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Last Week's Program
 
 
Our meeting of 19 May 2020
Club Secretary Jenny was our chair for our Zoom meeting and we welcomed our guest speaker Vicki Linnell from Barwon Child Youth and Family (BCYF) who told us about the vital and rewarding work of foster care in our community.
Vicki comes to her role at BCYF with personal experience as a foster care provider and, at present, she is providing a stable home environment in which the young people with her can complete their secondary education.
Nationally, some 46,000 children are removed from their domestic situations and require alternate accommodation with 4,000 in foster care with 40% of those out of home care have been there for over 5 years.
BCYF receive more referrals to place children in foster care than there are places available and sometimes 70% of applications must be rejected for that reason.
The mission of BCYF is to provide more foster care homes in the Barwon area and to support carers.
There are no obstacles to being a foster carer (once one passes the police and Working With Children checks) and BCYF provide all necessary training and support.
Carers are required for emergency and short-term placements as well as for longer term arrangements.
Vicki invites all those who would like to learn more about the foster care to contact her at BCYF.
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Announcements, News and Help Required
 
 
Zooming in with other Clubs. Please invite yourself as you see opportunities. Stay in contact with other Clubs.
 
Stay in Contact. Zooming is fun, but phone calls may be easier, please stay in contact with those who are on the sick list or cannot join us at our virtual meetings.
 
Program – Speakers Wanted
Kris Adam is on the look out for guest speakers. Please pass on names and topics to Kris.
 
Zoom Meetings – all are welcome
Invite friends to our online meetings.
They can experience Rotary friendship and see Rotary service at no cost and without obligation from the comfort of their home.
Send them the email with the link and password but don’t forget to introduce them when the meeting opens.
 
Member change of details
Harrie Farnaby’s mobile number is now 04568 33328.
New Club shirts
Gary is poised to place an order so if you want to look your best and look at the others you look their best you had best get your size to Gary and pay direct into the Club’s account as per Gary’s earlier emails.
Samaritan House
Peter Cook reported that the recent working bee was a great start and work will continue. More details to follow of further working bees.
Zooming Around Rotary – the District and the world
We are in a time when we have more opportunities than ever before to participate in and learn of the world-wide work of Rotary. Warren Norton, for instance, recently took part in a Rotary Peace Fellows Association with other Rotarians across the globe.
Shahnaz Rind, our very own 2020 Indigenous Health Scholar
Club Secretary Jenny reported that as the result of our Club contributing $2,500 to the Indigenous Scholarship program of Australian Rotary Health this year, Ms Shahnaz Rind has been named as our very own Indigenous Health Scholar. Our financial contribution has been matched by the Federal Government which means Shahnaz will receive $5,000 to support her Optometry studies at Deakin University in 2020.
Shahnaz is a remarkable young woman who already has a Nursing degree from Deakin University, supported by an Indigenous Health scholarship.  She enjoyed placements at University Hospital Geelong, Mackellar Centre and St Vincent’s Hospital, and discovered her favourite areas of nursing are mental health and cardiology.
After graduating in 2018 Shahnaz worked for an Indigenous Community Nursing organisation in Fitzroy and more recently as a mentor in an Aboriginal Mentoring program with the Youth Affairs Council.
Shahnaz was encouraged to apply for the Optometry course at Deakin University as there is a critical need for Indigenous optometrists. She found that older Indigenous Australians are three times more likely to suffer from vison impairment or blindness than older non-Indigenous Australians. We wish her well in her studies and her dream of becoming an optometrist. Australian Rotary Health will continue to support Shahnaz throughout the four years of her course.
Shahnaz has kindly agreed to be a guest speaker at one of our meeting and so we can look forward to hearing about her passionate commitment to helping her community and the role the Indigenous Health Scholarship program has played.
 
A letter to my Rotary friends
I know many of you have been concerned recently about my mental health so I thought I would pen a few lines to let you know the current situation and put your minds at rest.
It is true that for the last 6 or 7 months I have been walking around the house talking to myself. It is an affliction which came on suddenly and I have made an appointment with the psychiatrist in November (date to be confirmed due to Covid 19) 
A dear friend of mine, Leticia-Maria and her mother Maria del Carmen Chihuahua who visit me regularly have noticed a difference in me and it has been decided she (Teesha) should stay with me permanently to help me through these difficult, but we hope only temporary, times. I am grateful as they have often arrived when I have been in the middle of an erudite and complicated discussion between me and myself on recent developments in quantum physics and they have interrupted my train of thought. 
My young friend is, as I hoped, good company and an ever cheerful presence around the house. Although not very domesticated she loves helping me in the garden. She digs holes for  me and waters and sometimes even fertilises them for me, after she has taken out the existing plants.
 
She is not fond of cooking but will relish any of my delectable dishes I prepare for us; haute cuisine is still one of my favourite pastimes... We make forays into the surrounding countryside each day and especially enjoy a long walk along the seafront, usually terminating with a visit to one of the hostelries for un verre de vin rouge and a  nice, cold bowl of water.
 
I look forward to introducing her to you soon;  thank you again for your concern for me.'
As they say, if all else fails read  the instructions. Having written to you all I checked Teesha's birth certificate and I find she is actually a Pomeranian. But never let the truth interfere with a good story... So instead of being a lady who lunches with her lapdog I shall simply be 
                 The POHM with the Pom...
 
Collect art and support Rotary
Kris Adam has generously offered to contribute $25.00 from the $175.00 sale price of his wonderful and mystical drawings of Geelong.

Branch Out - 2 August
If the restrictions have eased sufficiently, Peter Funston is calling all to join in the annual tree planting day at Eumarella Scout Camp, Anglesea.
Please call Peter on 0422 309 074 or email peter.funston47@gmail.com if you can help out.
 

 

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Upcoming Events Coming Up
Our Club meetings and District events are happening via video conferencing during the COVID-19 restrictions.
 
See "The Next Three Weeks" for....the next 3 weeks.
 
The date of our return to meeting at St. Albans Football Club awaits confirmation and the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions etc.
 
The Next 3 Weeks
 
DateActivityCoursesVenueChair SergeantRoom (Hosting)CashierMeeting
Tues 26 MayDavid Boyle, Virus Expert (ex CSIRO) ZoomJanine Koch    
Tues 2 JuneBron Lawson - The Bluebird Foundation Zoom     
Tues 9 JuneCommittee Budget Meetings       
Tues 16 JuneRCGEs Got Talent  Kris AdamRob Wheeler   
Tues 23 June    Keith Dawson   
Mon 29 JuneChristchurch Meals Program       
Tues 30 JuneCommittee Meetings       
Tues 7 JulyChange Over       
 
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Attendance
 
 
 
Attendance 
 
We had a 62.22% attendance at our Zoom meeting last week!
 
We're Zooming again on Tuesday 26 May and we're going viral.
 
To join, click on the link in the email which has been sent to you from Gary Newton..
 
 
 
 
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Recognitions
 

 
Birthdays: Happy birthdays to Sue Beretta for 28 May and James Dunlop for 29 May.
Wedding Anniversaries: None this coming week.
Rotary Anniversaries: None this coming week.

 
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