Snippets of last week's joint meeting with Hope Island Rotary Club

A meeting with a difference last week: we met at the Hope Island Golf Club, a golfer's dream place! The meeting was conducted in most salubrious and highly civilized surroundings: white table cloth and serviettes, table service of a tasty breakfast of oven baked bacon, fried eggs, sausage, hash browns, fancy veggies...  All for $25.00!  [No, Henrietta, there was no option to choose scrambled eggs instead of fried! Ed.]  And in the middle of the room was a huge round fountain about 5 metres in diameter.  Any moment one expected somebody to jump into it, reminiscent of Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni in 'La Dolce Vita' (picture left)... (Sorry, before your time, I know.)

 

Other than the introduction of our members, there were no formalities relating to Surfers Sunrise. (We had apologies from Gerald East, Graeme Isaacson, Simon Brook and Fred Hamblen). 

 

Sam Doumany (former Qld Govt Minister and husband of Past District Governor Sandra) was in the chair.  An International Toast was proposed to the Rotary Club of St Denis on Reunion Island.  Hope Island President Clint Ford, well acquainted to us due to his strong support of the Suns Horizon programme, briefly addressed the meeting. Hope Island features as absolute number 1 in donations to the Polio Plus campaign (see District Governor's Newsletter).  District 9640 'Super Rotarian' Ian Yarker (Rotary e-club of NextGen) gave us a presentation of his club's philosphy of "What can we physically do for you?", outlining NextGen's work with the Flying Doctor Service and a recent organized trip to Cape York. Has there ever been a club who donated a bunch of Unicycles?  If ever there was an example of 'Be a Gift to the World'... Well done, fellows!