Gidday members and Associates of the Rotary Club of Surfers Sunrise and friends of Rotary,
A casual meeting was held on Wednesday. Sadly we had a fairly poor turnout compared to other weeks, however, to be fair we had an almost full turnout for the Board Meeting on the day before, so I can’t complain too much. It was great to see Fred Hamblen for the first time in a few weeks. Fred has had a few health problems but tells us he well on the road to recovery. A holiday in South America where, he confessed, he had eaten too much and been drinking too much rum, seems to have done wonders for him. It was also a pleasant surprise to have Past President Conrad Martins attend for the first time in a number of years. Conrad has been overseas for some time but has now returned and is living in Parkwood. I am hopeful he is able to rejoin the Surfers Sunrise family.
The aforementioned Board Meeting followed the usual format for Surfers Sunrise, lots of humour, banter and good decisions made. A couple of decisions I will share with you:
Doug Lipp, our immediate Past President, floated the idea of us holding a ‘Sportsman’s Lunch’ as a fund raiser. Agreement was unanimous. Doug has since informed me that the date will be Friday the 30th of May and the location will be Surfers Paradise Golf Club. Can you all please put some thought into raffle prizes and maybe even some auction items for the day.
Geoff Croad, Director of Service Projects, put a call out to members to assist with some bike stripping work at our Arundel facility on Saturday morning starting at 07:00 am. About a dozen or so members turned up and put in two or three hours, filling a 10 m3 skippy bin with unusable bike parts. I guess I have been a bit critical in the past about the organisation of such clean up days. I am pleased to say Saturday was exceptional, the organisation on the day was on the mark. All power tools were laid out and fully charged. Jobs were allocated so there was no confusion on what had to be done. Morning tea was called at about 09:15 which also signified basically the cessation of the clean-up. Club members were made very welcome by the Associates and the fellowship was notable.
The District Conference this weekend (see below). We will have a tour of our shed for delegates on Friday and will have a display of our wheelchairs at the Sharks, the conference venue. Look forward to catching up with many of you at both the Conference and the Dinner on Saturday night.
Remember - Nothing changes if nothing changes and do as you fear most.
Your newsletter editor will "jump into the breach" after our scheduled speaker, RYLA awardee Nick Butler, had to cancel at short notice. Why? (Undoubtedly in consequence of what he learned at RYLA) he has landed a good, full-time job! Well done, Nick!
Last Saturday's working bee at the project shed had the desired result: a load of discarded bikes had their wheels removed, aluminium was separated from steel for recycling and the relevant usable frame components set aside for the next stage of building wheelchairs. We filled a 10 cubic metre steel recycling container to the rim. 
