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In his last Bulletin, Ian Ross, foreshadowed the next would be in the 21/22 Rotary Year with me as President. While there has been much to do, I hadn't expected it would be several months before that happened. So this will be a bumper edition, but before launching into it, I want to thank Past President (PP) Ian for his very successful leadership of the Club over the past two years. He set the bar high and always did his very best for the Club.
Ian and I "Changed Over" on Saturday 26 June 2021. We had a very good night to celebrate another successful year. This included recognising two Rotarians for their distinguished service: Leigh Thorp with a well deserved Paul Harris Fellowship (PHF) and Frank Murgia as Rotarian Of The Year for his overall commitment and his pivotal role in the success of the Silent Auction at the Willetton Rotary Community Fair (WRCF). Ian had also planned to present a PHF to Willetton Senior High School (WSHS) teacher and Interact facilitator Pip Peake, but she and her husband were unable to attend, so instead it was presented sometime later at a school assembly. (Pip is pictured below with PP Ian)
The Club Board has met twice since Changeover and taken some important decisions, key amongst them have been:
- Accepting an offer from the Melville Glades Golf Club (MGGC) to return to that venue; and to change our meeting day from Monday to Wednesday evenings when catering and table service would be available. I especially thank Frank Murgia for his work liaising with MGGC to make the move possible.
- Agreed to revise our meeting schedule so that as far as possible, there will be two business meetings each month; one meeting with a guest speaker or special event and to be used where possible to showcase the Club; and one purely social event not necessarily held on a Wednesday. I especially thank Kevin Baruffi for suggesting these changes.
- To proceed with planning for the Artisan Fair and also the Willetton Rotary Community Fair (WRCF) provided support for both events can be obtained from the City Of Canning in one form or another; and for the Fair, that we can obtain sponsorship sufficient to cover the running costs. I thank Ian Ross ((Artisan Fair) and David Honeychurch (WRCF) for the preliminary work they have undertaken on these projects.
Kevin Baruffi has also been busy in our search for new members and in particular, organised a successful interest meeting on 16 July 2021 at the Riverton RSL A number of prospective members emerged from this event. If that was not enough Kevin also organised a Vocational Service Award to recognise Narelle Smyth for her outstanding customer service at IGA Riverton. (Pictured below with Kevin (on left) and me); and two notable speakers: deep sea diver and author of "Walking On Ocean Floors" Mike (Spike) McGettigan; and Fleur Massey on the subject of Blue Guardians. We'll report on these speakers in another issue.
We have also had the pleasure of a visit from District Governor (DG) Pat Schraven (pictured below)
Rotary International‘s (RI) President Shekhar Mehta's theme for 2021-2022 is Serve to Change Lives and DG Pat encouraged us to continue our efforts to improve the lives of others especially by undertaking more community service projects. For the District, her key focus areas are to increase membership and participation; expand Rotary's reach through diversity and inclusion; build connections to increase Rotary's impact; and to embrace change, grow and adapt. None of us doubt that being a DG is a challenge but Pat and DG 9455, Dee Buckland, have the added challenge of initiating planning for the RI directed merger of WA's two Rotary Districts (9455 and 9465) into one with effect 1 July 2023. Now there's certainly an opportunity to "change and adapt"
Even though there has not been a Bulletin until now, there has been no end of toasts to Rotary Clubs around the world. Two appear in the right hand column and we'll include more in the next edition.
The same goes our Club Joker's Jokes which continue to be delivered in style by Raffle Master Stuart Diggins Click here.
Finally, it's usual for us to provide a link to the CLUB MEETING DUTY ROSTER, but like DG Pat said, we are in the process of embracing the changes we've made to meetings etc; and also adapting to a new regime of "Rotating Sergeants-At-Arms" (imagine that!!! ED). The new roster will be published later this week effective from Wednesday 6 October 2021. For our meeting on 25 September 2021, Pushpa and "Lethal" Leigh are rostered to help the Sergeant; David Honeychurch is in the Chair and Gordon Booth is Welcome Officer.
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