What a Year
Great Year: Exceptional circumstances.
Despite the on-and-off situation caused by that well-known virus in our lives that has restricted movement and limited our interactions with one another; especially during the lockdown periods; our club as still achieved an amazing number of the last year.
With a lockdown still in operation (week 5 at present), we
are unable to celebrate at the dinner planned late last month, however let’s
still enjoy the moment and recount our club’s moments during our last Rotary
year, SO HERE ARE A FEW HIGHLIGHTS (many are linked to the original post)
Changover 2020
Speakers on a wide variety of subjects - Live speakers where possible
Northern Beaches Tunnel - Balgowlah Golf course to go
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We helped the community:
Seniors Festival Mini Expo
The Northern Beaches Seniors Festival is a program of activities focusing on health and mental stimulation, food and nutrition, multicultural and inter-generational relationships, technology, accommodation and local service options. It is coordinated by Northern Beaches Council.
The festival program aims to encourage over 60s to connect with their community and develop new skills and interests. The Meet your local Seniors Groups mini expo was held at the Police Citizens youth club (PCYC) on Friday 16 Apr 21.
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| Bev Yarich, Diana Hart OAM, Mayor Michael Regan and President Lindy Myers |
We raised funds, and assisted worthy causes
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Our major fundraiser, Golf Day & Dinner - postponed due to Covid-19 then split into two since rain prohibited the Golf Day
- Dinner in March, Golf Day in April.
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We collected and distributed $30,000 to community organisations who demonstrate a particular cause where money will be spent
We acknowledged the
champions and the first responders:
In partnership with two other Northern Beaches Rotary Clubs; 300 restaurant vouchers, each $50, were purchased using a $20,000 Australia Day Grant and donated to medical and tracing staff who deal with Covid-19 outbreaks, Lifeline counsellors, volunteers who fight bushfires and storm damage.
We presented awards to people in the community
Our efforts were recognised…
--oOo--
The Honorable James Griffin, MP member for Manly has on two occasions in the New South Wales Parliament acknowledged and thanked Balgowlah Rotary for the club's ongoing support of local community organisations and highlighted the value and importance of service clubs in our society.
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| Lindy Myers (President) and James Griffin. |
Federal Government – Member for Warringah, Zali Steggall OAM made the following speech about Rotary in Warringah and the 100 years of Rotary in Australia. Unfortunately she was unable to attend the celebration at the council.
I rise today to congratulate Rotary for 100 years of service to the people of Australia. In this centenary year, Rotary has 30,000 members across more than 1,000 local clubs. I'm very proud of the fact that five of those clubs are in Warringah: Rotary Club of Mosman, Rotary Club of Manly, Balgowlah Rotary, the Rotary Club of Dee Why Warringah and Brookvale Rotary. I will come to the work of each of those clubs shortly, but at this stage I want to acknowledge the 50 years of community service provided by members of the Rotary Club of Frenchs Forrest. Sadly, this club wound up and handed back its charter just last month, which is incredibly sad, but I thank those members for their service over the last five decades.
We all acknowledge that the work of Rotary nationally and internationally is well known, perhaps most notably for their incredible dedication to their goal to eradicate polio from the world, but I'd like to use my time to focus on the incredible and much-valued work of local clubs. We know that there are so many acts of service that these wonderful Rotarians do in our communities, but I will highlight just a few for the House.
I recently had the tremendous honour of joining the Rotary club of Mosman, I recently had the honour of joining them for their presentation of Living for Climate Champion awards. The Rotary Club of Mosman is leading the way. The project asked Rotarians and the general community to make simple changes in their lives that will reduce their impact on the climate and emissions. I would again like to congratulate the winners, who collectively pledged to save more than 75,000 kilos of carbon from their everyday activities.
The Rotary Club of Manly is another incredibly active club in our local community. It is probably most famous for its annual Manly fun run, which has raised over $1½ million for local charities over the last decade or so. On behalf of those many charities groups that receive that generous support, I say a huge thank you.
Balgowlah Rotary is also incredibly active. Local charities, schools and businesses have very much benefited from their tremendous work. This club has a particular emphasis on youth, providing support and mentoring to two local high schools: Balgowlah Boys Campus and Mackellar Girls Campus. They support the youth business weeks and youth science challenges in those schools and fund students from the schools to attend numerous initiatives such as the Rotary Youth Driver Awareness program.
We also have the Rotary Club of Dee Why Warringah, which is very famous for organising our thong-throwing contest at a Dee Why Beach every Australia Day, but I'd also like to highlight their wonderful work with the Pride of Workmanship Awards, where they recognise people who go above and beyond in their workplace and in the community.
Finally, Brookvale Rotary for almost three decades have been running the ever-popular Pub2Pub event, but it is being relaunched this year and now will be the Beach2Beach charity fun run to reflect the true family character and scenic location of this iconic event. I'm proud to be an ambassador of this charity fun run and I encourage many of my parliamentary colleagues to join up if you're up in the beaches. It will be on 22 August—COVID permitting, of course. I have participated in the Beach2Beach at various times, and it actually finishes in the member for Mackellar's electorate. Hopefully, we will see him running as well.
I think it's really important that the COVID pandemic has shown just how important the community service work from so many organisations really is. The pandemic, the lockdowns and, sadly, the current outbreak that is now impacting Sydney hit clubs—especially Rotary clubs—very hard. It means the clubs aren't able to meet. It means they're depriving members of that really important social interaction. But it also really severely impacts on their ability to engage in all of their traditional fundraising events, especially the sausage sizzles, the trivia nights and selling raffle tickets at local shopping centres. They have shown incredible innovation and creativity, though, in these difficult times. They've learnt to show up on Zoom. They've done so many other things. They've done virtual cocktail parties. One local club even organised a project to collect verbal histories from elderly residents in isolation in order to keep them occupied and pass on their local stories to new generations. Thank you so much to all those Rotary clubs in Warringah for their amazing work.
Peninsular Magazine features and other local publications featured our work and achievements.
We helped stay in contact with each other:
Early last year we embraced ZOOM and still use it allowing our members and guests to attend fortnightly meeting (combined with a live meeting where permitted)
Improved the quality of ZOOM meetings by using NSW
Government Grant from the office of Volunteers to upgrade the computers
Software & equipment.
Launched a new website and blog with high
resolution images of every event and project.
We celebrated important occasions:
New year picnic in the park (post Christmas lockdown):
Rick became President Elect :
Birthdays :
And.....
--oOo--
Whilst Anzac Day had limited attendance by invitation only and our usual support didn’t occur; PP Roger Gray attended as the Representative of Balgowlah Rotary at the 79th Defence of Sydney Commemoration on Friday 28th May 2021.
This regular event commemorates the 31st May - 8th June 1942 attack on Sydney by Japanese submarines in which 21 Australians were killed. Speakers were James Griffin and Paul Kelly, both of who spoke very well on a very cold and windy Friday morning.
And members and friends had lots of fun
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Went for interesting walks -for example:
...and attended the theatre and had dinner in town.
We also kept spirits up by regular phone contact and emails.
We gained new members:
Membership has stayed steady in the last 12 months
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Some others have left
So let's think towards a happy future and ensure that we remain safe and well
See you on ZOOM in the coming weeks!
Thank you Lindy for providing the key points and copy leads, and to John for the great photos!
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Brad lives in Melbourne (Explains a LOT)........he was sick of the World, of Covid-19, those who hate China, global warming, species extinction, racial tension and all the rest of the disturbing stories that occupy the media headlines.
Brad drove his car into his garage at home, carefully sealed up around the windows and doorways of his garage, selected his favourite radio station and started his car to a slow idle.
Two days later, his neighbour realising she had seen no sign of Brad for a while, peered through the garage window to see Brad at the wheel of his car. Immediately she phoned emergency services. Police, fire and the ambulance arrived promptly.
After pulling Brad from his car and giving him a sip of water, he seemed as good as gold. Brad drives a Tesla. It now has a flat battery. He also votes Green
FROM ROLLS-ROYCE STAFF MAGAZINE
Sometimes it DOES take a
Rocket Scientist!! (true story)..
Scientists at Rolls Royce built a gun specifically to launch dead chickens
at the windshields of airliners and military jets all travelling at maximum
velocity.
The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl
to test the strength of the windshields
American engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the Windshields
of their new high speed trains..
Arrangements were made, and a gun was sent to the American engineers.
When the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurled out
of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens,
blasted through the control console, snapped the engineer's back-rest in two
and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin like an arrow shot from a
bow..
The horrified Yanks sent Rolls Royce the disastrous results of the experiment,
along with the designs of the windshield and begged the British scientists for
suggestions.
You're going to love this......
Rolls Royce responded with a one-line memo:
"Defrost the chicken."
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