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President's Message
Bruce Turner
President's message 04 August 2024
Greetings and welcome. Thank you for joining our online news and updates.
Regardless of our somewhat chilly weather this has been such a fun week with lots of great social activities. Organised prior to Neil’s departure to warmer climates, the week started off with another of our social events. Monday night’s “Christmas in July” was a great success and we must thank our hosts Gail & Greg Birchall, Mal & Deb Slater and Amanda Hough for offering up their homes – which I believe were left in a reasonable state at the end of the evening. All reports indicated that the food was outstanding and a great evening of fellowship was enjoyed by everyone in attendance. A special thank you is extended to Amanda’s helpers/wait staff Charlotte and Olivia, your enthusiasm and smiling faces were a feature of the evening. The girls certainly have a future in the hospitality industry, I can only hope we weren’t too scary or demanding to look after. Thanks also to photographers on the night for supplying the images you will find in this bulletin.
We seem to be getting spoilt on the food front this week, with the second outing taking us to the Torquay Improvement Association Hall for the monthly Community Lunch. Once again we were treated to amazing menu, on this occasion we were treated to beautiful Afghan food. You will find a detailed report and photos of the event later in the bulletin along with a link so you can book in and enjoy one of these lunches – I highly recommend them (I believe Italian food will be on the menu for the next lunch).
Our RAWCS project - Lese Oalia School
On a different track, my email has been running hot, and a good portion of that has been in relation to “our” RAWCS project – Development of Lese Oalia School, Gulf Province PNG. I continue to be blown away with each report of the work and progress on this project. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that much of the information coming through is new to me. I felt like I had a very good appreciation of the project and from the aspect of what is physically involved in the project I have, thanks to the regular reports and feedback provided at meetings. Over the last couple of weeks it has been eye opening as I have become more fully aware of the commitment and amount of work the team members undertake to ensure that this project continues to progress, notably our very own John Oswald (Project Manager) and Robyn O’Loughlin (Deputy Project Manager). Thank you and congratulations on what you have achieved to date.
A brief overview of progress can be found here Project Report. This is a folder located in Teams, if you have difficulty in accessing and interested in reading this let me know and I will forward it to you.
Updates for members:
Rotary Club of Geelong West has their Geelong Book Fair THIS WEEKEND. Great opportunity to pick up some winter reading! 2-4 August @ Geelong West Town Hall. Visit their Facebook page for more details.
Volunteer of the Year Awards Geelong - if you know anyone within the Geelong area that deserves this honour, then please get nominating. Nominations and information can be found here Geelong Volunteer Awards
If you use Facebook, you will no doubt see The Rotary Club of Torquay pop up frequently at the moment due to our involvement with the Torquay Commerce Awards. Please share these posts as much as possible to help encourage involvement from local businesses.
Congratulations to Prue Challis (Manager of Torquay Community House) and her crew for organising what has become a very popular and successful Community Lunch Program.
Tuesday 30th July saw seven members of our club attend the July Community Lunch which is put on by the Torquay Community House. The program provides an opportunity for Surf Coast Secondary students to learn hands-on hospitality skills, while also providing a communal space to enjoy a meal and connect residents with one another.
We were invited to the Community Lunch to see firsthand the impact of our contribution to this important program. The July lunch was a collaboration with the Staying Grounded program, an initiative of Common Ground at Freshwater Creek. Staying Grounded is a program where refugee migrant women grow seasonal, organic produce on the farm that is then used to prepare culturally appropriate meals each week with community participants. These meals are then distributed to families and individuals facing limited food access through local food relief agencies (Feed Me Surf Coast and One Care Geelong), ultimately connecting people in the community to cuisine and culture they may never have experienced. The women and students prepared, cooked and served a delicious menu of Afghan food.
It was a pleasure to take part in the lunch and see another example of the positive impact Torquay Rotary’s support has within our community.
The Community Lunches are held each month, I recommend you try to make it along to at least one of these events. The lunches are booked out very quickly, so you need to get in fast. Bookings can be made online: Community Lunch Booking
