The vaccine is rolling out, vaccination of our front line workers and nursing home residents has started, closed borders are being opened - could this be the beginning of the end (to quote Winston Churchill)? I certainly hope so.Our meeting this week was a ripper, with good attendance including some faces we hadn't seen for some time - great to see you Justine and Nick. We again welcomed soon-to-be-members David Troon and Tania and Bernie Willemson, as well as Yvonne Wills and Rob O'Reilly. We also had five members joining us on Zoom, including Jeevan who is temporarily based in Canberra. I'm pleased we can use our new-found technology to extend our meeting to those who can't attend physically.
Ian McMillan did a great job of chairing the meeting, and MC Jon Oppy was in fine form, this time taking aim at Peter Steven. The raffle was also well supported, with 104 "virtual tickets" sold, the lucky winner (finally) being guest Yvonne Wills. The raffle process was a bit messy as members are not yet familiar, but everyone please persist next week - it makes a welcome top-up to the Sunshine Account which in turn comes back to you as subsidies for social events.
Our speaker Roger Meyer gave a fascinating talk on the early history of Melbourne's privately owned aerodromes. He briefly mentioned his own involvement in the industry, first as a radio technician in the Department of Civil Aviation before moving up to design and project management of control towers, radar operator consoles, communication equipment, search & rescue centres, training simulators and the like. He has also had a long association with the Civil Aviation Historical Society for almost 40 years. So he was well-qualified to take us on a journey through the various private aerodromes dotted around Melbourne.
As mentioned, please everyone support the International Women's Day Breakfast at Amora Hotel on Thursday March 11 - you have received a number of emails promoting the event, so please buy your ticket as soon as possible. And invite your friends, daughters, sons, business associates as well and make this a success.
Our Club's involvement with the Rotary Overseas Recycled Playgrounds (RORP) project gathers momentum, with members volunteering to help with the harvesting of playgrounds at Pridmore Park and Nettleton Park. Thanks to Vijay who has been driving the DIK truck between the work sites and Footscray, and Andrew and David Troon for volunteering at Nettleton Park. Remember our first project where we are the lead club (the previous projects we were in support of Glenferrie) will be in a few weeks time at Yarra Bank Reserve - there will be plenty of communication regarding date and time, but we will need a good turn-out of Camberwell Rotarians for this one.
And a final reminder for members to continue "making friends" with our new website, and to load the ClubRunner app on your mobile phone.
That's it from me, have a great week in Rotary. (Below - babysitting his grandkids, Murray took them to "Carribean Rollermania" in Scoresby. How cool, grampa!)
