Saturday, February 11, 2012

Update on Presidents Meeting

Hello everyone

Last night I attended the Rotary Presidents Meeting and I'd like to update you on the various events and initiatives that may be of interest to you.

District Conference

If you haven't already registered, then please consider registering soon as the countdown is on until the weekend of 21 and 22 April for the District Conference. Register here: http://www.9810conference.org.au/

The question was asked if partners can come along just to the Saturday night event if they haven't paid for full registration. Although guests cannot come only to the Saturday night event, DG Juliet has a small budget available and if you put in a case for your partner to attend, then this will be considered. So please email her directly with your request.

The event promises to be wonderful and a bit different to other years and there is a surprise for us all on Saturday night.

Parking is available at Etihad stadium which is directly opposite the venue on the water, at $10 per day.

Peter Murie has asked that if you have a club project to promote that you provide to him slides/photos and some copy of your event so that the 'news reels' can be made and played during the event on loop. Unfortunately, due to limited space, there will not be club project displays in a House of Friendship like we have other years.

Rotary Birthday - Global Illumination Event - for your diaries Thursday 27 Feb

At 8:30pm at Federation Square, there will be a Rotary End Polio Illumination 'switching on' ceremony where the Rotary symbol and End Polio Now will be in bright lights at Fed Square for the world to see. It will be an opportunity for Rotarians from all Districts to gather and celebrate Rotary's birthday and be part of a once-in-a-Rotary lifetime opportunity to be part of the illumination of the city. The photo taken on this night will go along with the other photos of the Rotary symbol displayed in London, and other cities - the images we know so well.

This is an opportunity to gather your friends, family and fellow Rotarians to come along to the city and be involved in this special night! The images will stay up for 3 days until 27 February so Melbournians can get the full appreciation of the message.

I'm planning to have dinner at the Young and Jackson's after work and then heading off to see the lights turn on in the city!

Dick Garner has asked for all club 's support to get as many people to this event!

Books for Babies

Jo Beilby talked about the literacy project available to all clubs. This is a full kit where this book, "Ten Little Toes and Ten Little Fingers" will be given to all mums who give birth on 12 March with a dedication from Rotary. It is an opportunity to work with your local hospital to provide this book to all mums on this day and spread the word of Rotary.

New Clubs in The Pipeline

(1) There is a new club starting at Swinburne University with the assistance of RC Wantirna and more information will be made available soon.

(2) Philip talked about a new District e-Club in formation called "Rotary eClub of Greater Melbourne" which will be an opportunity for those people who don't have time for meetings to attend meetings electronically and online. Once the website is up and running, there will be a promotion to the database of prospective members, previous members and the wider Rotary family to inspire interest. More information will come out soon but the aim is to have this up and ready on 30 June 2012.

(3) You may not know that our District has an Interact Club (14-18 Year olds) and it is the largest club in the District with over 70 members.

Group Study Exchange

There will be an outgoing team dinner to farewell the Aussies going to Texas hosted by the RC Doncaster on 21 March. More details will be out soon but it would be great if we had representation from our club to support Andrew Boast and wish him well. The outgoing team will be leaving Melbourne on 23 March.

The incoming GSE Texan team will be here on 25 March and the RC Mordialloc will be holding a 'welcome dinner' at the Dingley International on Tuesday 27 March. We will not be having a meeting on the Monday 26 and instead, will use the Cluster dinner as an opportunity to meet and enjoy the presentation at the Dingley for those people who are interested. More details to follow but please put Tues 25 March in your diaries.

New Members

There will be a new member's night at the Box Hill Golf Course on Thursday 1 March at 6:00-8:00pm

President Elect Training Sessions (PETS)

Given that I'll be President again in the new year, I'll be attending PETS on Sunday 4 March as a participant but also a presenter. DGE Brian has asked me to present the idea of the Business Networking Concept to the group to be rolled out on a wider scale across the clubs if they like.

There is opportunity for President Nominees to attend too but as we haven't planned down this far as to who will take over in 2013-2014...I'll leave that open. The choice is totally yours - do you want to act as President for the club for a year! It's a great job - with lots of support - and wonderful opportunities. If you haven't already considered it but you'd like to - then please, let me know because you can come with me to PETS!! Yay!!

DG Nominee Applications now Open

If you have loftier aspirations than just President, then how about DGN? Applications now open for DGN AND/OR the selection committee. More information in Newsletters soon or on the website.

District Governor Changeover Dinner Night

Will be on at the Box Hill Town Hall on Saturday 30 June 2012 if you're interested.

Business Networking Events

Just thought I'd add this in myself - it wasn't mentioned last night but you may or may not have seen the article in the American Rotarian magazine about how RC Rochester NY is using business events to drive membership. The article is called 'Open for Business' and here it is:
http://www.rotary.org/en/MediaAndNews/TheRotarian/Pages/Business1201.aspx

I have contacted the RC Rochester to ask to speak to someone via Skype for an opportunity to share the knowledge, tools and ideas of what we could do to reconnect with our own business community and I'll let you know how that goes.

In the meantime, I have re-created District toolkit of tools and templates that should any club in our district (or wider) ask for how to plan for such events, will be made available. I have been asked by DGE Brian to be in the District role next year for Business Networking so if you have other ideas of how this concept can grow then please let me know.

Other News

Other than that, work has advised me that the upcoming months will be going to be hectic as the project starts gaining momentum and initiatives implemented. I have been warned that there will be many after hours work and weekend work to get through the workload. I'm anticipating that there will be Monday nights where I simply will not be available to attend Rotary and I ask your support in these cases. The business events are still my priority and I'm in the process of filling in one more speaker and a vocational visit to the ICU at Monash Hospital for our events in July.

However, there are other factors such as identifying alternative venues (we have already created the short list of places with the option of also 'staying at SOC' to be included if we can sway the management to keep us on if we join as SOC members to cover the cost of the big room). Standby for more information.

Other than that, RYLA is going to be asking for applicants soon and I'd ask that you consider applicants for that. The GSE Malaysia applications will also soon be open and Jayde (our guest speaker from Monash Health) has expressed an interest to join GSE and join Rotary afterwards and I'd be encouraging her to do the program first.

Have a great weekend and see you on Monday night for our Connecting Business with Community Business Networking Event!

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