We had a wonderful meeting on Tuesday, organised by Bettina. Thank you, Bettina, for a fantastic effort. It was so good that the District Foundation Chair, Chris Don, suggested that we host this as an annual event for Rotary Foundation!
It was suggested during our meeting that Southbank is an "events club", implying that we are very good at organising events. I had to check myself before agreeing that this is probably a fair assessment. I am not a particularly good events organiser myself but as a club, I think we are pretty amazing at organising events. For those of you not familiar with what our club has done, I'll highlight just some of the events:

• World's Biggest Garage Sale - our club held a huge garage sale at the then MEC for 3 consecutive years, raising tens of thousands of dollars each year.
   

• Night of a Thousand Dinners - we organised a cocktail party at Yarra Edge to raise funds to clear landmines. It was a great night with in a beautiful location and special guests including PRIP Royce Abbey. This function raised a total of $6,000 towards clearing landmines and included an auction of a trip to the Antarctic!
   

• Xanana Trust Breakfast - we organised the Xanana Trust breakfast which included former Governor General Sir William Deane and President of Timor Leste Xanana Gusmao and raised many thousands of dollars towards the Trust.
   

• District Governor Changeover - we organised the DG changeover for PDG Bernie Walshe. This is no small feat for a relatively small club like ours.
  
   

• Annual Thanksgiving Picnic - in its fourth year now, we have had a fantastic and relaxing Sunday thanks to Bobbi for putting it together for members and friends of our club to relax and enjoy a great day out together.
   

• Other District events - our club has also assisted other clubs in bringing other District events together. For example, we made a big effort in putting together "Rotary on the Greens" and were instrumental in organising the D K Lee Cocktail Party earlier this year. We are very happy that our club can take part in these District events.

How do we do it? I think there are 3 ingredients that Southbank member possess: passion, commitment and enthusiasm. Our members have the passion to see that an event is realised, it's what drives us to succeed in putting an event together. Commitment is what makes us special: PP Barbara did not sleep the night before the Xanana Trust Breakfast - that's the commitment we have within our club. Enthusiasm is a critical ingredient as it spreads the passion and commitment to others within and outside the club to help make each event a special one. I mentioned PP Barbara, but many other members have made wonderful contributions to both the club and District but there are too many to name individually. This also includes former members such as Alex Bialocki and John McKissock, both of whom have continued their support of our club and Rotary in general.

Whenever I look at our achievements and our relative size to other clubs, a great sense of pride swells within. The pride is for the amazing qualities of the individual Rotarians of this club, but more importantly, for the fact that I can count each of you as my friend. Can anyone ask for a better bunch of friends? I think not.
 

Yours in Rotary,
Gabe

Rotary Foundation Night

Thanks to Gordon for fabulous scribe notes!

The theme for the evening was The Rotary Foundation. November is Foundation month for Rotary International.
There were many visitors and from your humble scribe’s vantage point...visitors may have outnumbered members.
Meeting Number 460 was opened by Sergeant at Arms Nicholas Kane with toasts to Australia and Rotary International and he welcomed President Gabriel Hau to the rostrum.
President Gabe welcomed our visitors and visiting Rotarians:

Chris Don Rotary Foundation Chair D9800
Dennis Shore Chair GSE Program D9800
Mike Flavel Team Leader GSE Tour in 2009 to Sweden (Member of Rotary Club of Melbourne)
John & Barbara Rafter Members Rotary Club of Brimbank Central
Elizabeth Celi Member Rotary Club of Mornington
James Anderson Team Member GSE Tour in 2009 to Sweden
Susan Carew Rotary Peace Scholar & Guest Speaker
Aurora Poon President Gabe’s wife
Sandro Audino Potential member of our Club
Michael Joseph Guest of Bettina Harlos

President Gabe then inducted Leigh Harry as a coveted “Southbank Star” for his service to the Club especially to International affairs.

President Gabe made the following announcements:
- Triathlon Marshalling on Sunday, 23rd November, 2008 (early) Anyone who has not registered and is interested should contact Richard Clark
- Thanksgiving Picnic 12 noon Sunday 23rd November, 2008 in St Vincents Place Gardens. Please register with Bobbi Lehman Horn
- Annual Paul Harris Breakfast Wednesday, 26th November, 2008 Rotary Club of Central Melbourne Sunrise at the RACV Club
- There will be no formal Rotary Club of Southbank meeting on Tuesday, 2nd December, 2008. Members will instead visit the Homeless World Cup.
- There will be a Royce Abbey awards dinner at the Moonee Valley Racecourse on Wednesday, 3rd December, 2008 at 7:00 pm for 7:30 pm hosted by the Rotary Club of Essendon
- There is a special meeting planned for Tuesday, 9th December, 2008. Our speaker will be Don Cullen Don is closely involved in providing assistance for poorly serviced medical facilities in the Lhasa region of Tibet.
- Our Christmas party will be held on Tuesday, 16th December, 2008 at the MCEC Clarendon Room. Special thanks to Leigh Harry

Gabe then introduced our Chair for the evening Bettina Harlos. Bettina is also our Club’s chair for the Rotary Foundation
Bettina gave us a timeline of the Rotary Foundations from its inception to the present day.

Bettina then introduced Dennis Shore the Chair of Rotary District 9800 GSE Program and GSE 2009 Team Leader Mike Flavel (RC Melbourne) and Team Members James Anderson . Group Study Exchange (GSE) is one of the programs funded by The Rotary Foundation.
Dennis gave us a an extensive overview of the GSE program.
 

Mike Flavel gave us a look at the goals for the GSE Tour to Sweden in 2009
Jamie Anderson who was nominated by the RC Southbank thanked the Club for his nomination and gave us an insight into what he expected to gain from the tour. Jamie is a Provisional Psychologist and works with PP Philip Archer

Other member of the team to go to Sweden are: Koren Harvey nominated by RC Hawthorn, Belinda Munzone nominated by RC Laverton Point Cook and Catherine Tudor nominated by RC Canterbury

 

Bettina then introduced our Guest Speaker for the evening Susan Carew. Susan is a Rotary Scholar of Peace and Conflict Studies. She trained in Peace Studies at Latrobe University and qualified in training and assessment. She has worked as a research consultant and mentor for 10 years in Australia and the UK. Susan is a World Peace Clown and travelled to Russia with Dr Patch Adams (of movie fame played by Robin Williams)
Susan normally presents in a clown’s outfit however this evening she was dressed in “civilian clothes”.
Susan commenced her presentation with participation of the whole room which put us all in a relaxed mood.
She gave us her views on the contribution of Mahatma Ghandi and Dr Tom Waibar to world peace and then showed us a promotional video of her work with Primary School children.
Bettina thanked Susan for her presentation and presented her with a “Penny for Polio”

please click here for more information about Susan's work:
Funny Business     Real Hope     Children's Parliament    OWN Empowerment Website

Bettina then introduced Chris Don the Rotary Foundation Chair at District 9800. Don gave us an excellent overview of The Foundation and the work it does. The importance of contributing to cannot be over emphasised. Don then to everyone’s surprise (except maybe President Gabe) inducted, with the assistance of John Rafter from RC Brimbank Central, our very own President Gabriel Hau as a Paul Harris Fellow and a member of The Paul Harris Society.

The Paul Harris Society is open to people who agree to contribute US$ 1000.00/year ongoing to The Rotary Foundation. President Gabe’s incredible generosity makes him the first member from our Club into the society. There was much applause recognising Gabe’s elevation.

Bettina then handed the meeting back to President Gabe.
Gabe addressed his closing to extolling the benefits of Paul Harris Society and inviting other members to join him. He then closed the meeting with his now “traditional” two thoughts for the week:

“We are all heroes in waiting, waiting for the right situation to come along to give us the permission to take action, and the heroism is acting on behalf of other people, to be socio-centric and suppress egocentricity, or acting on behalf of some moral principle. … To be a hero means you step across the line and are willing to make a sacrifice, so heroes always are making a sacrifice. Heroes always take a risk. … Heroes always doing something that most people don’t [or won’t].

“Health warning – anti-perspirant sprays can lower you intelligence: Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration!”

The meeting closed late but without any noticeable complaints at 7:55 pm.

Your Humble Scribe - Gordon