The best part about being a Rotary President (and there are many!) is inducting a new Member to the Club, and this week we had three! It was my privilege to welcome David Troon, Tania Willemsen and Bernie Willemsen as Camberwell Rotarians, and what great Rotarians they will be. Their Mentors are Ian McMillan, Alan Lorenzini and Michael Mullins respectively, and they will do an excellent job, however it's the responsibility of the whole club to ensure they are always welcomed at meetings, and assisted in all ways possible to integrate into the club. So I ask all members to do their bit to ensure David T, Tania and Bernie have a rewarding Rotary experience as new members.It was another excellent meeting, with good attendance including four on Zoom: Adrian, Josie, Chris Howell and Jeevan (from Canberra!). Our Speaker, Rotarian Lili Teichman (President of RC Glen Eira) addressed the important topic of Diversity and Rotary. Lili is an extraordinary person who has crammed in a wide range of experiences, responsibilities and positions of leadership in a relatively short time as a Rotarian, and she took us on a journey that started with her own experience as a post-war baby boomer born of German immigrant parents, then examined what is diversity and what we can do as Rotarians to ensure our clubs are welcoming and accepting of all types of diversity. She illustrated her talk with two fascinating videos by Dr BowTieTodd (Dr Todd Jenkins) that explored the concepts of diversity, equality and equity. Lili concluded her talk with a challenge to have a Diversity Champion in our club, to ensure this concept gets the attention it deserves. A very interesting talk on this important and challenging subject.
Apologies to those who had difficulty registering and paying online for this meeting. Webmaster Jeevan is working on the problem and we hope to have it fixed soon. It's a tricky problem, as many could pay online for the meeting without a problem, and of those who had a problem, many were able to successfully pay for previous meetings! Please bear with us as we get this fixed, and it remains my hope that we can move towards 100% online registration and payment for weekly meetings.
Along with David Troon I was part of the team that harvested the Nettleton Park playground, and what a great experience that was. Working with council contractors who have all the heavy machinery and tools, we easily disassembled all the playground structures (except for the steel merry go round which was a beast!), the contractors knocked the concrete off the base of all the poles, and all the pieces were stacked ready for Vijay with the DIK truck to pick them up, transport them to DIK and pack them into a container. A big shout out to Vijay! Nettleton Park was a Glenferrie project and we were there as helpers, but the next playground at Yarra Bank Reserve is our responsibility. This will be coming up in the next few weeks, so when John Walmsley asks for volunteers, please put your hand up. I am really excited about our involvement with the Rotary Overseas Recycled Playground project, it's a great hands-on club effort that has benefits for the environment, the overseas recipients, and it saves the Council money in tip fees (which they donate to cover the cost of overseas shipping).
A final reminder to book your ticket(s) for the Women in Rotary International Women's Day Breakfast at Amora Hotel next Thursday. You have been sent plenty of emails with the booking link, and it will be in this Bulletin as well, so come along, especially if you have never attended a previous IWD event.
That's it from me, a big welcome David T, Tania and Bernie, and have a great week in Rotary.
