From the President's Desk

From the President's Desk

Good Morning Everyone.

It is time I took time to put together a newsletter and here it is.  As time goes by in the President's year it becomes a little more difficult to really come up with good content on a weekly basis without a lot of repetitive story lines.   I can assure you it has been busy in our e-Club since Christmas and our whole management team is really working hard.

Membership is growing and it is very rewarding as President to see this happening.  This is really a very good problem to have and the quality of our Guest Speakers has just been excellent. In our Guest Speakers we have variety; we have enthusiastic entrepreneurs; we have people who give so much to others and we have great conversations with them through our meetings.  The attendance at our meetings these past few months has been nothing short of brilliant and we will outgrow GoToMeeting very soon.  We have new Members coming through weekly now.

Our e-Club has just agreed to support the Suan Luang facility for orphans and disadvantaged children and this is located near Luang Probang in Laos. We are supporting the Global Support Association Inc. who fundraise and carry out extensive projects to help the 650 plus children who live there. This Association has done so much great work over the years and it is actually based on the Gold Coast. The volunteers are people from our part of the world and this club's role is to be the Official Rotary Club sponsor to provide RAWCS registration of the project to enable Rotary Funding Grants to continue to support this project. We once again have a very rewarding project that will require discussion and we have a very good Rotary Friend Harold Busch looking after the project.  I sincerely thank everyone who has helped bring this project to our e- Club.

The Vanuatu disaster is now an event we must discuss, there is much advice appearing in our emails that we must heed. In the meantime we need to really be aware of where we can help, most likely this will be in the form of a Donation but I do want to see an outcome everyone is happy with and one that helps the people who need help.

The Suns AFL games are back on, this will be another great four afternoons out this season and we have a Roster in Dropbox that needs a few places filling. This is a great afternoon out if you have the opportunity to volunteer, just going to the game rounds off the Community Service aspect nicely. The fellowship amongst the participating Rotarians from two clubs and sometimes three makes for a great afternoon. The e-Club has just received the money for last year's effort and while the monetary value to the Club may seem small, I look at the value the Horizons Project puts into the Community, to youth welfare and then all the Rotary Clubs involved get to share in the spoils as well.

One of my pet projects is EREY, Every Rotarian Every Year. This is the project where every Member donates $100US to the Foundation to make our Club a 100% sustaining Club. Currently we have 98% participation in this programme this year and that is why originally we took a decision to add $100 to our Annual Membership to make sure we achieve this goal.  We do get off track when we admit Members throughout the year on a pro-rata basis.  My belief is firm that a small donation of $100US per year from each member shows true commitment to the Foundation both by the Members and by the Management Team who set the Annual Goals.

As we have Members all over the world we cannot come together as a team to support a separate Foundation fundraising event easily, so this to me is the perfect outcome. It is really a minimum donation per annum by each Rotarian in our club and as I said previously this donation supports the Foundation which is the backbone of this great Organisation.

Easter will be upon us soon, I wish everyone a safe and happy Easter break, if you are travelling be very careful, in fact stay safe no matter where you are or what you are doing. This year we also commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Gallipoli; this will be a big event on 25th April, just after our District Conference in Goondiwindi. April is a very busy month and very soon you will have a new President. I thank you all for your patience, understanding, hard work and dedication to this e -Club.

Best wishes,

Geoff