Awarding a deserving Lester Connock Bursary recipient, A very successful Music Quiz event and The District 9400 Rotary Anns Annual Conference

 From the Pen of the President....

Inflation is rearing its head and is going to have a major effect on most people. The petrol price will shortly increase to its highest level ever in South Africa and food prices can be expected to increase to record levels. The increase in the cost of living will have a major impact on the finances of most people. In particular, many younger people starting out in their careers and with young children needing education, etc will feel the pressure. This is likely to impact our ability to recruit younger people into Rotary and will therefore be a challenge going forward.

Costa Qually

President

Tailpiece

Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it!

Last Friday...

...the Club substituted its usual monthly social meeting with the prestigious  Lester Connock Award ceremony.

Our guests Professor Shelley Schmollgruber, this year's award winner and bursary recipient, Zamokuhle Mguli and last year's winner Amber Buyl received a warm  Rosebank Rotary welcome. 

Les Short was asked to give a brief history of this award:

The origins of the Nurses Award goes back all the way to 1958 when our third Club President, Dr Hymie Moross, who was also the superintendent of the Tara Psychiatric Hospital, sent a senior nurse overseas to study psychiatric nursing and to bring back expertise to the Tara Hospital.

The project was financed by the Laura Niven Trust. Laura Niven had been a matron in Johannesburg's heyday and she had left money in Trust to improve the knowledge and status of the nursing profession. 

Since then our Club has been instrumental in sending nurses overseas for the purpose of study and observation of practices at the institutions they visited. On their return they would practice and pass on to others what they had learnt. In time the Laura Niven Trust ran out of money and Past President Lester Connock allocated funding for the project from the Lester Connock Trust, which at the beginning was administered in tandem with the Rosebank Club Commemoration Fund.

The Connock Trust was formed with a donation of R100 000 made by Lester and his wife Joan, a considerable amount of money in 1987.

Lester Connock was a dedicated Rotarian, family man and benefactor. It is in his honour that the Nurses Award was renamed.

This year's Lester Connock Award winner is Sister Zamokuhle Mguli, who works in the Milpark Oncology Department as a nurse navigator, she is a 2nd year Masters student, and her dissertation is Developing a Quality Improvement Program based on the Satisfaction Levels of Patients with Breast Cancer who use Nurse led Navigation Care.

She was introduced by Professor Shelley Schmollgruber, senior lecturer intensive and critical care at the University of the Witwatersrand.  Zamokuhle's research is groundbreaking in South Africa, where nurse led oncology patient navigation care is still in its infancy. Zamo described her work with enthusiasm and energy, and her contribution will no doubt be very insightful and beneficial.

Amber Buyl, last year's Lester Connock bursary recipient gave us feedback on the progress of her Master's dissertation: Screening and Experiences of Maternal Mental  Health in an Urban Hospital in Johannesburg.

She has had quite a few challenges due to the Covid pandemic which has set her back in her research, but she is determined to submit her thesis before the end of this year. We wish her God Speed.

 Quiz Fundraiser with a musical twist...

Based on the success our club has had with its previous quiz evenings, the fundraising committee decided to hold a quiz evening with a difference, which would test our musical knowledge hosted by non other than the music guru himself - Sean Brokensha.

The  86 tickets to the event were sold out in no time and some wonderful prizes, such as 5 days stay at a luxury game lodge next to the Kruger, a midweek stay at a country lodge in the Cape, a golfing fourball, travel luggage and many more were pledged for our ever-popular raffle.

Sonja roped in her long suffering husband Steven and son Joshua to man the raffle ticket station and  sales were brisk bringing  an impressive R12 000 into the club coffers over and above the R13 200 (after costs)  raised from Quicket sales.

Judging by the noise levels fun was had by all participants, but the broad consensus is, that for our next quiz fundraising event in October we will revert back to general knowledge.

District 9400 Rotary Anns conference 2022...

On 21 May, coinciding with the arrival of the first cold front of winter, Rosebank Rotary Anns  hosted our conference at the Bryanston Methodist Church.  The intrepid delegates of District 9400 arrived looking glamorous in their warm woollies and fleeces, ready for an exciting morning.  They were not to be disappointed.

A good year’s planning went into the production of the conference.  Jane Symons very graciously and enthusiastically offered to steer the planning.  A committee was formed and these five ladies met from time to time to monitor progress.  When we started having physical meetings at our usual venue (with the easing of COVID restrictions), each month, Jane would report on progress.  As the day drew near, more Anns and some Rotarians made their various contributions to the preparations.

Finally the appointed day arrived.  There were delighted exclamations as ladies recognised and reconnected with one another after a two-year break with no conference.  There was coffee and tea, muffins and sausage rolls before it was time to kick off the conference.  We were honoured to have D G Stella Anyangwe attending and DGA Marilyn Rautenbach opening the conference. 

 

The formal part of the conference included welcomes by Jane, our convenor and President Patricia Kuhlmann who formally listed the Rotary Ann officials.  They then stood up so all could identify them.  This was followed by the Rotary Ann prayer and objects, and the Inner Wheel prayer and objects.  A roll call was next, in line with Rotary practice. Then a very touching slide presentation with beautiful music was played while the Anns stood and respected and remembered Anns who had died in the past two years.  There followed a formal short address by DG Stella, who promoted polio eradication and encouraged Rotary to carry on fund-raising for this vital last step in the process of polio eradication, pointing out that the last two countries Pakistan and Afghanistan, that still have polio cases occurring, needed support to achieve the target of no more cases.

There was then a comfort break and Marilyn presented some trophies and some new awards to Anns from various clubs who had made particularly meaningful contributions to the work of the Rotary Anns.

 

Past President Shirley Eustace then introduced the speaker for the day Professor Lucille Blumberg who is an expert on viruses and vaccination.  Her talk was focussed on the miracle of vaccination and was tremendously informative and delivered with a light touch.  There were lots of questions afterwards showing that there had been many thoughts stimulated by her talk.

The formal part of the conference being over, the conference was officially closed.  More awards were presented by which time the buffet lunch was laid out for the delegates’ sustenance.

 

 This was a time for chatting and enjoying pleasant fellowship.  Gradually the Anns began to drift away and the clearing up was quickly completed. 

It had been a lovely morning, with some serious moments when we considered the inevitable arrival of new diseases such as Monkey Pox.  There had been a lot of reacquainting with Anns from other clubs and the Rosebank Anns could feel proud of putting on a fine and inspiring Anns conference.

This Friday....

... Please join the Zoom meeting where we welcome guest speaker Dr Andrew Oberholzer, CEO of the Prostate Cancer Foundation who will enlighten us about Prostate Cancer Awareness.