3 September 2003
Good evening fellows and guests.
Last Friday night I attended the District Governor’s President’s Meeting at Penrith Panthers accompanied by President Elect Keith Byrne. The District Governor uses these meetings to provide face to face communication with Presidents within his District.
The main topics covered included:
Child Protection
There was a presentation on the guidelines and the District is serious about following a code of practice and has developed guidelines for clubs to follow in all Rotary programs which involve children including exchange students. All club members, involved in activities were there will be contact with children, are required to sign a declaration which will then be forwarded to the District Child Protection Officer for record purposes.
PDG John Wakefield spoke briefly about recent media coverage, on ABC radio PM program which referred to a claim by an Australian women who was an exchange student in 1967 and alleges she was sexually abused by the Rotary host father. The women was critical of Rotary for its lack of action in her case reported during the last 3-4 years and claimed the Rotary exchange student program was in danger. John is the appointed RI spokesperson in Australia on the matter and Rotarians are requested not to make any public comment about the matter.
Insurance
The District Insurance Officer spoke of the new arrangements this year including increase in excess amounts, exclusions in some policies and the public liability “Certificate of Currency” requirement for all participants of an activity other than volunteers. The things we need to be aware of is the need to perform a risk assessment of all activities that we undertake. The excess on any public liability claim is $5,000. The maximum cover under the Fidelity policy is $15,000, reduced from $100,000.
Department of Gaming & Racing – “Best Practice Guidelines for Charitable Organisations”
This is a 210-page “Best Practice” publication of what we need to be aware of in order to comply with the law in relation to fund raising activities.
Membership
We were told about the need to increase membership and given a target of 1 new member per month.
In addition to hearing about the need for new members we were also told about the need to development and maintain existing members. We were told of the statistic that 50% of all new members leave Rotary within 3 years.
District Conference
We heard about the plans being made for the District Conference at the Central Coast Leagues Club at Gosford 19/20/21 March 2004. The structure of the program will be:
Friday night, Youth presentation concluding at 9.30 p.m.
Saturday morning will relate to the Rotary program. Saturday afternoon will be free. A cruise has been arranged in the afternoon for those who are interested.
Two members from Holroyd, the host club, will attend our meeting on 17 September to inform us in more detail about the conference.
Family of Rotary
A new concept introduced by RI President Jonathan Marjiyagbe this year is to be known as the Family of Rotary.
The Family of Rotary is a concept drawing from membership retention strategies, being based on Club and Community Service, designed to encourage Rotarians and clubs to care for the Family of Rotary. This family includes current and past Rotarians, spouses and children of Rotary members and spouses and children of deceased Rotary members.
Don’t forget the Golf Club has advised us there are 3 dates over the next few months on which the Golf Club will not be available for our meeting, 10th of September, 19th November and 10th December 2003. As a result we will be required to make alternative arrangements for our meeting location on those dates.
Our scheduled guest speaker for the 10th of September is Jacqueline Booth from the Northcott Society. Therefore the meeting on 10th September will be a transfer meeting to the Northcott Society, located at 2 Grose Street North Parramatta. I will circulate a commitment sheet this week and partners are welcome to attend.
I have to advise, that Rod McDougall’s father passed away last week and on behalf of the members of the Club I offer condolences to Rod and his family.
A reminder to those members, who have still not paid their dues, due on 1 July 2003. I suggest you attend to this matter urgently if you wish to avoid proposed action that may cause you some embarrassment.
Also, don’t forget to consider opportunities to invite visitors to our meetings who may be potential members.
Have a good week
Keith