Gabe Hau, District 9800 Peacebuilding Committee Chair was the guest speaker last week. His presentation centered around “Peace as a universal concept” stating that we all want peace, even if our definition of peace may differ. Rotary projects have directly or indirectly helped build peace within the communities in which they have been delivered. Some examples of peace projects include School Peace Essay competitions (Rotary Wyndham Harbour), erecting Peace Poles, participating in the Rotary Peace Fellowship Program, Youth Exchange, and many others.Rotary International became involved with the Global Peace Index (GPI) through a strategic partnership with the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), the independent, nonpartisan Australia-based think tank, creators of the index. Rotary International has "peacebuilding and conflict prevention" as one of its seven Areas of Focus, making the partnership a natural fit to advance this mission. This partnership began after IEP's founder, Steve Killelea, was invited to speak at a Rotary peace symposium in 2015. As a result, Rotary gained a new way to support peacebuilding efforts by using IEP's data-driven research to train its members in community-level conflict prevention and to work on promoting "Positive Peace". 
The GPI is an annual report that measures the relative level of peacefulness of 163 countries and territories. It uses 23 qualitative and quantitative data to assess peace across three key domains: Societal Safety and Security: Measures factors like crime rates and political instability; Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict: Assesses levels of internal and external conflict; Militarization: Looks at factors like military spending and armed services personnel.
It operates under the conviction of giving “a hand-up, not a hand-out” to bright students from economically challenged rural families. 
Zoe Renfrey (members Murray and Lindy Anderson's granddaughter) and Ethan Cohen graduated from the Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA) Program late last year, were guest speakers at the club a couple of weeks ago.
In their joint presentation they outlined the life changing benefits they experienced, recalling valuable insights from varied activities and inspirational speakers. They concluded the lessons learnt continue to have an impact in their lives.
They expressed deep gratitude for the opportunity of participating in RYLA. Their achievement in personal development underpinned by self-awareness, identifying one’s leadership style and self-reflection, had the potential to be transformational.
Last week 16 July, the club celebrated ‘Thank God it’s Over’ (TGIO). This is the first club meeting following the Camberwell Art Show (CAS). It was a great opportunity to reflect and thank club members, their families and friends for the huge effort over the previous week or so.
The Gala Event is the opening night and was an enormous success with over 350 people attending including many sponsors, well known locals John Pesutto, Hawthorn MP, Jess Wilson Kew MP and Boroondara Mayor Sophie Torney who formally opened the art show.
Hawthorn East, VIC 3123
Australia