Monday 20th July

Last Week

Friday was a social meeting and again we had a good turnout of 23 Zoom participants. Keep it up Fellow Rotarians, at the end of the 2020/21 Rotary year, most of us will be on the 100% attendance Register.

As you can see we had a few laughs along the way

It goes without saying the topic first and foremost on everyone's mind is the Covid19 Pandemic; it is getting ever closer and it was with sadness that President Ann conveyed the news that Marian Laserson had succumbed to this nasty scourge.

Social meetings gives us the opportunity to share what has been happening in our lives and James Croswell told us that the anniversary of the fire set by some dastardly invaders to their home was now a month ago, and slowly the damaged parts of the house have been repaired. We did have a chuckle when we pictured him trying to extinguish the fire dressed only in a t-shirt, which is the attire he usually sleeps in. It was probably not that funny at the time, because he sustained some pretty bad burns to his legs and hands.

We asked Juanette and Reiner how Covid is affecting them in Hamburg, and it seems that Germany has much more freedom of movement. They recently purchased two Harley Davidson motorcycles and took a road-trip 80 km north of Hamburg. Masks are still mandatory as is social distancing and contact tracing, but restaurants are open and the youngsters are quite happy to quarantine for 14 days after a party. The divorce rate has sky rocketed five times and it seems that the pregnancy rate has also increased exponentially.
Life in Italy has also normalized somewhat as attested by Lorenzo, who lives in the town of Palestrina just 35 km east of Rome. We are all envious of his lifestyle and with the power of technology he has promised to give us a guided tour in the very near future.
John Symons reported that R3 600 had been deposited into the Rotary Project bank account which will go towards our Mandela Day/Month efforts and help with the Charity begins with Me feeding program.

Our President Ann found this very apt image of RI's 7 areas of focus, which she wanted to share with us.

Membership

An impassioned plea by David Bradshaw

The last Rotary year was a great disappointment as far was membership numbers were concerned, we had to let two members go for not meeting their obligations regarding subscriptions, another decided that he was too frail to attend any more and we had the very sad passing of Past President Brian Leech.

We did not induct any new members and therefore ended the year minus four members. We did have 3 or 4 prospective members attend during the 9 months that we met at the Wanderers but due to various reasons three did not take it any further, and only Chrispin looks set to join us.

Whilst holding our meetings on Zoom, Lorenzo, a past member now living in Italy, is a regular attender and hopefully will become our first “E-member”.

It has been said time and time again that it is the duty of all members to ask friends, relatives and business associates to join us, but in general, we are not very good at this. Of our current membership approximately 42% of our members were not inducted into this club as first time Rotarians, but joined us when their clubs closed down, or for other reasons. The vast majority of the remainder have been members for many years, and only a handful have joined in the last few years.

The new Rotary year is certainly looking more positive member wise with a number of very good prospects lined up already.

President Ann has set a target of 4 new members in her year, lets really go all out to achieve at least this number. So as Chairperson of Membership Development, PLEASE really make an effort this Rotary year to ask possible Rotarians to join us on Zoom or bring them along on a Friday, once this is possible. Please let President Ann know in advance if and when you invite a Zoom visitor.

Wear a Rotary sticker on your car, and keep some Rotary information in your car, chat to everyone you meet socially (on Zoom?) about this wonderful organization.

Why did you join? You joined because somebody asked you.

Membership information will appear on a regular basis in the Ramble.

Let’s make it happen.

Regards

David

Charity begins with Me

Here are some easy projects that all of us (well those of us that are in Johannesburg) can get involved with. I took them from Stephan's Facebook page and am sharing with you.