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A Note from the President
In this
week's Networker, DG Jim said "Be an Ambassador for Rotary!" As we
continually struggle to truly represent ourselves in the eyes of
the public, this is now more important than ever.
I remember when I first joined Rotary all those years ago, every
time I put on my jacket, with my Rotary pin on it, I became very
self-conscious. To outsiders, or even friends of Rotary, wearing
that Rotary pin might well be a 'badge of honour' but to me, and I
suspect to most Rotarians, it is something entirely different.
As a newly inducted Rotarian, wearing the Rotary pin meant I was
'on display', as a representative or ambassador of this great
organisation that is Rotary. In public, I was very careful not to
do anything to bring Rotary into disrepute whilst I wore that pin.
Sure, I was, and still am proud to wear the pin, but the reason
for wearing it is not to show off that I am a Rotarian. The
purpose of wearing that pin is to show the world, especially those
around us, of what Rotarians are all about - that is, to be an
ambassador for Rotary. We are living representations of Rotary,
and we are living and breathing billboards for Rotary. Each of us
has all the ingredients of being the best advertising Rotary can
ever have.
I remember my fear of doing something foolish whilst wearing the
pin, lest I bring shame to Rotary. These days, I am less worried
but it is never far from my mind. Am I giving up my seat on the
bus for a pregnant lady? Am I bringing goodwill to those around me
- even if I am angry or frustrated myself? Of course, the Four-Way
Test should be applied in a Rotarian's life at all times, whether
we are wearing the Rotary pin or not. The burden is, however,
somewhat lessened when I am not wearing the pin because a mistake
made is not automatically seen as an act of a Rotarian by the
general public.
As President of this wonderful club of ours, I have been wearing a
number of other badges in support of various projects or themes
within Rotary. The Rotary pin is, however, without a doubt the
only badge that matters to me. Being a Rotarian is already the
ultimate honour, everything else is superfluous. DG Jim reminds us
of why we wear that Rotary pin - because we need to promote Rotary
and the ideals of Rotary to the public and to prospective members,
so that we can count more people as friends of Rotary and more
people as members of this great organisation.
Rotary needs ambassadors to show the community who we are and what
we do - and there are no better ambassadors for Rotary than
Rotarians like you and me, so let's go and show the world what an
amazing organisation Rotary truly is!
Yours in Rotary,
Gabe
Last Week's Meeting
Thanks to Stuart for excellent scribes notes!
Welcome to Visitors
(Sam / Steve / Gabrielle – for last time as visitor before becoming
a member)
Announcements:
DS9800 Bushfire Recovery Fund will sponsor the The Kids
Foundation’s, Burn Survivors Network with a significant amount of
money and RC Southbank will partner with them for a project chosen
to be supported my this money.
19/5 - Glenferrie meeting – will include a raffle
20/6 – Rotary Changeover
Members Moment
Stuart McArthur spoke on his recent success in finding new job and
on Outlook 2007 and Goal setting.
(see attached)
 Alex
Buchanan a member of Rotary Club of Melbourne (more details about
him in last weeks bulletin) spoke on the process of developing
biscuits for disaster relief situations. He designed them to have
the full goodness of milk, but remain storable and transportable
without availability of refrigeration. They contain cane sugar,
wheat flour – carbohydrate & vanilla or chocolate concentrate.
He spoke on the process of developing the biscuits product
– found that due to high protein content, biscuits broke unless they
had a hole in the middle of them (to increase surface area), hence
the donut shape. Similarly using ordinary milk powder did not work
either due to lactose burning. He also told how the final size of
the biscuit was set at the size of his daughters’ finger!
The talk was very interesting and the biscuits were great!
(see picture :-)
Gabe finished the night with his usual quotes from 7 year old kids:
“Listen to your brain. It has lots of information!”
“Never tell you little brother that you’re not going to do what your
mother told you to do”
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