Stories

   

The Phoenix 19th January 2024
 
 
 
From Your Presidents Desk………..

Hello Fellow members!

Haran’s writes from India:

March brings with it a powerful theme of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene, and what better way for our district to embody this theme than by inaugurating a significant project in this Area of Focus? This week marks the inauguration of Global Grant "GG2346114 Siksha Aur Suraksha - Toilet Infrastructure for Less Privileged Students,” sponsored by the Rotary Clubs of Madras Magnum and EClub of Greater Sydney. This project is poised to address the lack of proper sanitation and hygiene facilities, particularly affecting girls' attendance. In Chennai, the construction of 8 toilet blocks will benefit 3600 girl students and 7500+ students overall from lower-income groups. These improvements are not just about infrastructure; they are about boosting school enrollment, improving community relations, and potentially paving the way for additional infrastructure enhancements.
Important Information to note:

  • No meeting this Sunday 17th March 2024 due to the District conference being held on 15 and 16th . I am looking forward to catching up with our members
  • 5th Sunday 31st March 2024 Toastmasters / Rotary Alliance Fun Evening
  • District Assembly is the 6th April 2024, venue to be decided
    Members required to assist with blanket folding on 6th April 2024 at MediShare (RAWCS) Unit 4, 12 – 14 Anella Avenue, Castle Hill NSW 2154

Our Club is Active, Active, Active

  • Lucian is going gangbusters and collaborating with Blue Mountains Clubs opening Dementia Cafe in Lithgow and making fidget boards for patients at Blue Mountains hospital
  • Judy is leading the charge for Eco poles and Bee hotel club project
  • RAWCS project updates Tony and Sandra Castley, Doug Vincent’s wife and son are in Kiribati on a SEW AID Project
  • The regionalisation project within zone 8 establishment meeting of the E-Clubs Rotary Community Group occurred on 9th March 2024. An email was sent to all members with details.
  • Through Lucy Hopgood Brown our club is sponsoring Royce and Jean Abbey vocational scholarship recipient from Congo, Rev. Dr. Marthe Kondemo. Rev Dr Marthe arrived March 11 after 4 flights – unfortunately without her checked bag, but we hope that will turn up soon. She’s tucked into her first Tim Tams! Warm.
  • ​​​​​​​Once again our club is leading the way in the focus area of the environment. The Environment Committee have sort approval from the club board to set up a bank account, on behalf of district to facilitate the Oceania chapter of the Internationally based “End Plastic Soup”

Our Fundraising activities in 2024

  • We were at $ 770 raised, thank you to those members who have sold or bought tickets on our way to our target of $1000. I encourage you to share the online raffle with your networks. The raffle will be drawn on 27th March 2024.

Click on the link https://www.raffletix.com.au/?ref=sguzf&sref=6b57vrnk


 
 
 
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There is no meeting this week
Everyone will be at District Conference this Friday and Saturday.  

 
 
From Our Environment Director

Bee Hotels, Eco Poles and Plastic

I recently attended a very worthwhile meeting of the Hall Rotary Club, a very active and vibrant group of Rotarians. The guest speaker was Emma Holliday, CEO Lids4Kids, (yes I have mentioned her to Tony Miller). Emma spoke about their project, the fact that many millions of plastic lids have been saved from landfill and the brightly coloured Buddy Benches which are made from the recycled plastic. They also make many other products such as clip boards, bench tops, keyrings, pencil cases and such like – sold through Office Works. Great initiative even though I have a few concerns about the grinding up of plastic lids and producing microplastics, which I am sure they will take into account given time and more research.

How does this fit in with Bee Hotels – Hall Rotary Club is the buzzing centre of all things Bees! Hall is a bee friendly village near Canberra. One of the Rotarians made me the newest design in Bee Hotels, see beside, very classy, his wife likes to add the decorative touches. The next step is to design the actual pole this hotel will sit on, the enviro-team, Ross, Doug, Lucy and yours truly are onto that at the moment. The Northern Beaches Council is very keen to help us with this project so we should have our first Eco Pole erected within the next few months. Once the first one is in place we can then expand to other locations!!!

 

More on Plastic – see my story on cleaning up plastic from the beach in Oecusse – the local kids loved the day out and I gave them pens, pencils and exercise books for their efforts!

World Clean up Day Oecusse Style – Getting Rid of Plastic!

Oecusse is a very isolated sub-district of Timor Leste, situated on the north coast of the Indonesian territory of West Timor. The region is home to approximately 70 thousand people, (total population of Timor Leste ~1.4 million). Oecusse is actually an exclave of Timor Leste as it is surrounded by a foreign country, Indonesia, on three sides and has its northern border open to the sea, the Savu Sea.

Since 2001 I have been running an Environmental and Youth Program in Oecusse with a team of locals with whom I set up an NGO, GREEN TL. One of the events we try to hold regularly is Clean Up Oecusse Day. Last year I organised my neighbours to clean up the rubbish from the beach. As you can see in the photos we filled many bags with litter, as there is a general conception in Timor leste, and indeed here in Australia, that litter “goes away” somewhere when thrown on the ground. I guess they are culturally used to most of their rubbish being biodegradable and eaten by local dogs, pigs etc and have not really come to grips as yet with all the foreign introduced plastic, polystyrene and glass!!

Dumping all the rubbish in an old skip bin at the local tip.

 

                                                                A well earned swim in a muddy puddle on the way home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How long will it take before the rubbish builds up again? But at least the locals are beginning to see the problem and are doing something about it.
 


 
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Rotary Adopt A Tree Program

 
Hand Up Congo
Meet the Rev Dr Marthe Kondemo is visiting Australia for the first time, thanks to a Royce and Jean Abbey vocational scholarship www.royceabbey.com, the Rotary E-Club of Greater Sydney.

https://www.rotarygreatersydney.org/ and HandUp Congo www.handupcongo.org. The third African and first Congolese to receive this scholarship, ‘Dr Marthe’ is a 44-year-old academic and pastor. Her NSW program will give her the opportunity to learn about women’s health and livelihood initiatives that may be replicable in the Congo. She is an honours graduate in theology from Congo Protestant University (www.upc.ac.cd) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and holds PhD and Master's degrees from the University of South Africa (www.unisa.ac.za). She has been widely published, and facilitates regular workshops on such topics as 'poverty and its impact on women' as well as 'gender justice'. The mum of five lives in Mbandaka, Equateur Province, DRC, where our club planted the country’s first Rotary Peace Pole in January 2023. She has just been named General Secretary for Women and Families of the Church of Christ in Congo, representing more than 100 Protestant denominations in the vast nation of 95+ million people.

I would like to alert everyone to opportunities to meet Marthe: 

- Saturday, May 18th at Boronia Park Uniting Church (Gladesville) – see attached flyer – Marilyn Mercer is kindly going to teach a rug making workshop with proceeds going to a women’s health project in Congo.
- Saturday, May 25th at same venue – noon lunch for our members and all the nice people she will have met with by then will also be invited. This date falls when RI convention is underway in Singapore, but can’t be helped. Marthe will share the top ideas that she thinks are replicable in Congo.
  • Rotary Club Meetings she is speaking at are:
  • Gladesville (6:30 PM April 29)
  • Lane Cove (6:30 PM April 30)
  • Sydney Cove (7 AM May 24)
Members who have suggestions on who Marthe might meet with during her 3-month stay in Australia may contact Lucy Hobgood-Brown
on 0417 272 101  or     handupcongo@gmail.com.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Blankets for Bangladesh

From PDG Keith Roffey, National Manager, Medi Share (RAWCS), this RAWCS project has reserved 20,000 NSW Hospital blankets for future use in hospitals in Bangladesh.

The blankets are laundered. Some are folded, others need to be folded.

Our club member, Hasan Sarwar has arranged for blanket folding on 6th April, 9:30AM – 2:00PM  

The location for the Blanket folding is at:-
 
MediShare (RAWCS)   Unit 4, 12 – 14 Anella Avenue, Castle Hill NSW 2154

This will involve Rotarians, medical colleagues and Bangladeshi students over 16 years. (20 max)

All adults will be asked to provide WWC clearance to our club’s verification officer.

This blanket folding is approved by the Board members as a club endorsed activity.

Rotarian Hasan Sarwar, Project Manager

PDG Marilyn Mercer, Deputy Manager

13/03/2024
 


 
Winter RYPEN
Winter RYPEN is now open for applications!!
 
RYPEN - Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment, is a weekend residential camp, sponsored by Rotary clubs, where young people get to learn more about themselves, push the boundaries of their comfort zones, develop new skills and form lifelong friendships.
 
The Winter camp is held at Blue Gum Lodge in Springwood where we have 64 life changing spots for young people aged 14-16, from across our district to come together on Friday 14th June to Become, Discover, Be Challenged. They will emerge on Sunday 16th June as newer versions of themselves ready to take on the world.
 
 
For updates please see our camp facebook page: 
 
Members are requested to contact their local High School to ascertain interest in students attending this camp. Please contact Tony Miller if you have any interested participants.

 
Rotary Peace Fellowships
 
Help Rotary recruit peace and development leaders
 
Applications for the 2025 Rotary Peace Fellowships are open until 15 May.You can help promote peace in the world by encouraging peace and development leaders in your community to apply for the Rotary Peace Fellowship.
 
Each year, Rotary awards up to 130 fully funded fellowships for peacebuilders from diverse backgrounds to study at one of our peace centers located at leading universities around the world. This year, we’ll select 50 peace fellows to study in our master’s degree programs at six partner universities in Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States and 80 fellows to earn postgraduate diplomas through our professional development certificate programs at Makerere University in Uganda and Bahçeşehir University in Turkey.
Rotary Peace Fellows use their training to amplify their work at the local, regional, or global level. Together, we can advance peace by encouraging our local peacebuilders to learn about Rotary and apply for this unique fellowship.

But we need your help finding candidates. Rotary and Rotaract members can get involved by:Candidates have until 15 May to submit applications to The Rotary Foundation.
 
Thanks to generous support from donors and the dedicated participation of Rotary members, the peace fellowship program has more than 1,700 alumni working to make positive change in more than 140 countries. Many program alumni have founded their own organizations to address critical issues or serve as leaders in governments, nongovernmental organizations, educational and research institutions, media and the arts, and international organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank.To learn more about how you can recruit the next generation of peace fellows, contact your district Rotary Peace Fellowship subcommittee chair or write to rotarypeacecenters@rotary.org.
Encourage candidates to apply!

 
ICU Ambulance for Pushpagiri Hospital India

 
Online Raffle
 
Online Raffle - It's not too late to buy tickets - drawn March 27 th 2024
                     
 

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