Warren was our leader for the evening and we enjoyed Member Talks from David Sykes, Janine and Ross Taylor.
David came to Geelong in 1999 to work at Backwell IXL and developed the business.
David attended Henley High School in South Australia, gained his matriculation in 1969 and then did a traineeship with Tubemakers of Australia.
He studied metallurgy and obtained a Bachelor of Applied Science in secondary metallurgy and was student of the year.
After working in foundry, pipe making and die cast foundry, with Juralco manufacturing aluminium mesh and with a specialist supplier to the mining industry as General Manager, in January 1999, David moved to Geelong to work at the IXL Foundry.
During David's years with Backwell IXL automotive and appliance manufacturing, the business enjoyed a turnaround from significant loss to very profitable and developed new markets and new processes.
Backwell IXL automotive and appliance manufacturing was one of the few automotive component suppliers making any profit.
When David finished full time work in January 2014, he moved into providing consulting services in business development through networking and matching business capability with needs.
The Geelong Manufacturing Council has been an abiding interest for David who has been a director for 12 years and served as chairman for 5 years.
The Council under David's stewardship grew from one staff member to seven with regional and national programs.
David currently serves as president of the Australian Foundry Institute (Vic), another industry body which has grown on David's watch from an entity not functioning as an industry representative body which held only 2 meetings in year to an active and energetic organisation with a vibrant committee structure and program with 10 meetings per year.
The Institute held its national conference in October 2016 at the Deakin Waterfront campus which was regarded as the most successful in recent years with over 200 registrants and significant sponsorship.
David is active in the Eastern Geelong Business Network and has been a member for 4 years and served as chairman for 2 years.
Our Rotary Club has been fortunate to have had the benefit of David's enthusiasm and organisational skills across the range of fundraising and administrative activities, membership development, fellowship and mentoring - indeed, every aspect of Rotary service.
When not otherwise occupied, David enjoys sailing and keeping fit through gym working and walking.
David shares a wedding anniversary and birthday with wife Liz as well as 4 adult children and 2 grandchildren.
Janine spoke of her love of school and learning and a year in England as a youngster set her love of travel.
Having 2 older brothers, she soon developed a high degree of resilience.
Her Mum encouraged her in education and this stood her in good stead when she was widowed with a young family.
Janine went to university and gained a maths physics degree which made her very employable in the Education Department and she enjoyed her teaching career at Wodonga, Fitzroy, Wangaratta and finally at Bell Park/Western Heights college.
Janine considers high schools to be great places to work and as a woman in a high school she spoke of being treated as an equal, with the same qualifications as one's bosses and great autonomy in the class room.
As Janine said: In good schools you have a voice, you are surrounded by a lot of adults who want to improve things, improve a school, make opportunities for kids, in short make a difference...In that way it is a bit like Rotary – but you get paid!!!
In 2015, Janine travelled to India near Nepal as part of a group from the Benalla Rotary Club which supports a local school including through bringing teachers to Benalla for exposure to the Australian education experience.
The school is at Samthar. The people are mainly Lepchas, nepalis and Bhutias – speak nepali. The school is run by a past career indian army general Singh – an impressive man. He was from Lahore – survived partition and his legacy is the school.
The school of about 100-150 students – parents pay a little and purchase the uniform but each child has a scholarship of about $200/yr funded by westerners.
Benalla RC supplies water tanks, many of the scholarships, mentoring by teachers, have funded teachers to come to Australia for 3 months to learn modern educational methods and the group took across $5000 of laminated reading books – written about their stories and photos of them in situ in Samthar. All lessons are in English.
All this in a remote village surrounded by the Himalayas.
Ross shared his schools with serpents. It was the blackboard jungle complete with the livestock.
Ross suspects that when St. Patrick had a hissy fit and gave the asps the ass from Ireland, they all moved into Ross' schools.
It was love all for Ross and Elizabeth when their shared enjoyment of tennis brought them into close competition.
They had an exchange year in Montana...was Ross rattled by the sidewinders?
After retirement in 1999, Ross came to Rotary and has held many offices within our Club and for the District.
Ross is a walker & a swimmer as well as a keen reader.
Ross' least favourite board game....?