Helen's Headlines - Monday 26 March 2011

Ann sits at the Speaker's Chair at State Parliament - she's not impressed with what she hears.

The ladies of the GSE team have a seat at Melbourne City Council.

Ann, Holli, Matthew and team leader Marci

Marci and Matthew ride the train into Parliament

At St Paul's Cathedral

Matthew plays us a piece of music at the RACV Club

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Wow what a day!

Today Bill, Jason and myself had a wonderful day hosting our Texan guests to a lovely Melbourne day. We started off our morning at Cheltenham Train station and met all the members of the Vocational Team from Fort Worth Dallas Texas. This was their first train ride in Australia and their first experience of Melbourne.

At 10am we went through the security gate and into State Parliament where we had a behind the scenes tour of the Legislative Council and Assembly, Queen's Hall and the Library. We had an opportunity to enjoy morning tea with MP Bruce Atkinson in the members only cafeteria which we were all quite impressed.

From there, we took a tram down Collins Street and stopped by the lovely buildings of 333 Collins Street and the Gothic Building or the ANZ Bank branch with its majestic interiors and ceilings. We walked over to the oldest pub in Melbourne, the Mitre Tavern and wandered the small city streets to get to the RACV Club for lunch.

Thank you to Jason for organising such a wonderful lunch at the club. Everyone was impressed with the venue but in particularly the food which we needed after all the learning and walking increased our appetite. After lunch, a quick run through of the RACV Club and Matthew played the piano for us - I actually mistook him for the real pianist of the club until I looked closer!

After lunch, we had a quick walk down to Bourke Street Mall and wandered through the Royal Arcade to see Gog and Magog, through to the Block Arcade where we stopped to admire the architecture and Haigh's chocolate shop and then up through the arcade to see the Manchester Unity Building and its elevator doors of pure brass. From there, we wandered down Degraves Street to see the throng of the student crowds, visited Chloe at Young and Jacksons and had a quiet time in St Paul's Cathedral.

We went to our afternoon tour and briefing of Melbourne City Council where Councillor Brian Shanahan took us under his wing for a behind the scenes tour and presentation of chambers, the portico and even his office. We sat in the library and enjoyed a lovely chat for an hour over a cup of tea and biscuits before everyone was offered gifts to remember the visit by.

Overall, a gloriously wonderful day and thank you to Jason for organising the RACV Club for lunch which was a true highlight of the day with everyone; and thank you Bill for sharing the day with us. I hope you both had a good time and learned something new about our city and Texas!

Helen's Headlines - Monday 19 March 2012

Thanks again for everyone attending this Monday's meeting to hear Priya speak on "How to Engage Customers Using Social Media". I was asked by Rotarians and non-Rotarians to have this presentation on again as they had missed it during our February Business Events and I was expecting five more people - so unfortunately we had many no-shows. Added to the fact that some of our Rotarians were also away overseas or ill - the turnout was smaller than expected but nevertheless it was a good evening where we learned about social media - but more importantly, had an opportunity to farewell our GSE team member Andrew Boast.

Andrew will be departing for Fort Worth Dallas Texas in late April and it was an opportunity for him to present his talk that he would give to the Texans. He showed that he will do us proud as his presentation was engaging and enlightening and I'm sure will entertain the hosts!

Andrew and I are looking forward to hosting one incoming GSE team member, Ann from Texas. She is a counsellor and she will be arriving at our doorstep on Saturday afternoon. The weekend will be spent just getting to know her and attending a host family afternoon tea where I will meet all the team and their host families - and then on Monday, our club has a wonderful day in Melbourne planned with tours and morning and afternoon teas of State Parliament and Melbourne City Council, lunch at the RACV club and followed by a city laneway and arcade tour conducted by moi. I love showing our beautiful city to tourists - because it makes me appreciate our lovely town and country.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 27 March at the Dingley International at 6:30pm to have the welcome dinner for all the Texan team. Please refer to your emails for details on how to register as you will need to register with the dinner organiser directly. Cost of dinner is $40.

See you at Dingley next Tuesday!

Helen's Headlines - Monday 5 March 2012

Hello everyone

I hope that you have all had a lovely week.

What a wonderful and engaging presentation from Ken on Monday night on his global project called ABCD to assist young children in Fiji who would otherwise be left out from education to get back to school. Ken was also selling his book called. "The Thribblets" and all proceeds went to the charity. Our club in one night raised $110 for the sale of the book so you must all be congratulated! This is what he had to say about it....

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The Thribletts made a highly successful guest appearance at the Rotary Club of Moorleigh Moorabin last night. In a post performance interview, blue Thriblett Kevin was delighted to report that the members of RCMM had very generously donated $110 for copies of the books in which he stars as the only numerate Thriblett. Green Thriblett Katie admitted to being a little nervous with so many people around but knew she was in good company when she spotted the Rotary wheel. Yellow Thriblett Jimmy was - as expected - missing for most of the evening and was eventually found sliding up and down the ropes holding the flags onto the poles! Red Thriblett Angela settled down for the evening on the shoulders of President Helen Blunden's cardigan and certainly spoke on behalf of all the Thribletts in thanking Helen for a wonderful evening. Author Ken was also there to carry the books.

Cheers

Ken

PS... If you haven't got a copy of the book you may not know that the colours of the Thribletts are quite significant. They represent the four principal thinking styles as measured by The Neethling Brain Instrument (NBI). The NBI is the assessment tool we have used for many years in our consulting practice. Through reading the Thriblett's books children - and their parents - get to understand the four styles and learn ho to understand and accept other people who might see the world differently.

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Big thanks to Steph for getting her employer onboard and erecting the signage about our Rotary Club outside the Kingston Centre on Warrigal Road. If you've got a chance, get down there to have a look at it. Steph has been instrumental in working with her employer to allow this to occur but more importantly, our club will be advertised in their real estate magazine that goes out to the wider area. We are going to get a lot of exposure in the surrounding suburbs - so thank you Steph and please pass on our thanks to your employers! (Maybe they can come and visit us during a business networking event??)

Other than that, just a reminder that next week is a holiday and we will be back in the large room at our venue for a repeat of the presentation by Priya who will talk on "How to Engage Your Customers Using Social Media" - I have been inundated with requests to have this presentation again from Rotarians and others alike so it goes to show that it is an important topic nowadays. Even though I have not been formally taking registrations, and how this event has been advertised by word of mouth and through PETS, I expect some drop ins.

However, this night will also be special as we will have Andrew Boast give his presentation to us that he will present to Texas! So please come along, invite your partners and enjoy the evening once again.

On Monday 26 March, our club is in charge of hosting the 5 Texans from the Group Study Exchange Program and spend the whole day with them. I'm looking for others in our club who would like to share the day with them too. I have asked for a leave day so that I may participate and here's what's happening:

0830 - Host families will drop off their team members at Cheltenham Station and this is the meeting point for Rotarians too. We will all buy our Metcard tickets and travel in with the commuter crowd into Parliament Station

1000 - Behind the scenes tour and presentation of State Parliament followed by morning tea with MP Bruce Atkinson

1200 - 1400 Lunch in the vicinity of Bourke Street Mall and wander around the shops (or alternatively lunch followed by a City Circle tram ride OR a guided city wander through the city laneways

1430 : Behind the scenes tour and presentation of Melbourne City Council followed by afternoon tea with a councillor - I have been trying to get the Lord Mayor

1600 - Get on train at Flinders Street and take train back to Cheltenham station where host families will pick up their team members.

So if you would like to spend a wonderful day acting as hosts and seeing what goes on behind the scenes of our parliament as well as hobnobbing with politicians, then please let me know soon!

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On an aside, thanks to Graeme for letting us know that one of our visitors from our November Business Networking Events has joined the RC Long Island in our nearby district. He was impressed with Rotary and Graeme assisted in identifying suitable Rotary Clubs for him to visit in his area. Thanks to Graeme for being a good sport!

Similarly, one of our guest speaks in November - the business banker - who gave us such an engaging and excellent presentation is visiting RC Bayside as she is keen to join Rotary too. So from these business events, we can say that our club is introducing and promoting Rotary to others. Good work everyone!

At some stage, I will be emailing or chatting to you about the duties and roles for next Rotary year and I thank you for those people who have listed what committee jobs/projects they would like to do - or even repeat for next year. I'm quite open to the idea that we have people in the formal roles but within these there are projects that we may all share and contribute to dependent on our time and other commitments.

Hope you all have a lovely week. I'm looking forward to this weekend where I will be attending the full 8 shows of international chefs cooking for us at the Langham Hotel for the Melbourne Food and Wine Masterclasses. I'll be out of action through email or phone as I will be gorging on the most wonderful produce of Victoria lovingly cooked by world class chefs and drinking local wine. Life is too good....

Enjoy!

Public Apology to the South Oakleigh Club

I'd like to express my sincere apology to the staff of the South Oakleigh Club for my negative comments on this blog which have been subsequently removed. I am sorry to have caused you this trouble and concern and would like to publicly apologise for any problems caused.

I can say that over the last few years of my involvment with the venue, the staff have been more than helpful and have gone above and beyond to supply great customer service to our club members and doing all they can to ensure that we have good meals, good venue set up and to allow our events to occur in a manner as smooth as possible.

Please accept my public apology and hope that we can work together as well have we have done in the past.

My sincerest apologies

Helen Blunden
President
Rotary Club Moorleigh Moorabbin