Hello Club Members

 

John Richards will lead us around the Cemetery and the Church building to give us a one hour guided tour of the Church. The Church predates Canberra by many decades as it was the focal point of the community that settled on the banks of the Molonglo River. The tour will be for one hour and we can go across to the Café called Catbird afterwards for a coffee or lunch.

 

Monica, Stephen and Myself visited Radford College and met with the Principal of the Senior School, Louise Wallace-Richards, last week to discuss some of the Rotary Youth Programs and also seek out possible new members for our Club. The meeting was successful as the School welcomed the opportunity to participate in the Youth Programs offered by Rotary. This also helps our Club generate more candidates for these scholarships.

 

The School also offered to have two Peace Poles placed in their Gardens and Michael Rabey is in contact with the school to organise this. The school offers 5 languages in the Curriculum so we could organise to have these languages on the poles.

 

In the future there may be a possibility of organising exchange of Radford students who are learning Japanese with the Nara Rotary Club. 

 

This connection with Radford will allow us to participate in the Community and advertise for New Rotary Members through their School Newsletters.

 

At our last Club meeting we discussed how we go forward with our weekly meetings and excursions. The consensus was that when we could not arrange for a Zoom meeting, instead would have a meeting at the Royal Canberra Golf Club. We would continue having one excursion per month and the other meetings would remain the same.

 

A number of our members helped the Murrumbidgee Club park cars at the Canberra Show. Thank you to all those who participated.

 

The Murrumbidgee Club has also invited us to participate with the parking at the Black Opal Races on Sunday the 9^th March. Their President, Shukry, has sent around an email asking for expressions of interest in doing the Parking on the day. This is another opportunity to raise funds for our Club.

 

The Murrumbidgee Club is running the Antiques Fair on the 14-16^th March. Antique and Collectible Dealers from Southern NSW and Victoria will be participating at the Albert Hall on the Friday 5.00pm to 8.00pm, Saturday 10.00pm to 5.00pm and Sunday from 10.00am to 4.00pm. So drop in to see what treasures you may find.

 

Yours in Rotary

 

Our next Club meeting is a tour of St John’s Church and Cemetery, Constitution Ave, Reid, 10-11 am on Thursday, 27 February. There is a cafe close by so members and guests can gather there after the tour. Please let Eric know if you are coming ASAP (if you have not already done so; thank you to those who have responded).

 

To see the program of future meetings, visit: Rotary activities Spreadsheet.

 

Bookings are now open for the Nusa Tenggara Association (NTA) 2025 Fundraising Dinner, to be held on Saturday 5 April, at the Canberra Southern Cross Club, Woden.

 

This is a fantastic and entertaining evening which raises much needed funds to assist poor farming communities in eastern Indonesia. There will be Indonesian food, music, and entertainment, plus a fabulous speaker.

 

Tickets $85 or $70 for students.

 

 

Until recently, Australia’s Peace Poles were all made by Pete Clapinski in Geelong, Victoria. On his handing over the task to a Rotarian in Adelaide, website worldpeace,org included a tribute to his work over the past nine years. It included this reflection from Pete:

 

“I visited the Hillcrest Primary School down in Tasmania and spoke with a teacher there. They suffered a disastrous occurrence at their annual fair. An inflatable jumping castle was blown into the air by a freak wind gust. Six students who were on the castle fell to their death in front of their classmates, mentally scarring the witnesses for life. The teacher said she was amazed at how groups of the children would randomly gather under their peace pole to talk about what happened. She believed it was the start of their healing. We may never know the impacts of what we do, but that is ok.“

 

Source: https://www.worldpeace.org/2025/02/thank-you-pete-clapinski-peace-pole-maker-in-australia-passes-the-baton-after-nine-years/

 

Thanks to those members who helped to raise funds for the Club by acting as parking assistants over the weekend. Here’s what some dealt with on Saturday. Treasurer Ross will let us know how much we earned, in due course.