Again, not much to report this week; just to reflect on the year. Basically, nothing much since the Chinese New Year Dinner in late January due to the Corona Virus. However, the Club has achieved a lot so far this year. This included
Corporate Membership including changing the Club’s bylaws. The Club has two (2) Corporate members and we are working toward doubling this when things get back to normal.
Current membership stands at 28 Active + 6 Honorary + 2 Active-Corporate which will make our membership 32 once Corp. membership sworn-in the additional 2 members.
International Project: The X-Ray Unit Project for Vanuatu, in partnership with Broadbeach and Gold Coast Clubs. Scoping work was completed, including a visit to Pentecost Island, Vanuatu by Dr Dennis O’Brien, Dr Graham Sivyer and myself in October 2019, which confirmed the needs and that this project is required urgently. The pre-manufacturing of the building was programmed to start in February at our Project Shed in Arundel. This is now delayed until we can safely reopen the shed. As you are aware, the objective was to have the building completed on Pentecost Island by June-July 2020. However, this will now need to be delayed until June-July 2021. The application for the Global Grant has also been delayed and this is needed to provide the funds required to purchase the X-Ray & Pathology equipment to finish-off the facility.
The Wheelchair Project: By last December 2019, some 9,961 wheelchairs had been made and sent to all continents, within the exception of Antarctica. Wheelchairs manufacturing will be halted for a few months, as we work towards disposing of the existing large stock. We are still working towards having an advertisement and a feature story in the “Rotary Down Under” and the “The Rotarian” magazines, which we believe could help considerably.
Also, we have been in contact with RAWCS (Rotary Australia World Community Service) at Rotary Head Office in Parramatta regarding a contact at “Donations in Kind” (DIK) operations in Melbourne & Sydney, as they may wish to take some. DIK Brisbane has taken some recently. However, it would seem that DIK Melbourne and Sydney work independently. Further, we are hoping that through the many RAWCS projects (currently there are 529), people can be made aware of our wheelchairs and would appreciate to receive some to be included.
PODs “The Sleeping Sanctuary” to provide sleeping for the homeless. Regrettably, this has not been a success. The Gold Coast City Council will not allow the PODs to be used in their Parking Stations or on land owned by them. I am hoping to have meetings with council this coming week to try to resolve this one way or the other. I have also been in contact with Angie Bell MP, the Federal Member for Moncrieff, regarding the status of the Federal Government Grant we received to build the additional POD’s. We have also asked if the funds could be directed to other community projects within the club. Our final position maybe that we will have to return the grant monies to the Federal Government. Let’s hope not.
More in next week’s report on what we have achieved. The regular Rotary ZOOM Meeting is on at 7:30am Wednesday morning. Look forward to seeing you all again.
This Wednesday we'll have a combination club business and social meeting - no guest speaker. Of course, if you would like to discuss or present on a specific topic, please speak up! The Zoom meeting will open at 07:15 and conclude at 08:30 or thereabouts.
One difference to a physical social meeting: you can't all talk at once. [Not necessarily a bad thing, by the way! ☺] Invitations with the link will be sent to all members and associate members. The link changes every week and includes a complex password. If you would like to invite a friend or potential new member: welcome! Just send me details.
So u thnk todays youth has gone too far? Or is it bcs u dont want to undrstd it? SWYP? OMG not anotr boomer whng about 2days youth? Got news: AFAIK txt is new nrml. In 2days fast wrld, KISS!
OK, so we oldies have scratched our heads trying to decipher TXT abbreviations. (For those of you who are struggling with the above: IMHO = In My Humble Opinion, bcs = because, SWYP = So what’s your problem? OMG = Oh my god, AFAIK = As far as I know. KISS has been used for decades.
Of greater concern is the emerging bad habit of leaving out punctuation (and not just by young people!). The most popularly quoted case in point is ‘A woman without her man is nothing’. With punctuation: ‘A woman: without her, man is nothing.’ [Yes, Henrietta, you did tell me. Ad nauseam...]Or, as Shakespeare may have written:
‘Good Lementio, who calls at the gate?
‘My lord, a woman without; her man is nothing.
‘Bid her enter then, and show her man to the livery.
But I digress… May is Youth Service Month. Throughout the world, Rotary clubs expend serious time, money and effort on Youth projects. Seeing that modern youth seems to mostly ignore convention on many fronts, are our hard raised funds really well spent?
OK, let me go back a little, say 20 years. Young people (and those young at heart) embraced email with gusto. But there were still an awful lot of people who refused to participate in this novel method of communication and continued… faxing. Yes, they did!
Let’s go back another score years (well, almost): I recall, in 1983, being given a demonstration of that newfangled device, the facsimile machine. The salesman carefully placed the heavy $3,500 device (in 1984 dollars!) on a desk, laboriously connected it to a phone line, phoned his Sydney office to make sure they were ready to receive. He faxed one of our letterheads and 10 minutes later they faxed it back with a few added scribbles on it. My boss (then in his mid sixties) said: “No way! Who would spend that sort of money when you can buy a stamp and stick it in an envelope??”
Go back another generation. I studied for my Diploma of Commerce in Switzerland in the mid sixties. One of the “must master” items was correct formal business correspondence. Letters would start with “Sehr geehrter Herr [name]” (translated: Most honoured Mister [name]); this applied even if the addressee was anything but honourable. We young turks all rebelled about this ridiculously formal method of addressing but those were the rules. Today? Most emails start off with nothing but the first name, or, if you really want to be formal, Hi Jack, Hello John, Dear Mary…)
SWUP? Language and methods continually evolve, particularly as we move from the written to the spoken word - as in listening to podcasts or talking into our Smartphone “OK Google, what time is our Zoom meeting today?”
But what has changed very little over the decades, indeed over centuries, millennia, is leadership. Leadership can be learned. Leadership can be coached. Rotary’s Youth programs are just as important today as they have always been. The current COVID crisis has stopped (for the moment) MUNA, RYLA, RYPEN and a dozen other acronyms. But -pandemics permitting- next year’s National Youth Science Forum in 2021 is almost certainly going to happen, so will other Youth events. According to the ABS, our target demographic (aged 14 – 24), make up 14% of our population. That’s 3 ½ Million people. Without resorting to platitudes, it is our responsibility to help the generation following us to maximize their leadership potential. Yeah – u rely dont get how awesome an opp u provide to young ppl and u shud all b very proud of ur work!
Whenever we visit a famous city, we admire the cathedrals, the opera theatres, the museums, the palaces, and often not just the buildings from decades or centuries past. We might even exclaim 'How the heck did they build that??' But are we ever considering who was the Architect, whose brain and imagination conceived the design and then translated it into reality?
PDG Ross Smith, whose "real" career spans roughly 50 years of teaching and, as principal, managing High Schools, lists Architecture as one of his special interests. Ross' On-Line presentation last Wednesday revealed a deep love of this artistic profession. He picked one of the world's most famous Architects, Frank Lloyd Wright, as his subject. To give you an idea how famous: The UNESCO World Heritage last year added 7 buildings to its list. All of them were designed by him. "Architecture equals Form and Function, in our living and working lives" he is quoted as saying. 'Form' can be associated with 'Memorial', 'Function' as in 'Factory'. Ross recalled his assessment of the High School building, when he commenced work as Principal; it was anything but functional!
Over the next 20 minutes, Ross introduced us to a number of Wright's extraordinary designs. Of the commercial buildings, the most outstanding one would be the Guggenheim Museum On New York's 5th Avenue. It is not just round, it is a spiral, wider at the top than at the bottom! (see photo right of Ross on the inside) Click here for a 'walk-through'. And, keep in mind, this was designed and built a long time before Computer Aided Design (CAD); all done by slide rule and log tables. His private residence designs would be topped by 'Fallingwater', originally designed as... a holiday retreat! It is - literally - built over a waterfall. No garage, but 6 car ports...
In total, Wright designed over 500 buildings. Some designs are just a little bit unusual. For example, a grand piano was built into a wall where on the other side it hangs out above a hallway. Some buildings, such as the Hollihock House on Sunset Boulevard, on the one hand were outrageously expensive to build, yet have never been lived in!
Well, what can I say! This came from left field. I knew that Ross was a highly accomplished and respected High School Principal. But also very well read in Architecture? The depth, the knowledge of our fellow Rotarians never cease to amaze me.
Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, American-Hungarian Psychologist.
Andy's post of the week (picture on left): The effects of preventative measures (medicinal purposes only) to stave off COVID-19
Neil's post of the week:
Paddy and Murphy swap sandwiches at work.
Paddy spits it out and says "What the heck is this??"
Murphy answers "Crab Paste"
Paddy asks "Where did you get it?"
Murphy answers "Saw it when I was at the Chemist"
Gerald's post of the week:
I dialed a number and got the following recording: "I am not available right now, but thank you for caring enough to call. I am making some changes in my life. Please leave a message after the beep. If I do not return your call, you are one of the changes."
On average, a Panda feeds for approximately 12 hours per day. This is the same as an adult at home under quarantine, which is why we call it a ‘Pandemic’.
Whenever we visit a famous city, we admire the cathedrals, the opera theatres, the museums, the palaces, and often not just the buildings from decades or centuries past. We might even exclaim 'How the heck did they build that??' But are we ever considering who was the Architect, whose brain and imagination conceived the design and then translated it into reality? 
