Jerry Selwane, a Business Meeting and Shredding as an Environmentally-Friendly Fund Raiser

Last Week

 Jerry Selwane spoke to us about Soweto Animal Rescue.  There was a lot about it in last week's Ramble so I am not going to repeat it.  Jerry spoke about the problems that they experience in the townships and rural areas and how often there is a degree of intimidation.  He sees his vocation as educative as well as dealing with rescued animals.  Owing to lockdown there are increasing numbers of abandoned animals which increases the demands on such organisations as his and obviously the SPCA.

 We had a very good Zoom turnout with 28 people present including a number of visitors:

Visiting Rotarians:                                            Rotary Anns :

Nigel Bellamy - Selibe Pikwe                            Diana Serrurier                       

Rita Millan - Kyalami                                         Liz Short

Rainer Bertram - Zambia                                    Margie Austin

Ann Townsend - Brisbane                                  Penny Robinson     

I am sure we are going to find that more and more Rotarians and others will join us on line.

This Week

It's a Business Meeting.  I think we will discover that there are other ways of serving the community that we have never thought about before.  Covid-19 provides us with opportunities we haven't really digested yet and others we haven't even thought about.  It's very necessary to discuss the way forward.

Why no items on Covid-19?  I think that you hear so much about it that something different would be a change.....see below.

The Rotary Club of New Milford, Connecticut, has been shredding for over a decade. So has the Rotary Club of Madison, New Jersey, which hosts two events a year. Every summer, the Rotary Club of Grand Island, New York, is out there shredding, and in the spring and fall the Rotary Club of West Seneca, New York, gets to work. You can shred with the Rotary Club of Encinitas, California, or the Rotary Club of Owatonna, Minnesota. The first shredding day held by the Rotary Club of Great Falls, Montana, was so successful that the club added another one four months later.

One problem many people face when they try to declutter and get organized is how to get rid of sensitive documents — old bills, bank statements, and the rest of the detritus that builds up in home filing cabinets. In an era of identity theft, people are cautious about what they throw in their garbage or recycling.

Carmela and Hal Moeller, members of the Rotary Club of Madison and former business owners, were thinking about their customers’ privacy when they came up with the idea of a document shredding fundraiser. “When my husband and I were closing down our bookstore, credit card receipts were still printed with the entire account number. Obviously, the threat of identity theft was great,” Carmela Moeller says. “We were using a home shredder to destroy the receipts. When we learned about commercial shredding companies, we thought of our Rotary club doing this as a fundraiser.” Document shredding events became a fixture on the club’s calendar. “People were invited to watch their documents destroyed. It became like a neighbourhood block party.”

The idea has obvious appeal. When The Rotarian ran a brief item in 2010 about the Rotary Club of New Milford’s document shredding event, the club started hearing from other Rotarians seeking to adopt the idea. “It generated inquiries from Rotary clubs as far away as Australia,” recalls New Milford Rotarian Arthur Klein. Since then, the idea has taken hold in many Rotary clubs.

The events are a hit with the community and an easy way to raise awareness of Rotary. “Cars line up a half-hour before it begins, and it runs like a well-oiled machine for three hours,” says Klein. “People love having a place to bring their documents to be destroyed securely and cost-effectively. They also love the idea of saving trees and landfill space since the shredding is recycled.”