Welcome to October, Economic and Community Development Month. As Rotarians, we help people to improve their lives and the communities in which they work. We help create change and empower people to improve their position in life, particularly women in impoverished communities.
October is also a very important month for another reason:
World Polio Day on October 24th. World Polio Day will be a little harder to support in our usual manner, however we must still support this as we have NOT finished the job and we promised the children of this world a Polio free world. Help us to help our children. One way to help support the Polio campaign, Rotary Walk With Us, is a sponsorship program where people are challenging themselves to walk, run or rollerblade a specific number of kilometres. I have registered to do the walk totalling 20KM during the month of October, please support me and make me walk to reach my $3000 goal.
Here is a link to my page. Do you want to help eradicate Polio? Please Donate now. < Click Here >
To find out more about World Polio Day please click on the link below.
During my club visits (online), I ask people to send me information to include in the newsletter, it can be anything, a special speaker, a special occasion, a fundraising event, anything. I have received a few interesting stories but I am sure there are many more great acts of kindness, huge efforts and amazing life changing events that we can share. We are Rotarians, we are proud of what we do. Sending in your stories and upcoming events is a way of connecting with each other and our great community. The Governor’s newsletter goes far and wide, it goes beyond our District. It goes across Australia, our Zone and Internationally.
This month a couple of special events are happening.
October 10th, Professor Felice Jacka will be talking on Diet and Mental Health, as part of Australian Rotary Health, Lift the Lid. It will be via Zoom, so head over to the District Facebook page for more information and registration. https://www.facebook.com/District9820
October 11th, we are gathering up Rotary projects from across our District to present to you in the comfort of your lounge, an online District 9820 Rotary Showcase. You will be able to glean information, ask questions and hear from passionate supporters. Take this opportunity to learn how the projects are working and offer to help. More information coming soon.
Tuesday 13th October, Rotary Club of Mount Eliza will host Tim Wilson, past Human Rights Commissioner and new author. Tim will be talking about his ideas addressing some of the challenges and what the future may hold. Australia is facing a changing world and will need strong leadership to secure a prosperous and fairer future. https://www.facebook.com/Rotary-Mount-Eliza-972803349461363
Rotary Has Talent
Sunday 18th October 7:30pm. Do you have a hidden talent? We are looking at holding a Rotary’s has Talent night in October. Find that lost instrument, loosen up those vocal cords, dust of the old juggling balls and start preparing for night of fun and laughter… who knows where this might end up! Watch out for more information.
If you have an event or speaker you want promoted, please send in details to newsletter@rotary9820.org.au let support each other, together we are stronger!
Fireside Chats
Fireside chats, everyone is welcome to come along. Well, we have moved into spring now, weather is warming up, our environment is starting to change, grass is growing, trees are blooming and the sun is starting to shine more. Our Fireside chats will continue with a special thank you to all those that have participated so far. Feedback has been positive. I hold the chats on different nights each week so that everyone has a chance to join in. We have had a couple of nights featuring special topics such as Gin, The Vietnam Museum and even holiday snapshots sharing our wonderful overseas experiences but mostly the night is about connecting with each other and sharing our experiences, having a laugh and helping.
One the highlights has been assisting East Gippsland Fire Relief to purchase a Lucas mill, used to turn fire damaged and fallen trees into fence posts. Funds were very slowing coming, so I put out a challenge to everyone on the Fireside chat. Within a week, we had achieved the goal and then some. A Lucas mill is on order and some spare parts! Fantastic effort! A special thank you goes out to Rotary Club of Dromana and Rotary Club of Sorrento as these clubs made significant donations towards the goal. A special thank you goes out to the other clubs that have also supported the Fire Relief committee. This to me, this is Rotary in Action, we are People of Action and we change lives. GO ROTARY!
During my Zoom club visits, as different as they are, it is really exciting to see and hear about all the amazing work that you are doing, even though we are locked down, we are still doing things, we are finding it hard to raise dollars, but we are still supporting our communities. We are changing things little by little.
Even though we are locked down we are inducting new members which is fantastic. Rotary is growing through these tough times, how good is that! People are seeing that we can adapt, we can support each other and grow.
Just the other night, I joined a club meeting with a special guest speaker. Peter Sindrey, who was talking about the East Gippsland Fires. WOW, what a story and picture he painted. Do you want a guest speaker? You cannot go past Peter as it will make you proud of being in Rotary, the Rotary machine at work! Topping of the night, Lesley from Rotary Club of Lakes Entrance thanked Peter for his talk, then she continued, with more about Peter and what he has done for communities over his lifetime of service, then a surprise, Peter was presented with a Paul Harris recognition! Well deserved Peter, and congratulations.
Rotary Town signs
We all have signs leading into our towns, some of them are pretty ordinary now, old, tatty, damaged and illegible. I want you to update, replace and modernise your town signs. Please read the information below about how you can receive a partial reimbursement for fixing up your town signs.
Mark
Knock Knock October issue
This Month is Economic and Community
Development Month
This month also includes International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on the 17th and World Polio Day on the 24th of October.
Develop a Micro Credit system
Organise Awareness Seminar on Self-Employment at High Schools/Universities
Organise Trade Exhibitions
Organise Buyers-Sellers meets
Take up an Entrepreneurship Development Program or organise a Consumer Forum
Source: Janne Speirs Past District Governor 2018-19
RC Traralgon has been busy making ‘We’re thinking of you’ cards that were delivered to the Aged Care homes in the town. Many of these residents have been in lockdown or receiving very limited numbers of visitors since March. The original concept came from a Club member whose Mother is in care in one of Traralgon's Aged Care facilities and was readily picked up by the club.
The more than 360 individually crafted cards were made by club members and friends either from scratch or by using an illustration created by one of our members. The sentiment inside the card was also written by one of our club members. They were then delivered to Traralgon’s Aged Care homes -Yallambie, Bupa, Traralgon Aged Care, Dalkeith Gardens and O’Mara House.
A big thank you is extended to all in our club and friends of the club who have got this idea off the ground. We hope that other clubs will take up this idea and brighten up the residents’ days in their own towns.
When family cannot visit and everything is different
Source: Mardi Shepard District 9820 ARH Chair 2020-21
LIFT THE LID AFTERNOON TEA WITH PROFESSOR FELICE JACKA
District 9820 are proud to present this Zoom webinar on the relationship between diet and mental health:
Professor Jacka has pioneered and led a highly innovative program of international research that examines how individuals’ diets interact with the risk for mental health problems. She will present her research and will invite questions.
Join us as an individual, small group or a club for this wonderful opportunity to hear a world renowned speaker whose career is dedicated to mental health.
Source: Mardi Shepherd District 9820 ARH Chair 2020-21
Lift the Lid on Mental Illness’
Australian Rotary Health (ARH) District 8920 Chair, Mardi Shepard and the Committee, would like to encourage all Rotary Clubs in our District to support our major fundraising afternoon tea event Lift the Lid on Mental Illness’
Every October, Australian Rotary Health encourages Rotary Clubs, businesses, and individuals to get involved in Hat Day as part of ‘Lift the Lid on Mental Illness’, our national fundraising and awareness campaign for mental health research.
It has been a tough year for everyone, so let’s get together (virtually), put on a silly hat, and do something important for mental health.
We have come up with some COVID-19 safe ways that you can get involved in Hat Day 2020 to help us ‘Lift the Lid on Mental Illness’
We understand that this year the COVID-19 pandemic may present some obstacles, making it difficult to get involved in the same way as previous years. But we also believe this is an opportunity to put our creative thinking hats on!
So this year will be holding a Special Afternoon tea on the 10 October at 3.pm. Professor Felicia Jacka who has pioneered and led a highly innovative program of international research that examines how individuals’ diets interact with the risk for mental health problems. Prof Jacka will do a presentation on her research and will invite questions. She will be presenting this Zoom webinar on her research on diet and mental health.
Join us as an individual, small group or a club for this wonderful opportunity to hear a world-renowned speaker whose career is dedicated to mental health.
OTHER IDEAS
Host an online trivia/raffle session
You may want to get a group of people together for a trivia/raffle night on Zoom. A bit of friendly competition is always fun. Plus, prizes could be awarded to those with the best/funniest/quirkiest hats! Team Up with Clue Detective Puzzle Agency
The Clue Detective Puzzle Agency, founded by Rotarian Catherine Eagleson, is teaming up with Rotary Clubs to sell puzzle memberships online as a contact-free way to fundraise for Rotary projects and Lift the Lid on Mental Illness. You may even want to get together with a group online to solve puzzles together. Find out more.
Ask Australian Rotary Health to Help You Organise a Mental Health Speaker Australian Rotary Health is funding plenty of Mental Health researchers who are more than happy to present their research to Rotary Clubs. Get in touch with ARHoffice to organise a speaker at your next Club meeting.
Bake Some Hat-Themed Treats
Whether it be biscuits, cupcakes, or pancakes, baking ‘hat-themed’ treats could be a delicious way to raise money for mental health research. A simple online transaction and delivery to someone’s doorstep can make the process ‘contactless’. Don’t forget to wear gloves while handling food!
Decorate Your Own Hats at Home
Depending on the restrictions in your area, you could gather with a small group of friends for a hat-decorating crafter-noon! Make sure you send us your pictures!
This is only a couple of ideas, so feel free to be creative and come up with your own as well!
You might even like to find a quirky mask to wear with your hat like Jessica from the ARH office!
Source: PDG Janne Speirs D9820 Emergency Management Chair
It should come as no surprise to anyone in D9820 that since the shocking fires of late 2019 and early 2020 in the East Gippsland region of the District, our East Gippsland Rotary Fire Aid Committee has been a continual Rotary presence of support and recovery assistance, dating from January 2nd 2020. They have, in many cases with wonderful support from Clubs and individuals both within the District and around the world, been able to supply much needed livestock feed, some internal fencing assistance, furniture and Winter clothing as well as the ongoing supply of storage containers and caravans for those without a home. They have had added support financially from RAWCS Compassionate Grants and a Disaster Recovery Grant from the Rotary Foundation.
On top of all this – and following on from an approach to me by an anonymous but incredibly generous benefactor – we have been able to apply for three Global Grants through the Rotary Foundation. As those of you with knowledge of Global Grants would be aware, it is all but unheard of for Australia to be the recipient of Global Grants because, as a First World Country, we are deemed to be well able to ‘look after our own issues’ if you like and the Grants are invariably the domain of Countries of the Third World. The extent of last year’s fire disaster however, following hot on the heels (pardon the pun) of the ongoing drought ravaging so much of the Country was deemed to be found well deserving of Global Grants being approved.
Thus, I set about the daunting task of ‘Global Grant Writing 101’ with two incredibly supportive and knowledgeable mentors there every step of the way and the result – as those of you who were present at last weekend’s inspiring Zone Conference would know - that two have now been approved and we are eagerly awaiting the last of the funding to reach the bank accounts and the third is awaiting it’s final authorisations before being fully submitted!
Briefly, the purpose of the two Grants already approved is
Grant 1 – supply of both hay (purchase and cartage) and also high energy fodder to livestock on affected properties – bearing in mind that many of these animals were already struggling due to the drought! This Grant also has a training component for farmers in best practice pasture types, stock strengthening etc in areas affected not just by fire but also drought – this is an East Gippsland wide support
Grant 2 – very similar to Grant 1 in terms of supply of both hay (purchase and cartage) and also high energy fodder to livestock on affected properties as well as the supply of fire resistant internal fencing pickets and fencing wire. This Grant again has a training component for farmers in best practice pasture types, stock strengthening etc in areas affected not just by fire but also drought. This Grant will concentrate on the more remote areas around Goongerah, Woolgoolmerang and Gelantipy among others.
The Third Grant will provide upgraded kitchen and bathroom facilities in an extension (for which we are currently seeking approval for a separate Grant for construction) to the Sarsfield Community Hall along with training in areas like CPR etc to assist in Community readiness for a future emergency.
I wish to thank so many who have already provided incredible expertise, advice and encouragement in this venture and will keep you all posted on the future of these Grants.
Source: RC of Mt Martha & Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF)
Last month, as part of our clubs spotlight on basic Education and Literacy month, Mt Martha club member Carol Allen introduced us to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation through a wonderfully inspiring video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtrOi2Y-B8A.
As it turns out September the 2nd also happened to be Indigenous Literacy day.
The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF), is a national not-for-profit charity which aims to improve literacy levels in very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
One focus to the ILF is to produce and publish books for Indigenous people. These books are important because they represent Indigenous culture, community life and importantly are written in indigenous language.
To date they have published 90 books that reflect 18 Indigenous languages, written by children, families and community elders in remote communities across Australia. This year they hope to publish another 14 books in multiple languages including the first collection from the Torres Strait Islands.
As well as providing an uplifting tone in these rather strange times it got us thinking about how we might get involved in supporting this initiative. And, importantly what could we do locally to support the literacy ambitions of local indigenous children and families. Needless to say a number of club members quickly volunteered to form a working group to pursue this idea.
Hopefully over the coming months we will have more to report on how we get on…
Rotary helped put polio eradication on center stage on the day best known for rallying support to finish the job – World Polio Day, 24 October.
A special Livestream presentation – World Polio Day: Making History – showcased the progress of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Co-hosted by Rotary and the Northwestern University Center for Global Health, the 60-minute program took place before a live audience at the John Hughes Auditorium on Northwestern’s Chicago campus and streamed online to viewers worldwide.
RI President Ron Burton kicked off the event by noting that Rotary began immunizing millions of children against polio in the 1970s, first in the Philippines and then in other high-risk countries.
“Polio rates in those countries plummeted,” Burton said. “As a result, in 1988, Rotary, the World Health Organization [WHO], UNICEF, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came together to launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. More recently, the initiative has benefited from the tremendous support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation . . . . It is so very important to finish the job.”
Dr. Robert Murphy, director of Northwestern’s Center for Global Health, emphasized that polio eradication “is completely doable. . . . [It] will result in preventing billions of cases of paralysis and death, saving billions of dollars, assuring that no parent in the world will have to worry about this terrible disease ever again.”
Dennis Ogbe, polio survivor, Paralympian, and ambassador for the United Nations Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign to promote child immunization, spoke compellingly about the challenges of living with the disease and the opportunity to protect people from it for all generations to come.
“I have learned not to look at anything as impossible, and that includes, especially, the eradication of polio,” said Ogbe, who was born in Nigeria. “We have come a long way since the start. So let us finish strong and End Polio Now.”
Dr. Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general for Polio, Emergencies, and Country Collaboration at WHO, emphasized that the global fight is winnable, noting that the number of cases in the endemic countries –Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan – is down 40 percent in 2013, compared to the same period in 2012. He also said that the type 2 wild poliovirus has been eradicated, and said November will mark one year without a case of type 3 virus anywhere in the world.
Aylward also pinpointed challenges to the global initiative, including the outbreak in the Horn of Africa with 200 cases. Because of the strong response to the outbreak, however, the region “is again rapidly becoming polio free,” he said. Moreover, the polio endgame strategic plan, if fully funded, is equipped to stop such outbreaks.
“Today, all children everywhere can have a better future, not just against polio, but against every disease . . . if we as a global society get behind the vision of Rotary 25 years ago to reach every child with something as simple as polio vaccine.”
The World Polio Day event also featured a short video showing the tireless efforts by health workers and Rotarians to immunize children in Pakistan. “We are very optimistic that the challenges will not be able to deter us and soon Pakistan will become polio free,” said Pakistan PolioPlus Committee chair Aziz Memon in narrating the video.
Event moderator and Canadian Rotary member Jennifer Jones encouraged people to donate to the End Polio Now, Make History Today fundraising campaign, which makes contributions work three times as hard with matching funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She also invited everyone to join the more than 50,000 people in 150 countries who have expressed their support for a polio-free world by becoming part of the World’s Biggest Commercial.
Emmy Award-winning actress Archie Panjabi spoke passionately about why she is so committed to her work as a Rotary ambassador for polio eradication.
“When I was a child 10 years old, I went to India. As I walked to school, I would see children younger than me with no [use of their] limbs, begging for money,” Panjabi said. “It broke my heart.”
Inspired as an adult to learn more about polio, she was “amazed by the amount of work that Rotary has done,” in helping India be free of the disease since 2011, and joined a team of Rotary volunteers to immunize children there last year.
“I will do whatever I can to support Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative . . . . And if you do whatever you can, then together we can eradicate polio forever.”
Jones challenged the audience and online viewers everywhere to share their voice for polio eradication with friends and followers on social networks and encourage them to do the same. “And write or email your government officials to urge them to commit the resources we need to finish the job,” she said.
“We need you – and we want you to help us make history!”
