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President Usha's Notes
24 March 2021
Dear fellows,
"Make
the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into
flames of achievement"
Golda Meir (1898-1978)
In honour of women
The highly
successful premier event in honour of women on 10th March was also in perfect
alignment with the RI theme for 2020-21, Rotary Opens Opportunities, which
encourages Rotarians to seize opportunities to open doors and create pathways to
connect with communities.
Distinguished guests
We are
thankful to our distinguished guests for joining us on the evening - DG
Warwick Richardson, State Opposition Leader Jodi Mckay MP, Principal Burwood MLC
Ms. Lisa Moloney, Strathfield Councillors Gulian Vaccari representing the Mayor,
Karen Pensabene and Maryanne Duggan, PDG David Croft, DG-e Jeremy Wright and
DG-n Janice Hall. PP Allan Peterson from Concord Rotary also joined us with
Welwyn as did Rotarians from many clubs including members from the new passport
club of Sylvannia Waters. Great to see a big turnout from our club members and
partners.
The evening
This magical
evening was born out of the efforts of a group of fabulously creative, bright,
cheerful and hardworking Rotarians, who decided to spread the message of this
year's International Women's Day "choose to challenge inequality". And in doing
so, we connected with women in our community and the world.
-
Many
thanks to our P-e Thaya Ponniah, for
starting the ball
rolling,
and consistently staying with the project to see it through. And I am at a
loss of words to capture the creative contribution of our newest Rotarian
Ying Ho, who has been with us for less a year but has cemented her
position in our club and in Rotary very strongly. Between the two of them
and supported by the rest of the team, we created history - the first ever
International Women's Day celebration in our club.
-
It was a
perfectly
coordinated evening,
non-stop entertainment, delectable choice of food, drinks at the bar,
perfect ambience, live music - instrumental and vocal, meaningful talks and
plenty of breaks to connect with each other.
-
The
pleasant sounds of the
MLC Jazz Ensemble
interspersed with soul touching vocal singing by Trinity and Sofia brought
the perfect breaks and interludes between practical, meaningful and down to
earth speeches. The pin drop silence in the room listening to the
informational talks, interspersed with the beautiful rolling pictures of
women with significant achievements and their messages completed the
scene.
-
Alexey Prokopenko's generously contributed his
technical skills
and time when he and Ying worked through curating hours and hours of
recordings and pictures (collected by Thaya, Ying and Jan Barrett) to
find the ideal cuts of film, song, speech and picture and joined them
together to form the perfect collage. When this beautiful collection was
played on the screen, the hall came alive with pictures and words with
stunning effect. Many
people
asked for copies of the pictures and video collage of speeches.
-
Our MC
for the evening, Nick Hamilton-Kane kept things moving along at just
the right pace, with a gentle touch of humour, ensuring nothing was pushed
while also allowing moments for guests to catch up with friends. Thanks to
PP Peter Manenti for the brilliant
double toasts
and what would we do without Bradley Ayres'
photography
skills which leave us with beautiful memories every time. And one more
perfect raffle
(how many in the stack?) from PP Roy Ellis and his team for the day -
Jan Barrett, Trudy Ho, Maree McDougall. Thanks to all who contributed
to the raffle.
-
And last
but never the least, we appreciate the experienced hand of PP Rod
McDougall, always available for any information, discussion and
back-up.
All in a days work.
This week
This week we
look forward to hearing from Julian Day Founder & CEO Consensus Group Australia
and Past President of the Rotary Club of Iron Cave (2018-2019) and Bruce Wren
CEO, of WordFlow, and a winner of the Consensus Innovation Award in 2020.
Usha Garg
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