Vocational Service Awards, Quintessential Quiz, The Norwood Spar Food Drive and the Interacters in action....

 From the Pen of the President....

What an inspirational group, our awardees are – those who received a Vocational Services Award on Friday.

Never forget though, that Vocational service is at the core of Rotary, embedded in its history, its present and future. It calls on us, as Rotarians, to foster high ethical standards in business, to recognize the value of all occupations, and dignify our occupations as opportunities to serve our communities.

We are challenged, as Rotarians, to put our vocational service into action by using our skills and expertise to serve in our community, to mentor young people to achieve their career goals, to offer leadership and professional development guidance to others, and practice our profession with integrity while inspiring others to do the same. Are you up for that challenge??

 

Please send me your contact details for the booklet – I have 12 member’s details.

Have a great week, enjoy the rain, the sport, or whatever it is that “tickles”.

Stay positive and see you on Friday.

 

Yours in Rotary,

Ann

 

Last Friday.....

....We had the privilege of honouring three remarkable individuals who use their chosen vocation to do exceptional work in the community.

Claudio Marangoni, who teaches at St David's Marist College, has a deep sense of community and is passionate about the environment. While working at St.Stithians Girls College he organized river clean-ups, tree-planting projects as far afield as Zambia and was also involved in a learn-to-swim programme for girls in Alexandra. 

During a short teaching stint at St Peters College he worked at making it a "green" school.

At St.David's he has been given the freedom to instil community and environmental awareness; he gets the boys involved in projects like eco-brick building, and every month they donate sanitary pads to a sister school in Alexandra. He has also organized a campus-wide toymaking workshop for under-resourced ECD centres in Diepsloot.

Matseke Nkadimeng is a social worker at the Soweto Parent and Child Counselling Centre. Her community spirit is deeply ingrained and where she can she assists with food parcels and cooked meals for young people who come to her office after school. She runs youth groups and focuses on drug and alcohol awareness as well as teenage pregnancy.

During school holidays she tries to keep the youngsters engaged so that they stay away from  (in Matseke's words) "risky behaviours".

Ruth Stubbs trained as a teacher, but very soon found her calling helping children and young adults with varying degrees of disabilities, but mainly cerebral palsy sufferers. 

She does most of her work in informal settlements and rural areas, giving severely deformed children  and their caregivers the gift of correct positioning and mobility. 

She is a Human Rights activist specifically in the field of children with disabilities.

Putting  the Fun into Fundraising....

Our second Quiz Fundraiser for the year once again coincided with World Polio Day and President Ann made an impassioned plea for us not to become complacent and for each and every one of us to keep fighting the good fight against this scourge.

We had a full house with 90 quizzers taking part and as they entered the Parkview Golf Club lounge they were immediately drawn to the abundant table laden with raffle prizes they could win. And boy, did they buy tickets!!

The evening was a resounding success and thanks to the generosity of everyone who attended we managed to raise a whopping R31 000 on the night!

It's Food Collection time again....

Every year, on the last weekend of October and November and the first weekend of December we ask the patrons of the Norwood Spar to donate a food item which enables us to give our chosen charities - Phuthaditjhaba, Frida Hartley Women Shelter, Curamus Autism School, Charity  Begins with  Me and The Boeregemeenskap some Christmas Cheer.

Volunteers were hard at work and as per usual the community generosity was evident judging by the laden trolleys.

Highlands North Interacters visit their Charity of Choice bearing blankets....

Last week the Interacters, proudly wearing their Rotary pins, paid a visit to the Rays of Hope in Alexandra and were warmly greeted by Mama Bertha and Mama Dikeledi who told the young gentlemen about all the wonderful opportunities for 2023.

They were so grateful for the blankets they received.

This Friday....

....let us give a warm Rosebank Rotary welcome to guest speaker Christian Zasalua, who goes by the pen name Chriss Za. He is an African author, born in the Congo who came to South Africa to further his studies, but decided to go back to his first passion, which is writing. He will tell us a little bit more about his first published book Labyrinth, a book on leadership, unity and confidence from an afro-centric perspective.