Monday 14 January was our first formal meeting for the year. On the previous Monday we met and barbecued at Liz and Bob Doerksen's home and had a great evening. My thanks to Bob and Liz. They were pivotal in making the evening a success.
It was a pleasure to welcome our guests who included our speaker. Dr Carina Hoang; artist Jana-Vodesil-Baruffi whose portrait of Carina was published in a series portraying prominent and successful WA women; prospective member Gordon McLean; and our newest exchange student, Caroline Mathew (pictured below) and her mother Jai. Caroline has a good grasp of the French language and that's just as well because she is going to Southern France to put her fluency to the test. Club Director of International Service, Paul Daly, was a member of the panel which selected Caroline and expressed great confidence that she will be an excellent ambassador. We wish her well and look forward to hearing all about her experiences as her year progresses.
Our returning exchange student, Ashka Bhavsar, has submitted her final report which has been circulated to all members. She will be coming to the Club in early February to report at first hand.
In the meantime Anna continues to enjoy her year on exchange. She's loving the sun, surf and sand (not so much) and over the holidays has travelled with other exchange students to Kalgoorlie and Esperance under the watchful eye of their chaperones one of whom was our own Anne Edgar. Both Anne and Anna survived the experience which proved very enjoyable if a little tiring. Anna has now moved to her new host parents. Jody and David Tovey, who live in Harrisdale.
On the subject of Youth, I'm delighted to say that we have sponsored four students to attend the Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA) camp at the Baptist Centre in Serpentine. They'll be dining with Rotarians from sponsoring Clubs on 16 January and Kieran English has kindly agreed to represent us while Club Director of Youth, Simon Cubitt, is away on compassionate leave following the death of his mother. I have conveyed to Club's condolences to Simon and a number of members attended the memorial service for his mother, held in Nedlands on 9 January, which I'm know Simon appreciated.
Club Director of Community Service, Ashley West, will be representing us at the HANDICAMP Mad Hatter dinner being held at Point Walter Recreation Centre on 22 January. and would some other Club members to also attend to support our Buddy and see what the Campers are up to.
Ashley also reported on the project to reticulate the Willetton Community Garden to which the Club has contributed $1,000.
We've also contributed $1,000 towards the purchase Mutuba trees which will be planted around the perimeter of a demonstration farm in Uganda. This is part of a project which was initiated by the Rotary Club of Tacoma North, Washington State USA. It's really worthwhile and I thank Paul Daly for coordinating our involvement. See report below.
The Board will be meeting in the evening on 23 February and prior to that during the day, our Fair Chair, Simon Cubitt and I will be meeting with the City of Canning to progress arrangements for the Community Fair which this year, is on Sunday 7 April. That's not far off and we'll be picking up the pace of planning over the time remaining including rosters and Club stalls. In the meantime I'm very happy to report that we've succeeded in securing a significant sponsorship from Healthway and are hopeful of similar support from Lotterywest with whom Simon has recently been negotiating. These two sponsors/supporters are crucial to the financial success of the Fair.
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