Last Wednesday, we enjoyed the hospitality of the Rotary Club of Broadwater-Southport, at our former haunt, the Southport Yacht Club. If anything proves that the presence of over 50 people provides just that very distinct additional vibrancy to a Rotary meeting, well - here is proof! The place was literally buzzing! With us Surfers Sunrise members being the guests, we didn't have much to do other than pick up our breakfast and let it all happen. And yes, the scrambled eggs were better than in the past and the bacon was crisp... There were some high profile guests there too, including our Assistant Governor, Neil Baldwyn, and one of our shortly to be inducted new members, Karen Thomas, came along. After the initial greeting by their President Denis O'Brien, our President Mario Fairlie gave a short address to the meeting, foreshadowing the potential of our two clubs amalgamating to create a super strong breakfast club. Mario also briefly mentioned our long standing Wheelchairs project, as well as the two upcoming major projects of the 'POD' (see Mario's message above) and the X-Ray unit for Vanuatu.
Our hosts beat us to inducting a Corporate Member: Frizelle's Sunshine Automotive is their latest addition. [Not long to go now peeps until we'll have our own Corporate members; just a matter of finalizing the paperwork on for our club so we comply with all the rules. Ed.]
The guest speaker for the morning was that Gold Coast icon, John Goldstein of Goldstein's Bakery fame (see picture above, with Spt-B'water President Denis O'Brien). But John wasn't extolling on the undoubted quality of his bakery's products; John was elaborating on the history of the Gold Coast Marathon, now in its 40th year, and he was very much part of the original organizing committee. Indeed, it was the Rotary Club of Surfers Paradise which started it all on the 2nd of September 1979. There were some very high profile people involved, such as Ron McMasters (famous developer and builder of High Rise Apartment blocks) and even the Army was called in to provide security and "control of the masses". Picture on right: John Goldstein is quite sure that this is the only remaining original singlet of the inaugural event.At our next formal meeting, on the 14th of August we'll return the compliment: we'll have a joint meeting again, this time at our location at the Surfers Paradise SLSC. Put it into your diary now!