“I am a product of Rotary” Angie stated, opening her talk. Why? In her teenage years, she was selected to participate in the Rotary Youth Exchange program, and sent off to Denmark for 12 months. In her considered opinion, this had a profound impact on her future life and career. Today, she is the Shadow Minister for Youth, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, and co-chairs delegations to foreign countries, including Malaysia and Taiwan. She recently was part of an international delegation to Indonesia to supervise their national elections. Imagine: a country of almost 205 Million voters, 800,000 polling booths, and the total time when people can vote is… just 6 hours!Naturally, as a member of the Liberal Party, Angie touched on her party's policies, including the distinct difference of wanting to open the conversation to consider nuclear energy (note: energy, not weapons) to provide stable and secure electricity for our households and for industry. On the local scene, Angie formed the ‘Moncrief Community Cabinet’ and the ‘Gold Coast Youth Cabinet’. Both are designed for a simple and straight purpose: to hear the views of representatives, “real” representatives, of her community. Last March, she organised ‘Impact Gold Coast’, a Youth Summit, which brought together 200 young people, representing various demographics from across the Gold Coast.
For our club, Angie was instrumental in helping us to obtain several grants; the most recent one was to enable the purchase of a new electric forklift for our project shed. Thank you, Angie, for the work you do for our community and the nation at large.
(Photo: Angie Bell MP with the meeting chairman, Adrian Crowe. PS: When somebody quipped "are you dressed up for a job interview?" her answer was that "in my job, every day is a job interview!" ☺)