Rotary Club of Southbank - Extras for Meeting No. 486a

OUR VISION

A club that is enterprising, caring and productive. Developing fellowship and implementing activities rich in choice, for the benefit of our community.

Meeting 486- 09 June 2009

A Note from the President

Just a few days ago, on 3 June, the Rotary Club of Southbank celebrated its 10th Birthday. As District Governor Elect 2009-2010 Iven Mackay said, it has been a very successful 10 years of community service for our club and each of our members should rightly be extremely proud of our achievements:

from the early days of the World's Biggest Garage Sale to the Melbourne 2008 Homeless World Cup;

from the Port Phillip Special School Kindergarten to the BBQs at Hanover;

from the Bali Trust to the Xanana Vocational Education Trust;

from STEPS to SHARC;

from RYLA to YAA;

from First Steps to Street Soccer;

from Klibur Domin to ShelterBox

from the Xanana Breakfast to the Gill Hicks Lunch;

from a Night of a Thousand Dinners to the D K Lee Cocktail Party;

the Rotary Club of Southbank have been serving our community with pride, passion and compassion.

We have never been a large club but we have always been very active in our service to the community. We have been blessed with being part of the largest Rotary District in Australia and the significant and invaluable support we have received and no doubt will continue to receive from both District 9800 and the Rotary clubs within the district. No doubt, we will continue to be a very active part of District 9800.

Whilst we should be, and indeed are, very proud of our achievements of service to the community and to Rotary in these short 10 years, they are not the most valuable or the most significant achievements for us. The most valuable of our achievements must surely be the invaluable friendships, fellowships and bonds we have formed with our fellow Southbankers. Just like any big family, we do not always see eye to eye. But there is one thing that we all agree on and that is the enormous respect we have for each other and the value we place on the opportunity to serve the community together.

Lastly, but by no means the least, I am sure you will all join me in thanking our partners and our families and friends for their continued support of our work in Rotary. Many sacrifices, both big and small, are made in order to make this a better world, and although Rotarians all make significant sacrifices, our partners and families are the ones who really make it possible. This 10th Birthday is as much ours as it is theirs. After all, this is the Family of Rotary.

As we look back to the past decade with a sense of achievement and pride, we can take the lessons learned from those wondrous 10 years into the future and strive to shine as we serve the community and do good in the world in the next decade and beyond!

Despite the successes of the past decade, there remains within the Southbank an enormous and untapped potential. We look forward to Southbank setting new standards in the next decade as both the club and its members develop and grow to become an even stronger force to serve our community.

So let's prepare to celebrate our 10th Birthday on 20 June 2009 and bring along those special people who have helped us along the way!

Yours in Rotary,
Gabe

Last Week's Meeting

We had good attendance last week with a number of guests including a GSE Team member, Pikuan, sponsored by RC Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Pikuan will be part of the GSE Team going from District 3400 to Japan in August 2009.

Sergeant Nick was kind to us, giving out sweets to our members ... well, the sweets were donated by Bobbi, but it is Sergeant Nick's thought that counts!

Lyn shared with us her most embarrassing experience which involved a boat, a rope that wasn't properly tied, a rather big gap, someone covered in mud, someone going off to get a change of clothes and coming back with tracksuit pants ... in time for a formal dinner! Although it occurred 16 years ago, it has become a classic and people will still recognise Lyn as the famed person involved! Well done Lyn!

Steve Nicolls and Paul Roberts from Seeing Eye Dogs Australia, along with Steve's Seeing Eye Dog "Sage" and the promotions dog "Quill", came to tell us about the work of Seeing Eye Dogs Australia. Everyone in the club were so excited about seeing Sage and Quill that we just had our eyes glued to them. Paul gave us an outline of what Seeing Eye Dogs Australia does, including the work of supporting those who need their service, finding a home for them for the first year, training the dogs, finding a dog to match the person, making sure they work well together.

Seeing Eye Dogs Australia is now part of Vision Australia which enables them to help a lot more people. The shocking statistic is that there will be a three-fold increase in blind people because of the aging population, yet Seeing Eye Dogs Australia relies completely on donations and is not supported by any government. Training one dog costs over $30,000.

Steve gave a fascinating account of how he denied his vision was impaired and tried to get around it by pretending he could see properly. A work accident forced him to reassess. With the "help" of his friends, he got in touch with Seeing Eye Dogs Australia and for about 8 years, he was paired up with Zapper. The names of puppies from the same litter starts with the same letter.

Zapper was great but it had to retire as it was getting old. The high-spirited Quill became Steve's new companion but they soon ran into problems. Quill is the current record holder of getting its owner to walk straight into a tree - whilst training! As Steve said, the bond between the person and the dog must be strong and they did not have a good start. In the end, they bonded well and Quill is indeed a lovely dog.

There weren't a lot of questions during question time, but that was only because we were waiting to ask them after the meeting!

For more information, go to http://www.seda.org.au/

Last Updated 08/06/2009