooking school; dress ups; swing dance and rock and roll night etc - one that involves a fun night, one that we can invite our friends and family to; one where we can let our hair down and just enjoy each other's company - because let's face it, we can always do with some more fun....
Anyway, I'd leave that thought with you all but if this is something that we can set up a small committee (and this includes partners - let's get them involved) then why not?

Helen's Headlines - Monday 10th October

Hello everyone

My apologies for missing out on this week's meeting to hear our guest speaker PDG Bob Richards talk about the floods. From what I hear, his presentation was interesting and I saw a photo of a town before and after the floods which certainly made me take a step back.

The reason for my absence was that my contract at NAB had ended a couple of weeks ago and since then, I have been back to my original company Omni Asia Pacific. In the last two years, Omni has grown considerably so there were new faces to be introduced to. There was a team day that I had to prepare for the next day and as I was away all weekend golfing, Monday night was my only time to prepare.

Last night, Philip, the AG Peter and DG Juliet met at my place to go through the club planning guide and discuss how the club is performing. The DG confirmed that our Business Networking months may be a way to connect with the local community and establish a presence. There were some additional ideas that were floated around how we can do this simply by looking at the shops and businesses in our areas - for example standing outside the local IGA and doing a 'meet and greet' with the public; or even contacting the Women in Business group in Bayside along to the events. The latter I will chase up.

We also talked about the various projects our club is doing and how fellowship and social aspects are critical to the success of the club. One great idea is to involve the partners in an event or on a project that women would find interesting so this is something I'd love for us to have a think about so that we can have an event that raises money for a worthy cause but involves our partners.

Another project to think about is the co-ordination of the Mental Health First Aid Certificate course. First of its kind in Australia, the call is put out to Rotary Clubs to co-ordinate this 2 day course and find people to attend. I'm going to chase this up with the Australian Rotary Health to see how we can go about organising one event but this would be the perfect way to get our name out there in the community. I'll let you know more about it...

Other than that, I heard that Susan had come to visit us at the club and I'm sorry I missed her. Susan, you are welcome to come along anytime!

I wish you all a wonderful week in Rotary and see you and your partners on Monday night when we have our DG Juliet coming along to present.

Helen's Headlines - Monday 3 October 2011

Stephanie (our newest member) and her husband Grant

Once again an enjoyable night was had by all when we welcomed our newest member, Stephanie Bishop into our club as a Rotarian. On behalf of everyone, I wish Stephanie all the best in her Rotary life and hope she gets as much satisfaction with service as we all do from our club. For those of you who may not know, Stephanie's classification is in Real Estate and she has been an active member of our club and social functions over the past year. Welcome onboard Stephanie!

Last night's talk was conducted by our guest speaker, Liz Lodge from the not-for-profit organisation called Evolve. Evolve runs bush adventure camps for youths on the fringes of society who are at risk and provides a programmed level of care for 2 years so that they may connect back with their family and society. To run a program of 10 male youths, it costs $120 000 and every cent of this needs to be raised by donations as they get no government support or funding.

Liz presented a thought provoking and heart wrenching presentation and we now should consider how we can assist. She tells us that they are looking for various Donations-in-Kind materials and equipment for the youth camps, money or even working bees. I do hope our Board considers how we can help this organisation no matter how small to continue to run these beneficial and critical support programs for our youth.

Other than that, I've been actively promoting the Rotary Business Month through the web and email and I see that there has been a trickle of interested external parties that will come along but the numbers will need to increase significantly. This is where I need everyone's support to bring someone along to these nights that will be on for the first 3 mondays of November. You now have more than enough information about the night - you have the flyers - you have the website link - so get cracking! Spread the word! Promotion must be occuring throughout October and also the first couple of weeks of November so please, don't stop at just one person. Seek out as many as you can!

Also we've signed young Andrew Boast's paperwork to be selected for the Group Study Exchange to Dallas in 2012 and we wish him all the best in the selection process!

It's all go go go with our club and I thank everyone for their enthusiasm and activities in their committees that make our meetings lively and engaging.

Have a great week in Rotary,

Helen