The Rotary Club of Northbridge gratefully acknowledges the generous sponsorship of Northbridge Plaza
Birthdays & Anniversaries
Member Birthdays
Peter Grinter
March 1
Eleanor Chevor
March 3
Peter McNair
March 13
John Turner
March 19
Spouse Birthdays
Fran Garrett
March 2
Anniversaries
Helen Gulson
March 8
Join Date
Malcolm Lye
March 6, 2001
19 years
Alan Hession
March 8, 2016
4 years
Helen Gulson
March 8, 2016
4 years
Andrew Rennie
March 20, 2018
2 years
David Robertson
March 23, 2010
10 years
Sally O'Neill
March 25, 2003
17 years
Denise Woodward
March 27, 2018
2 years
Luke Keighery
March 27, 2018
2 years
Ros Virtue
March 28, 2006
14 years
Garth Carter
March 29, 2016
4 years
Club Meeting News
Welcome
President Peter welcomed all members to the meeting.
Announcements
Alan Hession spoke about the upcoming Fireworks. He said the paperwork for the sponsors will be ready soon so if you know of any potential sponsors, could you please let him know. He said for that for co-ordination and consistency purposes, it is better if the sponsorship team talks to any potential sponsors.
Sally O’Neill spoke about Rock for a Cause. Volunteers are needed on the night so please contact Sally if you are willing to help. Please also advertise the event amongst friends and family and encourage them to attend.
Garth Carter reminded members about next week’s Pride of Workmanship awards. There are to be six recipients. Two Pride of Workmanship and four community service awards will be presented by Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Start time is as usual, i.e., 6.00pm for 6.30pm(at the meeting Garth did actually say 6.30pm for 7.00pm but this has since changed to better suit the premier’s schedule).
Rob Coote said he visited the South Coast recently and suggested that if members had an opportunity to travel south you should do so and that rotary clubs in those places would welcome any and all visitors.
President Peter reminded members about the Rostrum Voice of Youth which is scheduled to take place on 1 April at Ascham school.
Peter also spoke about the recent issue of The 202 in which there is an article on the Australia Day awards presented to Penny Lye, Don Wilson and Robyn Sexton. Penny was presented her award for her numerous volunteer activities over many years, Don Wilson was the Environmental Citizen of the Year and Robyn Sexton received an AM for services to the law and judiciary. He warmly congratulated them all on their achievements.
Club Speaker
There was no speaker as it was a club forum/visioning meeting. All committees met separately to discuss plans and ideas for the year going forward.
When the meeting re-convened, President Peter transferred the chains of office to President Malcolm Lye for the remainder of the year. President Peter said he has enjoyed his 4 months as president and especially the support he received from members.
President Malcolm thanked Peter for his time as president and chairman and looked forward to his time as president.
The past few weeks have been turmoil for our club. We tried hard to maintain our weekly meetings at the Golf Club but the factors built up against us - the government’s health restrictions, our own members’ concerns and finally the closure of the Golf Club. In the end, we had no choice but to stop meeting. It was not only inevitable but also responsible.
Of course, we have also lost all our fundraising projects through to June and maybe well after. Fortunately, even without the Fireworks and other events, we have sufficient cash reserves to meet our funding commitments and also leave the incoming Board a reasonable opening balance in July.
Now, the challenge is to retain the interest and involvement of all members so that when the crisis is finally over, our club can re-emerge as healthy and vibrant as ever. To that end, a team has started planning a series of projects designed to keep members informed about the club and each other. An integral part of the programme is the use of Zoom teleconferencing technology, initially for Board meetings but then for general meetings. We should be able to advise you about these projects in the next week or so.
Keep healthy!
Malcolm Lye
DID YOU KNOW
The Club as a group became aware of the activities of Taldumande many years ago when a representative of that organisation addressed the Club in a regular meeting in an endeavour to try to obtain financial support for its activities which was not the same but complemented those of StreetWork. Subsequently in 2008 Carmen Bekker, the then CEO of Taldumande was awarded a Pride of Workmanship. However it was not until 2014 under the presidency of Noel Phelan that the Club really got involved with this charity. The needs of the charity were to some extent a little different from our usual involvement as whilst it definitely needed cash, it also needed manual help in maintaining and refurbishing its property. This found members gardening and building a pergola. The money side of things changed when the charity qualified to receive government funding. However in due course it was found that Taldumande was an excellent means of dealing with the money that had been transferred to it by Sydney Enterprise Education. A number of the young people who had received help from Taldumande wished to further their education and often found that the ownership of a laptop computer made this pursuit much easier and through connections of P.P. John Turner a source of very reasonably priced laptops. To the 30th June 2019 the Club has donated a total of $28,549.00 to this charity, including the purchase of the laptops and other educational aids.
If anyone has any jokes or funny stories, feel free to send them to me for the humour section of the Bulletin! We certainly need a little humour in our lives at the moment!!! Email them to helen.gulson@ozemail.com.au
Due to COVID19 Virus Safety Restrictions this event has been cancelled until further notice
Looking for something different to do in Northbridge?
Get in the groove with the local band, Laneway 91. Enjoy the evening with popular music, catch up with friends over delicious food and a drink, and help Rotary raise money for rural communities in need.
Dave Banks (left), President, Nambucca Rotary Club presenting a cheque to a member of the community.
Photo caption:
L-R: John Turner, Marko Delatovic, Nick Hillyard and Peter Grinter.
Rotary President, Peter Grinter, presents cheque to Nick Hillyard for BlazeAid at the Charity Fundraiser at Northbridge Golf Club on 24 January.
Over the recent months our nation has been beset by numerous disasters on a national level. As you are no doubt aware your local Rotary Club, the Rotary Club of Northbridge, has approached you to assist us in raising funds to help alleviate, in some way, the suffering occasioned to our fellow Australians. We, the members of the Club, have been blown away by the response and generosity of the members of our local community to our requests.
In October last year we conducted a bucket appeal at the Plaza for funds for the relief of drought-stricken farmers and we raised an amount just shy of $20,000.00. This was followed the next month with another bucket appeal at the Plaza to raise funds for victims of the bushfires then devastating the mid north coast of New South Wales which raised just under $16,000.00. Two months later we were back again asking for money for the victims of the fires then raging down the South Coast and nearly $26,000.00 to date has been raised. This is a grand total of some $61,500.00.
In dealing with funds raised by means of these appeals when, quite often, there are national appeals being conducted to raise substantial funds for the same cause, we have found that while the needs of the individual victims of the particular disaster are being helped financially by those national appeals, quite often community amenities are destroyed. However, the repair or replacement of those amenities which would greatly assist the devastated community achieving some return to normality do not qualify for assistance and literally fall through the cracks. To overcome this problem, we try to work with the local Rotary Club in that area and direct funds to helping restore those amenities and allowing the local community to rebuild as an interacting community.
In the middle of all this we conducted our regular annual ‘Tree of Joy’ at the Plaza to solicit Christmas presents for The Smith Family’s Annual Toy and Book Appeal for underprivileged children. This appeal resulted in our collecting enough presents to fill 24 waist-high, 75 litre, self-standing green plastic garden bags. Another magnificent effort by the local Community.
We, the members of the Rotary Club of Northbridge, wish to gratefully acknowledge the generosity of our Northbridge Community and to place on record our sincere thanks and gratitude for the material and financial assistance you have provided so readily when asked by us.
Where does the money go?
“Two people cried as they were so overwhelmed by Rotary generosity”
Karin Eurell
In typical Rotary fashion, we partner with another Rotary Club that is located close to the disaster zone. In this case, we connected with the Nambucca Rotary Club and the $15,000 raised from our first bucket appeal has been distributed already to where it is badly needed.
Nambucca Council provided Rotary with contact details of the 38 people who registered for Council assistance as they had lost their home in the bush fire.
The 38 names and phone numbers were allocated to 6 Rotarians to call and present them with a cheque for $300.
The President of Nambucca Rotary told us: “I have called 6 people so far, two cried as they were so overwhelmed by Rotary generosity.”
A further $1,400 is being donated to Out of the Ashes for porta loos –for people who have lost their home and are living in a tent.
The balance of $2, 200 will go to BlazeAid to assist farmers in the area by providing fencing materials which will be purchased locally.
Photo captions: The educators opened the box with mannequin torso at Christmas, and they were thrilled. It is the first clinical equipment that the hospital education team own themselves. Thanks so much 😊🙏Marg
A cry for assistance is certainly not uncommon in developing countries, especially when it concerns medical equipment. Northbridge Rotary Club heard the cry through two of its members Liz Grey and Ros Virtue, and immediately took up the challenge of fulfilling the needs of one of our closest neighbors, East Timor.
At Dili National Hospital, there are currently 12 Clinical Nurse Educators of which two are midwives. This year they became recognised as the first Timorese Clinical Nurse Educators at the Hospital to teach new nurses, midwives and student nurses on the wards.
Margaret McDonald-Ashe, a Nurse Educator for St John of God Nursing Development Program in Timor-Leste said “There is no budget allocation available for teaching equipment at the Hospital or the rural hospitals. We need assistance to carry on this really important work”
Past President Derek Matz ( Northbridge Rotary Club ) said “we managed to purchase or obtain via donation the vital pieces of equipment that were requested – mainly 2 adult and 2 child mannequins, a laptop and projector, stethoscopes, thermometers, 12 oxygen saturation monitors, a defibrillator with 10 batteries, bandages, medical tape and much more.”
“We can now continue the fantastic work the educators are doing, and even take on a few more people to move into the rural areas and train them as well.”
Margaret couldn’t thank Northbridge Rotary Club enough along with all the people who donated the equipment.
Children from the Wellington district enjoying their day out at the Dubbo Zoo with BBQ lunch.
Rotarians in Action:
Members of Northbridge and Wellington NSW at the Dubbo Zoo
Photo: Cheetah, Dubbo Zoo
The Rotary Clubs of Northbridge (Sydney) and Wellington (NSW) have embarked on a joint project to support the families of drought-affected communities in Western NSW. There are 744 primary school kids from the Wellington District and they are all being treated to a day at the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo including a BBQ lunch.
The project is being run over a 7-week period. Rotarians from Northbridge are driving there to connect with their fellow Rotarians in Wellington and to jointly run the BBQ. Northbridge President, Peter Antaw, said that of the families: “The children are suffering as well, most of them don’t understand the financial and extreme pressures that their parents are going through.” The families are anxious about their future but there is also much determination to keep their communities alive.
Australia is experiencing one of its most severe droughts on record, with areas in NSW facing the prospect of running out of water by mid-2020.
The Burrendong dam is now at 4.5% capacity and dwindling rapidly.
The crisis is severely impacting the Wellington area and so special treats like a visit to the zoo is just not possible for many locals and their families.
3000 muesli bars, supplied free by Nestles, as well as 744 sausage sandwiches and a cold drink will be given to the children of the district which includes regional small towns such as Geurie, Mumbil, Stuart Town and Euchareena.
The joint project was launched on 11th September and Channel 7 Prime TV attended the Zoo to film the event. ABC Morning Radio interviewed the Presidents. The kids thoroughly enjoyed their day with most of them citing the Cheetahs and Meer Cats as their favorites.
Ben Shields (Mayor of Dubbo Regional) and Daryl Thompson (Headmaster of Wellington Primary) also attended the launch. They both congratulated the Rotary Clubs for identifying children as the hidden victims of the drought. President Greg Hart of Wellington Rotary also thanked Northbridge Rotary and the Rotary Australia Benevolent Society for their very generous contributions to the project, and for driving up from Sydney to help at the BBQ’s. Without Northbridge, Wellington would not have taken on this project.
