Steve’s
Change-over Snippets
27 June 2003
Brotha’ssss and Sista’ssss…………. Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show “sewing the seeds of love” has come to an end after a fun filled, active and hopefully successful twelve months of performances.
Seriously, giving meaning to this year’s theme was never going to be easy, but I’m sure you will be pleased to know there will be NO REPEAT PERFORMANCE of last years changeover musical “act”, (if that’s what it was).
In my speech at last year’s changeover I addressed a number of issues affecting our club and provided us all with challenges for the year ahead.
Those challenges related to fundraising, providing a balance of fellowship and fun with Rotary activities, a full program covering all avenues of Rotary service and the involvement of as many members as possible in the programs and projects undertaken.
One of the principal challenges I issued was for us to raise $100,000. We didn’t quite make it, however we ALL did exceptionally well with over $85,000 effectively being distributed to this years principal recipients (refer separate detailed list), including CMRI, The Infants Home at Ashfield, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, The Trish MS Research Foundation and of course the Salvation Army in Moree, (as part of contribution to helping those in need in the bush suffering from this terrible drought). And we made good R.I’s request to donate US $100 per member to the Polio Eradication Campaign, as well as contributing to The Rotary Foundation and The Australian Rotary Health Research Fund.
Along the way we have also assisted a number of organisations with our ubiquitous Rotary BBQ, (thanks to Shirley Del Prado, Connie Galetta, Niall King, George Helou, Graham True and Brian Johnson) including Sunday lunch at the District Conference and of course the Christmas Carols in Strathfield Park.
To raise all that money we have been fortunate in having a number of excellent teams run very successful events during the year.
Firstly, there was Niall King, Bob Templeman and Ray Wilson who coordinated the annual Golf Day in February, followed by John Leftwich and cohorts who coordinated the successful Xmas dinner auction and then Euan Watson, Peter Manenti, Niall King (again) Allan Teale, Angelo Franco and Sal Tosto on the Fabulous Gala Night at Le Montage which was, thanks to Euan’s persuasiveness and our members generosity, well attended by our members and many guests.
Finally our newest event, the Olympic Park Cycle Challenge coordinated by Keith Stockall, Rod McDougall, Kevin Freund, Kevin Beltrame, Euan Watson (again) and Allan Taylor, and wonderfully supported by a large proportion of our members undertaking marshalling, registration and BBQ duties.
Thanks should also go to Angelo Franco for the new structure of The Xmas Stocking. The technique of adopting a community Chest approach has been very worthwhile, and resulted in a lot of organisations being helped by “helping themselves.
Another important component of our fundraising that has been a bit lower key but just as effective has been the Sergeants session and the weekly raffle. Sergeant at Arms Euan and his co-opted monthly corporals have contributed significantly to the clubs coffers to the tune of over $4,000 during the year.
What do you say about George Helou and raffles? George’s generosity with his weekly fantastic “fruit basket” and or bottles of wine, combined with his excellent salesmanship, combined with our members and guests generosity have helped generate over $10,000 in income this year with much of it going to our recipients.
Sincere thanks also to Peter Cipolla for supplying our new very professional marshal’s vests, the new COMPLIMENTARY embroidered club T-shirts and our new embroidered winter jackets. We will certainly be displaying a unified professional look for future outdoor projects, summer and winter.
Another challenge I addressed was the need to have a balanced Club where fellowship, service to the community and fundraising are all considered equally important.
Well, I think we did OK but not brilliantly, as most of our fundraising occurred in this last six months keeping us fairly busy, while the first six months were more fellowship and activities based. I’m sure the ways to better achieve this “balance” will be looked at by Keith and the incoming board.
In terms of Club Service activities I think Keith Stockall did an excellent job as the list in his report will show. Social events unfortunately postponed this year due to a busy program will, I’m sure, be rescheduled for Keith’s year.
Certainly the challenge of our meeting venue and the “catering” issues at South Strathfield Bowling Club during last year was something we could have all done without. I wish to reiterate my thanks to Keith Stockall and all members in accepting the transition to the Golf Club and express my appreciation for the significantly IMPROVED attendance figures over the last six months.
As I indicated a successful club is about balance and certainly not just fundraising.
This important aspect was exemplified in our vocational and youth programs. The Pride of Workmanship awards in October, superbly organised by Keith Byrn, Graham True and Brian Johnson, were an excellent example where 18 excited and proud awardees received “recognition of their attitude and performance within the workplace”. This was a simply fantastic and almost overwhelming evening, again assisted by the generosity of John Navaro of Le Montage and the deal making of Uncle Sal Tosto.
Similarly, our Inaugural Youth Achievement Awards organised by Tony Lanzafame and coordinated with and partly sponsored by Strathfield Council were an excellent example of “recognition of achievement” by our local youth in many fields of endeavour. In this and the POW instance the presentation of a simple plaque of appreciation greatly exceeds its own small value as an inanimate object.
Continuing on community based activities the Joe Campisi coordinated Interact Club at Meriden continues very successfully with some very “entrepreneurial” members this year (they did an excellent job ripping off the President at the annual dance, but I guess I deserved it after missing their church service).
Similarly Tony Lanzafame has done well with the Model United Nations Program and we are hopeful of having an entrant in the National Science Summer School
In the area of Rotary activities GSE (under director Joe Campisi) continues to be strong within our club with our nominee Mary Romanous being selected for the Scotland team and obviously benefiting from the experience. This year we also had the benefit of one of the best visiting teams in recent memory with John Pow’s team from D1230 Glasgow Scotland. We also heard from the returning teams from Germany (Duncan Berriman) and Scotland (Allan Ezzy). Two of these three instances were joint meetings with Burwood and Concord Clubs which were very pleasurable evenings.
Speaking of joint meetings, I know most of our members don’t like travelling, however two of the three joint meetings held this year were hosted by US at our venue. Your board does listen and understand.
Another person deserving praise for Club activities is PP Brian Hennell, who initially reluctantly accepted the role of Program Chair. Well to say that Brian excelled in this role is an understatement. I consider we have had excellent guest speakers ALL YEAR varying from travelogues, to judges, to Engineers, to promising athletes and to people who even sell Australian paint to China. The detailed list is produced in this bulletin and is a testament to Brian’s exceptional efforts.
On a similar theme Peter Douglas and Arjun Jeganathan have done well at the attendance table, with Peter also having a very busy year counting funds received from many sources and faithfully reporting to the board every month on our financial situation (which has been great).
And finally, on the thank you’s for club activities, Kevin Freund for stepping into the Secretaries shoes after the unfortunate resignation of Shane Smallwood and then ALSO producing the bulletin when regular editor Vicki Wybrow was ill for a number of months. The Bulletin was superb and many thanks to Kevin and Vicki. Last but not least is the master of cyberspace PP Ray McCluskie, who as I have repeated many times, produces the best Rotary web site in AUSTRALIA. If nothing else our communication abilities within our club to our members is “bloody terrific”.
The final challenge mentioned at the beginning of this piece was that of involving as many as our members as possible in the activities of the club. This year I believe that was successfully achieved in three ways.
Firstly, by the excellent job/ life talks organised by Graham True where we really learned a great deal even from some of our “quieter” members, followed by the equally good Rotary Information sessions courtesy of Harley Tarrant and David Croft.
Secondly, by the terrific involvement of nearly all members in the selling of tickets and by attending the Gala night in March, the great result reflected your commitment to this project.
Thirdly, and very importantly, the tremendous involvement of most members in the Cycle Challenge at Olympic Park in May. If you must, forget the bike ride component, but our Rotarians were out there working directly with the community and we made a great impression on the day while also highlighting the work of Rotary in general. Wait to next year because it will be bigger still.
Well folks, that just about does it for me. Thank you for the honour of being your President, thank you all for your commitment and cooperation and congratulations on what I hope you will consider was a balanced successful outcome.
Congratulations to incoming President Keith Stockall and his new board, I know you will do well.
Fellow Rotarians, please “Lend them a hand” during this year
Steve.