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.