A publication of the Rotary Club of Croydon ID No 18360 RI District 9810, Tuesday 2nd May 2017 Volume 44 Number 43

President Dr Joy Varughese

UPCOMING PROGRAMS

PARTNERS ARE ENCOURAGED AND INVITED TO ATTEND

ALL CLUB MEETINGS

DATE Tuesday May 2nd 2017, Dorset Gardens Hotel, 6.00 pm for 6.30 pm start SUBJECT Australian War Dogs. SPEAKER Wendy Harrison ‘ See article on AWAMO later in the Chronicle’ CHAIR Jill Fletcher DATE Saturday May 6th 2017, Lou & Lyn Davies’ Winchelsea Farm. SUBJECT Family Fun Day.

DATE Tuesday May 9th 2017, Dorset Gardens Hotel, 6:00pm for 6:30pm start. SUBJECT RC Croydon Vocational Awards Night. SPEAKER Christine Hayes – Head, Dept. of Health, Science, Education & Social Services

Swinburne University (Croydon Campus). CHAIR Kevin Francis DATE Tuesday May 16th 2017, Dorset Gardens Hotel, 6.00 pm for 6.30 pm start SUBJECT Real Estate SPEAKER Richard Nicholas of LJ Hooker. CHAIR Tony Wright DATE Saturday May 20th 2017, George Woods Performing Arts Centre 7 30 pm for

8:00 pm start. SUBJECT Melinda Schneider does “Doris” Concert DATE Sunday May 21st 2017, Deakin University, Burwood Campus,

8:45 am for 9:00 am start. SUBJECT District 9810 Training Assembly

The Chronicle

02-05-2017

1

Newsletter

UPCOMING PROGRAMS (Contd.)

DATE Tuesday May 23rd 2017, Dorset Gardens Hotel, 6.00 pm for 6.30 pm start SUBJECT Conquering the World’s Highest Free Standing Mountain, among other things. SPEAKER Warwick Duncan CHAIR Marlene Sinclair DATE Saturday June 24th 2017 SUBJECT District Changeover (Details TBA) DATE Tuesday 27th June 2017, Dorset Gardens Hotel, 6:00pm for 6:30pm start. SUBJECT RC Croydon Changeover (Details TBA)

MEMBERS CORNER

BIRTHDAYS: None.

ANNIVERSARIES: Kaye & Brian McDaid.

RAFFLE PRIZES: Ian Cumming; Jill Fletcher; Kevin Francis; John Gander.

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Good News! Jim Tinney is home from rehab and hospital and will see hi Doctor next week. Glad to see you home Jim! I am sure Jim would like to see Rotary members at home. Jean is progressing, although she has been told that it will be another six week before her finger is OK. We are “Still” receiving the Chronicle. Get well soon.

Clive Baum

Almoner

Club Information

Postal Address: P.O. Box 226 Croydon Victoria 3136

Meeting Venue Dorset Gardens

Hotel 335 Dorset Road Croydon 3136

Club President Joy Varughese president@rotarycroydon.org.au. 0451 880 186

Vice President Brian McDaid mcdaidbrian@optusnet.com.au 0431 934 279

Immediate Past President Richard Gilham rgilham@dodo.com.au 02 6515 7711

Secretary Greg O’Neil secretary@rotarycroydon.org.au 9870-4422

President Elect Stephen Bode stephen.bode@optusnet.com.au 0468 565 250

Treasurer Eric Thomas royalltreasurer@rotarycroydon.org.au 9723 4162

PR/Communications Jean Stuart prcommunications@rotarycroydon.org.au 0416 036 489

Not Able To Come?... This is so important!

Please advise apologies for meetings to John Hexter on

0437 392 932 or email: johnhexter3411@bigpond.com

Note! Mondays before 10.00am.

Greeter for May: Ian Cumming.

Cashier for May: John Hexter

Two course dinner $25.00 at the Dorset Gardens Hotel.

Chronicle contributions and any articles of interest are invited from all members and

persons that have an interest in the promotion of Rotary International.

Please email Jean at: prcommunications@rotarycroydon.org.au

By close of business Friday.

President’s Report 02-05-2017

Last Tuesday we had no meeting as it was ANZAC Day. Trust all of you had

good fun during the holidays.

On Friday 28th April, I attended the Rotarians Against Malaria (RAM)

Fundraising Dinner at the Mulgrave Country Club. Over 80 people attended this

dinner which can be considered to be a success.

This Tuesday (30th) we will listen to Wendy Harrison talking to us about Australian War Dogs.

Our Family Fun Day at Lou & Lyn Davies’ Winchelsea farm on Saturday 6th May 2017 is fast approaching,

Please register quickly with Ross Taylor, if you have not yet done so. Arrangements for the bus has to be

finalized.

The Vocational Awards Night on Tuesday 9th May 2017 is going to be an exciting one. Don’t miss this event.

Please register with Jean, if you have not done so yet.

I appeal to members to get the Concert tickets quickly for sale from Brian McDaid. We need to sell about 300

tickets to break even. It is imperative that we break even at least. Ticket sales to date has not been

encouraging. An ‘all out’ drive is required in the remaining weeks. So, friends, do your part for your club

and your community. Do not forget that we need volunteers to man the counter at Croydon Central and the

Main Street in the coming weeks. Thank you once again to those who have already started working on the

sales.

The final meeting for current Presidents and Assistant Governors with the District Governor and District

Leaders has been scheduled for Friday 5th May 2017. The Incoming Presidents and Assistant Governors have

also been invited to attend.

On Sunday 21st May 2017, the incoming Club Leaders will have their District Training Assembly at Deakin

University, Burwood Campus. There are sessions for all Directors and also for the newer members. All Board

Members should make it a point to attend. Get Stephen to register your name quickly.

Please keep all our friends who are recovering from various illness or mishaps in your thoughts.

Cheers

Joy Varughese

Club Program

Rotary Vocational Service

Pride of Workmanship Dinner Meeting on 9th May 2017

This meeting is an important event for our club. We have received some outstanding

nominations for our Pride of Workmanship awards and the selection process has been

completed.

Guest speaker is Christine Hayes, Head of Department - Health, Science, Education and Social

Services, Swinburne University of Technology.

This meeting is a partners night and we expect many visitors to be present to support the

awardees.

Please pen this into your diary as a "must attend" meeting.

Vocational Dinner 2017 - Organizing Committee

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Visit to Lyn and Lou Davies farm at Winchelsea

Saturday, 6th May 2017

Arrangements are being made to visit Lyn and Lou Davies’ farm at Winchelsea on Saturday 6th of May.

We are organising a bus for the trip, so could you please advise if you plan to travel as a group by bus or make

your own travel arrangements. The bus will depart from and return to the Dorset Gardens Hotel.

Lyn and Lou Davies will provide a BBQ lunch so the only expense for members on the day will be the cost of

the bus.

Further details about departure time etc. will be advised closer to the date.

Those of you who visited the farm two years ago will remember the great time we had. The beautiful gardens

and Lou providing us with a fantastic spread.

Please check with Ross Taylor whether you have registered as numbers are required URGENTLY.

AWAMO and its achievements

The Australian War Animal Memorial Organization (AWAMO), a registered not-for-profit Incorporation made up of community members from diverse backgrounds that have the likeminded aim to recognize the deeds and sacrifices of all animal species, who have given their lives and their loyalty serving alongside their human comrades on the battlefield.

Since 2010 AWAMO have established 30 war animal memorial plaques within Australia and Internationally. The majority of these are at RSLs and military museums, several at parks including Toowoomba’s Centenary Park and another at Enoggera Military Camp. The latter is Australia’s first ever war animal plaque on a Military Establishment, it was opened by Brigadier Bilton, Commander 7 Brigade in June 2014.

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Letter from Fran McLean, For your information

From: Fran McLean <fran.mclean@bigpond.com>

Date: 25 April 2017 at 12:26

Subject: Schools ANZAC Service

To: Dr Joy Varughese <kochanattujoy@gmail.com>

Cc: Andrew Brownlie <andrew.r.brownlie@gmail.com>

Dear Joy

I would like to take this opportunity of officially thanking the Rotary Club of Croydon for their support with our ANZAC

Service. We greatly appreciated the assistance given by your members - we would have been struggling without that

help. And, once again, our thanks for your financial assistance with the printing of the official program. The day was a

great success, and I was glad the weather held out for us.

I hope we can count on your support and assistance for the 2018 Service.

I would appreciate it if you could read out my thanks to your members.

Kind regards

Fran McLean

ANZAC Service Coordinator

Rotary Club of Ringwood

VOCATIONAL AWARDS NIGHT

At

The Dorset Gardens Hotel

Tuesday May 9th at 6:00pm for 6:30pm start

Name Number Attending Amount ($)

Anderson, John & Dawn 2

Baum, Clive & Viv 2

Bode, Stephen & Ruth 1

Cumming, Ian 1

Davies, Lyn & Lou

Fletcher, Jill 1

Francis, Kevin & Margot 1

Gander, John

Gleeson, Christina

Henderson, Bob & Jan

Hexter, John 1

Hurford, Lindsay

Jackomos, Michael & Anne 1

Jonas, Sue Absent

McDaid, Brian & Gaye 2

O’Neill, Greg & Cheryl 1

Pettett, Ann

Ricci, Edwina

Ryan, Kevin & Margaret 1

Sinclair, Marlene 1

Stehn, Bev 1

Stuart, Jean 1

Taylor, Ross & Pat Absent

Thomas, Eric & Bev 1

Tinney, Jim

Traa, Gael

Varughese, Joy 1

Wright, Tony & Judy

Please check above list and contact John Hexter if you intend to be present at the Vocational Awards

Night, and have not yet registered.

Rotary road trip hits 14 West Coast cities to work with clubs and communities

By Brad Webber Photos by Alyce Henson

Hundreds of Rotarians applauded as a 25-foot recreational vehicle rambled toward the Fess Parker hotel, a palm-lined resort on the Pacific oceanfront in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Two Rotarians, two Rotaractors, and a district governor on board the RV had just concluded a 2,400-mile road trip that originated in Seattle nearly two weeks earlier, stopping for service projects in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arizona. (There was also a kickoff party in October in Hawaii.) The road trip helped link Rotarians with charitable organizations in their home communities, encouraged clubs to partner with their crosstown counterparts, and illustrated the scope and value of Rotary.

Vi

The RV team includes Nicholas Domingo, left, Katie Coard, Joey Vaesen, Abbey Hawthorne, Melissa Cross, and Wulff Reinhold.

After a brief welcome, more than 400 Rotarians, some with spouses, piled onto buses and followed the RV to two Boys & Girls clubs in Santa Barbara where they hoisted paintbrushes, sandpaper, hammers, and rakes to revitalize the youth centers. (Local Rotarians, along with members of Interact and Rotaract, met separately to refurbish a third club, in Carpinteria.) Dozens stayed behind at the hotel to fill 400 backpacks that would later be given to the children. The point: a potent display of the power of Rotary.

“I was amazed,” says Jeff Henley, vice chairman of Oracle Corp. and a governor of the national board of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, who watched the mob of Rotarians give a center a face-lift by painting the hallways and gymnasiums, adding storage lockers, weeding playfields, and refinishing picnic tables.

Santa Barbara Rotarian Michael Baker is the CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County, which serves about 550 children every day, mostly underprivileged youth who find the clubs to be an after-school haven. “It was beautiful, ” Baker says. “There were teams assembling cubbies, teams sanding and painting benches, teams doing general cleaning. We had another two sets of teams cataloging books. Nobody was standing around.”

In Santa Barbara, he cleared brush from a playground at a Boys & Girls club as others, including Past RI President William B. Boyd, painted a door in a blue closely matching Rotary’s hue. Vaesen signed on for the RV expedition at the suggestion of Katie Coard, charter president of the Rotary Club of Downtown Victoria. “It started off as this public image type thing,” he explains. “We were focusing on what Rotary is doing on the West Coast and just trying to get the word out there.” But Vaesen says the RV tour also ended up connecting local clubs that otherwise might not have worked together.

Joey Vaesen, a 21-year-old member of the Rotaract Club of Victoria, B.C., rode in the RV and was the youngest person on the tour

The 14-city RV expedition was primarily organized by Danielle Lallement, charter president of the Rotary Club of San Francisco Evening. The self-described tour manager says the RV trip was modeled after a similar journey in which four Rotarians drove an RV from Pennsylvania to Iowa a year earlier.

That foray, called Rollin’ with Rotary, was inspired by RI Vice President Jennifer E. Jones. Jones had asked the participants of the 2014 Young Professionals Summit, a Chicago meeting of 32 young Rotary leaders, to “dream big,” and one suggested an RV tour.

“We took their idea and expanded it,” says Lallement, who called this tour “Connecting for Good.” RI Director Brad Howard gave the road trip his stamp of approval. “The tour was organized and orchestrated by these emerging Rotary leaders – every aspect, all the finances, all the logistics,” Howard says.

Giving younger Rotarians freedom to make a difference in Rotary is key to the organization’s vibrance.

Giving younger Rotarians freedom to make a difference in Rotary is key to the organization’s vibrancy, Howard and Lallement say. Separately, the two bemoan the obstacles that younger Rotarians have faced.

“One club, to get on the board of directors, you had to be in the club for eight years,” says Lallement, who chartered what is now a 40-member club with an average age of about 37. “Especially in the area I live in, you have tech people, they’re millionaires, and they’re 25, maybe 30. You ask them to come into an organization and then you tell them that they can’t be the leader of the organization? So they don’t join. Or they come into the club and they realize, ‘well, they obviously don’t need me.’ ”

“Only in Rotary could people in their 30s or 40s be called young professionals,” Howard says. Only about 5 percent of Rotarians are under 40.

Inspired by the Chicago Young Professionals Summit, Lallement and Howard developed their own zone summit to match young Rotarian professionals with older ones, the “cultural” leaders of Rotary.

“We wanted to develop a network of emerging Rotary leaders and put them in leadership roles,” says Howard. “But we needed buy-in from the current leadership – the 50-, 60-, 70-year-olds – to view these people in their district as having a voice. We hired two professors of innovation and change management from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.” The summit showed participants that, young or old, Rotarians all have common ground – they share the same values and goals.

V

At the Boys & Girls Club of San Dieguito in Encinitas, 150 U.S. Navy sailors helped Rotarians, Interactors, and Rotaractors clean up a half-acre garden.

Celebrating the meeting’s success over champagne, Lallement and a small group decided that one way to present a younger image of Rotary to the world would be to replicate the Rollin’ with Rotary RV tour.

“But we did it a little bit differently,” she says. “We didn’t want it to be random acts of kindness. Instead, we collaborated with companies, organizations that don’t know what Rotary is. I asked members in the cities we visited to work with their districts to make it a multiclub event.”

After the Connecting for Good Kickoff in Hawaii, Howard and Lallement flew back to the mainland to meet the team and see them off. A combination of grant money and donations funded the trip.

After about nine months of planning – and route mapping by Katie Coard, 33-year-old charter president of the Rotary Club of Downtown Victoria – four riders met in the Seattle area to undertake their first act of service. It was a project at Elk Run Farm in Maple Valley, Wash., affiliated with Rotary First Harvest, a program that supports area food banks by growing produce and coordinating the distribution of imperfect, but nutritious, donated vegetables and fruit.

Under the tutelage of First Harvest’s executive director, David Bobanick, of the nearby Rotary Club of Mercer Island, the group, aided by another dozen or so volunteers, assembled a 90-foot “caterpillar tunnel” by shoveling dirt, burrowing rebar into the ground, stretching PVC pipe into an arch, and covering the beams with a plastic tarp.

“Basically it’s a kind of poor man’s version of a greenhouse,” says Bobanick, noting that it’s used to extend the growing season.

“It was a significant undertaking, but they were very willing to work and participate and eager to help any way they could. They rolled up their sleeves and got to work.” Bobanick hailed “the variety and diversity of the projects” planned for the tour: hardly a “cookie-cutter approach where ‘we’re going to do the same project here and there.’ It reflects well on how Rotary is engaged in the community.”

From there, the group motored to the Oregon Food Bank (in a car because of a paperwork snafu that meant the RV would meet them in Portland).

The team repacked and labeled bulk foodstuffs alongside members of the Portland Hub of Global Shapers, a service group connected with the World Economic Forum. It was the second stop on a journey that included Eugene, Ore.; Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, Fresno, and Bakersfield, Calif.; Las Vegas; Phoenix; and San Diego, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara, Calif. Some days included service projects in multiple cities. The longest drive was eight hours.

Wulff Reinhold, governor of District 5130 and a member of the Rotary Club of Rohnert Park-Cotati in Northern California, was the main driver on the trip.

“We were a pretty good team even by the time we hit the second or third cities,” says the principal driver, Wulff Reinhold, governor of District 5130 and a member of the Rotary Club of Rohnert Park-Cotati in Northern California. Retired after 35 years in public safety with police and fire departments,

“I’m used to driving large firetrucks, so driving an RV was no problem for me,” he says. Not so for Coard, however, who took the wheel from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. “It was my first time driving an RV, so it was kind of scary,” she says. “We were in the Topanga Canyon, going through this winding, bending road, in an RV, in the dark.”

A less harrowing, yet still exciting, tour highlight occurred in Encinitas, Calif., when 150 sailors from the Navy’s USS Theodore Roosevelt met Rotarians from three clubs, Interactors, and Rotaractors at a Boys & Girls club. The club had been deeded a half-acre parcel that had a garden strewn with weeds. The assemblage descended on this garden and performed three months’ worth of cleanup in an afternoon.

In San Francisco, the team combined with Global Shapers, the Mission Economic Development Agency, and Year Up to sponsor a project to help 18- to 24-year-olds “close the soft-skills gap.”

Held at LinkedIn’s headquarters, the session provided tips on résumé building and interviewing. “The mayor also gave us a proclamation. It was Connecting for Good Day,” says Lallement, who observed that the city is not exactly ideal for recreational vehicles. “I reserved parking in a lot. I tried to explain [the space needs to the lot attendant], and he said i t was no problem. Then the RV showed up and his eyes were big.”

The rig maneuvered in, but “getting out was pretty hairy.”

A recurring concern, however, that Hawthorne and others noted was encountering Rotarians who had not undertaken a community service project in months, if not years. The team’s presence offered a reason to engage in hands-on service again.

But the turnouts, particularly at the final event in Santa Barbara, inspired the team. “What was beautiful was seeing people in their 20s and people in their 80s working side by side, some of them covered in paint, some sweating. All laughing, all feeling accomplished,” says RI Director Howard.

“This kind of project reminds us of why we’re in Rotary in the first place,” says Ryan Clements, a member of the Rotary Club of Columbus, Ga. “To go out, roll up our shirtsleeves, and do good in the world.”

• Read more stories from The Rotarian

The group visited 14 cities in five states and logged more than 2,500 volunteer hours.

*

Fun, fellowship and friendship combined

into one giving spirit.

Are you interested in helping in your Local and Worldwide Community, including issues with:- Health, Youth,

Community Development and much, much more?…..

Would you like to meet some great Local People?

Would you like to help organize and hold events to raise funds for a range of charities?

Would you like to be involved in regular gatherings where you can enjoy interesting Guest Speakers, Great

Company and Brilliant Field Trips?

The Rotary Club of Croydon has been involved in the local and worldwide community for over

43 years and is involved in projects including:

✓ In co-operation with the State Government and Maroondah City Council developed

the Croydon Y Space playground.

✓ Ran a Trivia Night Fundraising Event for a local school.

✓ Secondary School Youth Exchange.

✓ Many, many more projects in the local community and overseas.

✓ Involved in Ray White’s Little Ray of Giving for Rotary.

If you are interested in becoming involved in your Rotary Club, contact:-

President: Joy Varughese: 0451 880 186

Secretary: Greg O’Neil: 9870-4422

Email: Joy @ president@rotarycroydon.org.au

https://www.facebook.com/CroydonRotary

http://rotarycroydon.org.au/

Come and visit us at the Rotary Club of Croydon and

find out what you can personally achieve as a Rotarian!