Happy New Year!

Hello everyone

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas with your friends and family and now looking forward to all that 2012 has to offer.

Andrew and I spent our Christmas with his family in Canberra and it was lovely to see our many nephews and nieces all of whom must have had a growth spurt since we saw them last. We are now back at home and as well as dealing with his hot weather, doing various odd jobs around the house that were put aside simply because we didn't have time during the year. I'm looking forward to starting my new job at the bank on Monday 16 January so until then, I'm crossing off a long list of household and gardening duties that were left aside last year.

I'm happy to report that all our guest speakers for our Rotary 'Connecting Business with Community' business networking month for February are locked in. They promise to be quite interesting and engaging and I'm sure there'll be plenty of Rotarians in business who will also find the topics pertinent for them. I'm going to use the mornings of the next week to go around to businesses in my local area at Chesterville Road to heavily promote these events and get even more people to attend. I'd love it if I can get your help and support to promote it too. We simply need more people to get out there and 'be the face' of Rotary and personally invite people to come along.

All the information is currently on our website and of course, people can book their attendance online through www.trybooking.com/17704

These business events are slowly gaining traction and I have been asked by Tim from RC Ringwood to present to their club about how they can also do the same. Tim is looking after the committee on Rotary Corporate Memberships and I will also be participating in this committee to see how we can get the vocation back into Rotary.

Over the break, I wrote an article for the Rotary Membership newsletter that is emailed out to all Australia and New Zealand and our zones to inspire some interest in the concept of business events and it has been heavily advertised in Linked In - a social media professional networking online group to which I had been contacted by a Rotary Club in Cambridge UK for the tools and templates that we currently use to organise these events so that they too, can run them at their own club...so slowly, these are gaining some international momentum. Although the concept is nothing new - it's merely going back to the roots of Rotary - I strongly believe that our unique selling point is that we have an international connection of business men and women who use their knowledge, skills and talents to serve the community. There is no other business club like it in the world - so what's not to like?

On January 11th, I have been invited to the RC Ringwood to be a guest speaker to talk about the concept of the business events and also been asked by DGE Brian to have a more active involvement in bringing vocations back to Rotary. You may also be interested that our first guest speaker at our November events, Bruno, is also looking at how we can incorporate these events plus our corporate membership so with his contacts in business, we can widely promote Rotary.

So it's all baby steps now, but I hope that it re-opens a door that had been long closed and locked, to a new world of potential new membership opportunities within the business world.

Merry Christmas!

Many thanks to Sheila who organised a fabulous event last night to celebrate our last function at the Buckingham. It was great to see our partners and friends of the club enjoy the night and I thank Chris for bringing all those wonderful presents for our raffle prize.

I wish you and your families a merry Christmas and a wonderful new year. Please stay safe and healthy over the break and let's see you back again on Monday 16th January when we will gather at Centenary Park in East Bentleigh for an informal BBQ [BYO drinks, nibblies and chairs].

You may be interested to know that our collections from the sergeant sessions all helped towards a special cause - thanks to Ian for making us part with our coins for a good cause.

Today, we had an email from RC Yarraville who said....
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To all Rotary Sergeants....

GREAT NEWS!

As a collective, our clubs in D9800 and D9810 raised very close to $6,000.00 for Police Blue Ribbon Day this year!

Please ensure your fellow members are thanked made aware of this terrific effort at your next club meeting.

If your club has not yet deposited its fine proceeds from the day, it’s not too late! You can contact me with any queries on this.

On behalf of the Blue Ribbon Foundation, I thank you all for taking the time to participate.

These funds will now be directed towards worthy projects that honour the memory of those Victorian Police Officers have paid the ultimate sacrifice for their community
Many of these projects can be viewed by clicking here.

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We also had an email from RC Huntingdale thanking us for supporting the Masters Golf.

It seems like only yesterday I was writing to thank you and your Club for their support at the Presidents Cup – and now I am writing to say thank you again on behalf of the Rotary Club of Huntingdale for your clubs support during the Masters. I think that the effort from members of all Clubs involved to back up again and work at two events was fantastic and shows that the Rotary spirit is alive and well and contributed greatly to the success of the event. IMG have also asked me to pass on their thanks.

Helen's Headlines - Monday 5th December 2011

Well what a week I've had. Although I was coughing, sneezing and spluttering on Monday night, gleefully sharing my germs with everyone in the room, the next four days saw me in bed - with fever, sore throat, coughing, sinus congestion, lethargic and this strange rash that had appeared. After 4 days of being with a fever, I sought the doctor's advice (again) and I did my blood tests to rule out glandular fever. So now I await the results and secretly hope that it isn't glandular fever because I heard it knocks people about for some weeks and up to months in some cases. Oh well...is this my body telling me to just slow down?

On Monday night, we had a most interesting (if not, abruptly cut short) presentation on the history of wool in Australia. Dr Donaldson talked to us about the wool industry and the heights it had reached in the 1800s. As a keen knitter and lover of wool, I found his knowledge on the subject fascinating and it gave me a greater appreciation of this worthy yarn for when I go to my annual jaunts out to the Bendigo Sheep and Wool show every July - the biggest national gathering of sheep breeders, wool shows and wool crafts in all of Australia.

There's not much to write this week as I try to recover from this lurgy so I hope that everyone has a great week.

Fellowship Night at The Bombay Club on Monday 28 November

What a great time was had by all last night when we sampled the Indian banquet fare at the Bombay Club in North Road Ormond.

The Bombay Club was opened by Narandra 18 years ago and as the owner/chef with considerable experience in big name hotels, he saw a gap in the market of Indian cuisine and commenced preparing food using genuine North Indian recipes. He told us that Indian food is not spicy hot but it's warmth comes from the many herbs and spices like cinammon, cardamon and saffron.

We presented Narandra and his wife with a Certificate of Appreciation and a Rotary Banner which he proudly displayed above the till in quite a prominent place that can be seen! I belive he was chuffed to be presented with this and have an opportunity to talk about his country and his cuisine.

Here are some photos of the night.

Business Networking Events Are Over! (For Now)

Well the business events are over! Phew, I can now let out a huge sigh of relief.

Lots of hours when into them planning, preparing, sourcing, co-ordinating, creating, promoting, walking, talking and door knocking. And guess what, we will be doing it again next year!

Particularly I'd like to thank Philip for acting as the Chair and ensuring that we all kept to time. A big thank you to Greg and Ian who set up the room and the AV equipment and ensured everything was working smoothly. Thank you to Bill, Geoff and Philip for doing the walk around the local business neighbourhoods to drum up support and to Yvonne who may have felt slightly swamped with the amount of people last night but did a stirling job to act as a charming host at the door. Thanks also to everyone else who spoke to their own networks, friends, colleagues and business people they know and brought them to share the evening with us. It's been greatly appreciated.

So what did you think about the evenings? Did you find them useful? Engaging? Did you find having a spread of ages and professions at the presentations interesting?

For me, it was an opportunity to observe that simply by sharing the evening with a wider group of people, we were all connected through business. Also, some of the feedback I was getting was that there was a real genuine feeling of openess and friendship in Rotary that inspired non-Rotarians to rethink or look at Rotary Clubs in their own area. In effect, even though we may not get any members, our club has been instrumental in promoting Rotary to others.

However, we can't stop at just one set of business networks. In order to be successful we need to get a 'name for ourselves' out in our community and continually keep holding these events. So next year, I believe our promotion will be made just a little bit easier because the people who attended this time around can also be the ones who spread the word. If anything, we will still need some door knocking to be done to get local businesses to come along so any assistance here would be greatly appreciated. I've already created the flyer for February events and registrations are now open online so please continue to spread the word!

Next week we are having a social night - we've earned ourselves a break - until we get back to the normal meetings. Greg has kindly organised a banquet meal at the Bombay Club at 556 North Road Ormond. The reviews on Urban Spoon show that this restaurant has some great food so it's not to be missed! We will need to get 20 people there on the night as the restaurant is opening the doors JUST FOR US! So please invite your partners and friends along so that we can be ensured of a great night. The cost will be $30pp.

So thank you once again to everyone for your support in the Business Networking Events. Already City of Kingston will advertise and promote our events in their business newsletter. I have made a limited colour print run and will hand these out to people to actively promote in December and January. Maybe we can set up a small team of people to go door knocking for a couple of hours over a weekend or during the week?

Business Networking Month - Lesson on Cashflow!

Wow, did you come away from that presentation last night with a new appreciation of how hard some businesses are doing it when they consider cash flow? Were you as surprised as I was to find out that the average age of business owners in Australia is 55?

Lisa Gissing from the Davidson Institute which is the educational arm of the Westpac Branch gave us a rivetting presentation on Cashflow: The Lifeblood of Your Business". What could have been a dry topic actually turned out to be interesting and she had us engaged because she gave us real life stories and examples of business owners who we all could relate to. She had the knack of asking questions to us that made us think about our own business situations.

Thanks also to Merv Ericson who also gave us a short presentation on what Rotary has provided him in personal, professional and business development in his 46 years in the banking and finance industry. I do hope that what he said resonated with all of us. It certainly did with me - that's why I'm in Rotary. I'd like to believe that my knowledge and skills can be used for projects that serve the greater good.

We all congratulated John Perry for the Paul Harris Fellow Recognition. John contributed during October when the massive Global Polio Eradication Program was in full force and his contribution will go a long way to source more vaccine and continue to eradicate polio from this world once and for all. Congratulations John!

This morning I had a lovely surprise. Sarah from Sarah Belle Designs (who attended our first presentation) had mailed out to me a beautiful 'Friendship Card' that thanked Rotary for the Business Event. She mentioned that she had a really good time and everyone being so lovely. Here is the photo of the card and the message:

Next week, we have more people signed up to attend (up to 9 guests) so I would encourage you again to we welcoming hosts and enjoy the last of our business events for this month.

Our next set of Business Events are all locked in for February 2012 and promises to be great... here's a rundown:

Feb 6th: Priya Chandra, Online Marketer will talk on, "How to Engage with Your Customers Using Social Media" followed by Snigdha Gurrala talkin on 'My Experience on the National Youth Science Forum"

Feb 13th: How to Make Your Business Sustainable and Save Money followed by Rotarian in Business, Pat Armstrong, consultant on environment talk about "The Professional and Personal Value of Rotary in my Life"

Feb 20th: Roger James, Small Business Mentor will talk on: "The Value of Business Mentoring" followed by Rotarian in Business, Diane Fisher who is a business coach and change management consultant talk about "The professional and personal value of Rotary in my life"

feb 27th: Vocational tour of Cell Care in Heatherton followed by social evening at a local restaurant

Last Week a Busy Week In Rotary

Last week I attended the Rotary Foundation dinner at the Dingley International Hotel on an evening that was best to be at home. At one stage, I thought the wild weather would have ripped off the roof and expose us all to the elements as we were caught in the middle of a storm that the whole of Melbourne was waiting for. The Rotary Foundation Roadshow occurs every year and it's an opportunity to learn more about the Rotary Foundation and its programs. There will be one particular big change occuring in 2013 around grants and also the GSE will not be covered by Rotary Foundation funding anymore - but by the districts.

All this information will be made available through the DG newsletters and also filtered to all clubs.

On Friday, I went to the Rotary Presidents Meeting (the second for this year) at the Wheelers Hill International. It's an opportunity for all Presidents in our District to get together and promote their various club activities. Here is a rundown of what was mentioned:

1. Membership Growth

In our District we now have 3 Interact and 3 Rotaract clubs and our aim is to grow it to 5 eac. Rotaractors are our future Rotarians and it was encouraged that we keep Rotaractors involved as they are keen people. If there is no Rotaract or Interact club in our cluster, clubs were encouraged to create them. Thanks also to RC Beaumaris who has establish Interact now in its second year and going well; whereas RC Rowville/Lysterfield is in their second month. RC BMC and Healsville are also looking into creating an Interact Club

2. RYPEN - District needs at least 3-5 volunteers to run RYPEN in May 2012. Any support appreciated.

3. Books for Babies - was run in Feb 2011 and it was a national Rotary project where Rotary gave a book to every newborn. It was a literacy project and undertaken to commemorate Rotary's birthday. The book was by Mem Fox called, "10 Little Fingers, 10 LIttle Toes" and we teamed up with Penguin Books who sold them to us at $6.80 each. There was also some PR and press coverage on radio about the project but the intention is to do it all again next year. Clubs encouraged to seek maternity wards in their area to give this book out to new mothers.

4. District Conference 2012 - planning in progress but people encouraged to take advantage of the early bird registration. Guest speakers are still being sourced but so far it's looking to be CEO Fairshare, Chairman of Rotary Health, Dr Leanne Wilton (IVF Melbourne), Crikey.com editor Stephen Maine and George Calombaris, Mike Brady and hopefully the US Consul General and of course, our Texan GSE team.

5. Rotary Leadership Institute - registrations are open for RLI. Cost is $50 and it will be 3 one day workshops on Rotary. See Jenny Coburn.

6. Rotarians who are inducted are invited to a New Member Reception at the Kingswood Golf Club on Thursday 17 November. This is a new event that welcomes new Rotarians into the district.

7. Corporate Clubs - Tim Treeby is setting up corporate membership for Rotary Clubs and there will be member information/business networking nights on at the following. RC Malvern, 15 Feb 2012; RC Dandenong on 20 Feb 2012; RC Geelong on 21 Feb 2012 and RC Ringwood on 22 Feb 2012