From the Pen of the President....
Wish you were here....
Last Friday....
.... there was great excitement at Wanderers because e-member Lorenzo Locatelli-Rossi, who most of us only know from his Zoom attendance, was in town.
For some of the "old-timers" it was however a happy reunion.
Sonja Hood was the appointed duty sergeant and showed us how it's done when you have to do it virtually:
Charlotte and James Croswell are passionate champions of e'Pap, and they had invited Charles Mhephu, who heads up the Rotary Community Corp in Alexandra, to the meeting and he gratefully accepted a donation of this super-food for distribution to vulnerable and needy persons.
e’Pap is made from wholegrain, precooked maize and soya beans. Vitamins and minerals are added into the mixture in a form that the body can easily absorb.
When Prof Shelley Schmollgruber asked meeting content organizer David Bradshaw what she should talk about, he vaguely said: your work, a book or anything trending.
As it is not her nature talk about herself she decided to tackle a burning topic instead:
Loadshedding, or as she titled it - Escomplicated.
She reflected on research done amongst 1836 respondents who were questioned about their daily lives, their fears and how they were managing to cope with this crisis.
The study sample was fairly wide ranging; they were of varying ages, 74% were employed, 35% had no access to alternative power solutions, whereas 65% had access to alternative solutions, like inverters, gas, generators or solar.
The findings of the study were that feelings of helplessness were often reported.
The employed respondents were expected to deliver work despite outages, which resulted in high levels of performance anxiety, work-related stress and heavy financial demands.
The psychological impact can not be ignored: 4 out of 10 respondents reported depression and 62% admitted to struggling with anxiety and panic attacks. Anger was also a common emotion voiced.
9 out of 10 reported feeling worried when there are non-scheduled power cuts.
1 in 10 contemplated suicide.
Social relationships are also suffering: 31% reported problematic family relations and feelings of isolation. There is reduced social interaction because people have to scramble to complete tasks when there is power and tend to collapse into separate spaces in the dark.
People also fear crime so tend to stay in their homes, further reducing social coping.
How then are we coping?
Nearly half of the respondents slept more, 16% numbed out on their cell phone, and nearly a third stepped up to their work pressure by meeting professional obligations.
Interestingly enough more than a quarter of the respondents chose to a proactive break and wellness activities, such as meditation, yoga and spending time in nature. 20% chose to exercise
In summary: an option open to us all is the proactive implementation of psychological coping strategies.
We do not have to normalize life without electricity supply, but we can attempt to cope in ways that make us feel better
We can create our own light, be kind to ourselves an employ the wisdom of one respondent who said:
I put my head torch on do and do the best I can. We may not know when the power will return, but we can (and should) build our own insulation and frame our crisis on our own terms.
Thank you Shelley, that was truly enlightening!
Weekly News from Exchange Student Emma...
Just as there were the first signs of Spring, everything was once again covered in snow. However: Emma is now officially part of the Noack family as her name is now proudly on the family post box (although sadly none of Michelle's letters and post cards have arrived to date)
During the week she and some friends visited Muskau Park. It is a landscape park in the Lusatia region of Germany and Poland. It is the largest and one of the most famous English Gardens in Central Europe, stretching along both sides of the German-Polish border on the river Neisse.
She also took part in an annual light festival where about 1000 people displayed multi-coloured lanterns.
Apparently it was a sight to behold.
Emma also had to write exams this week; she did however give German a miss; her German Shakespeare is not quite up to scratch yet.
She has also almost completed her first pottery piece, a little fountain with duck, which is in fact going to be used to display her rings and bangles.
Today she left for Leipzig, where she will be attending an outreach project for all the exchange students based in Germany.
Sybille volunteers at the Cape Town Cycle Race...
The Rotary Club of Newlands' biggest and most lucrative fundraiser is the annual Cape Town cycle race, held on the second Sunday of March.
Every year various Rotary clubs volunteer to assist in the mammoth task of running a smooth event and are then reimbursed by the event organizers. RC Newlands' job is to man the sweep vehicles that are deployed all along the gruelling 109 km or the shorter 42 km route to pick up stragglers and their bicycles, who for whatever reasons are unable to complete the race.
The club gratefully accepted when Sybille put up her hand to offer her services.
She attended a thorough briefing the week before the event, and on Sunday at the ungodly hour of 4 a.m. showed up for duty.
It was promising to be a perfect day with not a cloud in the sky, not too hot and thankfully not even a breeze.
Sybille was positioned about a kilometer after the start and she had the privilege of watching more than 27 500 cyclists pass her in a period of 4 hours before her actual duties started.
It was a very humbling experience watching participants with profound disabilities attempting to conquer this punishing 109 km route.
Once the cyclists had all passed the work began, following the last competitors on a relentless 7 km uphill, and it was soon evident who had not trained sufficiently or had equipment failure.
It was heartbreaking to see the disappointment in these cyclists faces, and part of the job was also to comfort them and administer words of encouragement. Sadly we also picked up unaccompanied bicycles where the riders had been taken to hospital.
There were 16 mini sweep vehicles in total along the whole Cape Peninsula route and we were all in radio communication with the control centre and by the sounds of it we certainly had our work cut out for us.
It was past 5 o'clock in the afternoon when the last sweep vehicle could finally call it a day.
This Friday....
... is our monthly business meeting. Hope to see you there, in person or via Zoom.
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