Six Rotarians from the Club went to the International Rotary Convention in Melbourne Kim Wilkins, David Robertson, Helen Gulson, John Bolton, Therese Stubbs, and Luke Keighery. Below are some highlights from the Convention.
Kim Wilkins spoke of the End Polio Walk from Federation Square and of the people he met on that walk.
David Robertson spoke about talking to lots of other Rotarians, and the House of Friendship and the interesting projects in relation to producing food around the water tanks from seeds and turning it into vegetable patches. He said the speakers were of the highest calibre.
Helen Gulson said she found all the speakers very inspirational.
Hundreds of booths in the Friendship Hall featured the activities of many action groups, some of which included those working to fix club feet, or cleft palates in particular regions of the world; action groups for basic education & literacy; providing toilets; food plant solutions; or the Teacher in a Box project which provides people with offline access to an extensive range of free educational and training materials via any wi-fi enabled device. The Rotary Club of Los Altos have a lithium ion battery recycling project which was very interesting.
Helen encouraged members to think about registering for next year’s convention in Singapore and said that perhaps we could include a short tour in the region before or after the event.
Therese Stubbs said it was a great experience to see so many Rotarians in one place and to really feel the enthusiasm of so many people wanting to do make a positive difference in the world.
She spoke about a session she attended on How to Submit a Great Global Grant Application. Firstly, she reminded us that The Rotary Foundation helps Rotary Members to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace by improving health, providing quality education, improving the environment, and alleviating poverty.
Why wouldn’t any of us want to contribute to that? Especially when 92% of what we donate goes directly to Rotary projects, be they big or small.
A takeaway from this session was that there is nothing stopping us, this Club, from deciding to do a significant and costly project. It is just coming up with a worthy idea that will make a difference somewhere. We can do it!
A second session she mentioned was a short session about creating Photos and Video for our social media. Some of the points made there were:
- Know who is in our orbit. Who is it that is looking at our Facebook and Instagram pages. Put up things that are of interest to them – use images that hook people so that they stop scrolling and read the information and maybe click a link to find out how they might attend a meeting or become involved.
- We should put up photographs up of our projects. Show action with people doing things. Choose photos that show people benefitting from our projects. Tell a story. Include full rich colour with movement, momentum, and emotions.
- If we want to encourage people to come to us, they need to see what we do and achieve in our photos.
- Avoid photos that present the stereotype of rotary people – BBQ’s, selling tickets. Posing groups or bunches of Rotarians looking at the camera.
- If we are featuring Rotarians, the shot should show moments of friendship and warmth and celebration. Try for natural poses or candid shots.
Luke Keighery showed photos from the Convention with Rotarians from many places, including some in traditional dress, and some of the activities the attendees attended. He said that the President Jennifer Jones was impressive and spoke about her year as president which included her personally delivering polio vaccinations to children in Pakistan which, with Afghanistan, are the only two places left in the world which has reported cases of polio. She said now is not the time to ease off, its the time to really work to eliminate the disease as we are so close. India recently had a mass vaccination project where 125 million children were vaccinated in one day! On that day not one Indian Rotarian was at home – they were out vaccinating children all over the country together with the army and government officials. This shows what is possible when Rotarians work together.
Luke reiterated Helen’s message that members should consider registering for the next Convention in Singapore in May 2024 - //convention.rotary.org.
Ros Virtue
