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