Business, Blanket Drive, Pollution, Artists and what Rotoractors can do.

This Week
It's a Business Meeting.

District Assembly
Three of us will be representing the club this coming Saturday.

Blanket Drive

Cesare Vidulich organised the Highlands North Interactors for a blanket drive at Norwood Mall last Saturday and they raised over R4 000.  Well done!  They will be at it again this Saturday, 21st, so if there are a couple of Rotarians who can assist please let Cesare know.  Guess who we caught shopping?



No, Jean Bernardo is not really a happy shopper, she is secretly counting the money.



Congratulations to the interactors on their smartness and their politeness.  They are are credit to their school and great ambassadors for Rotary.

Last Week

Graham Fox & Rodney Genricks peddling their wares

We had one of those environmental scaremongering talks about the water situation in South Africa and the high rates of pollution.  Like most clubs there are always a couple of foolhardy members who swim every day of the year and they immediately decided to take the Jukskei of the list in future.  I'm not sure I agree because the huge amount of detergent means that you don't have to bath for a month after a quick dip...just don't open your mouth.
The whole object of the talk was to sell us tablets to feed the loo....and presumably to try to get Rotary to sell tablets on their behalf.  Apparently these purifying tablets are made in the USA.  I did rather wonder what the profit margin is.

The meeting was brightened by two more artists from our Arts Festival, Claire Weston and Helen Wallace Day.

Helen focuses on life in Africa in acrylic or oils and has received a number of commissions for her work from both private and corporate clients.  She also works in interior design.

Claire is a graduate of the Foundation School of Art and has decided to become a full-time artist.  She's the one on the right.

My Rotary
A couple more people have registered, maybe enough to ensure a Presidential Citation this year.  It's just over half the club now.  We must all be on by next Rotary Year.....in 6 weeks time.  There are still Board Members who have not registered.  Please react quickly because I will list the names at some point.  There is no excuse not to register.

ROTARACT OUTSTANDING PROJECT AWARD RECOGNIZES INNOVATIVE PROGRAMS

Members of the Rotaract Club of Bugolobi, Uganda, participate in their annual 1000 Smiles project, which has been recognized as the 2016 Rotaract Outstanding Project Award winner.

Photo Credit: Photo courtesy of the Rotaract Club of Bugolobi

Though they were a long way from home, members of the Rotaract Club of Bugolobi, Uganda, felt confident they could tackle problems in rural Kanabulemu during their annual 1000 Smiles project.

Their original plan focused on curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS. It's in the Rakai District, where the first case of AIDS in Uganda was uncovered in 1982 and about 12 percent of the population has been infected with HIV in recent years. But the Rotaractors discovered that problems in the village extended far beyond the disease.

"The community lacked water, the school was in a sorry state, and the medical center was in an even sorrier state, especially the maternity ward," says Anitah Munkudane, president of the Bugolobi club. "The condition was worse than we had imagined."

The Rotaractors still weren't prepared for what they found when they launched the project with the Uganda Health Marketing Group. They expected to treat 700 at the medical camp in Kanabulemu. More than 1,000 patients came.

Volunteers, including Rotaractors from other clubs and members of the club's sponsor, the Rotary Club of Bugolobi, provided comprehensive medical exams, dental screenings, medication, birth control, and more. And the troubled maternity ward? It got new mattresses to make childbirth more comfortable.

They presented benches and desks to the Keyebe Primary School and school supplies and uniforms to its pupils, many of whom are orphans. The team also helped install a borehole to bring much-needed water to the village.

For all of its exemplary work on the 1000 Smiles Kanabulemu Edition project, the Rotaract Club of Bugolobi was named the International Winner of the Rotaract Outstanding Project Award. Members will be honored at the Korea convention in June and will receive $500 to apply to a future project. The club will use it to help women suffering from fistula, says Munkudane.

REGIONAL WINNERS

Rotaract Outstanding Project Awards recognized other clubs for projects -- one in each of six regions and an international multidistrict project -- for their excellent humanitarian work.

International multidistrict project: Twelve Rotaract clubs from five districts in Turkey and Russia for the Just Like You With an (+1) Extra! project. Members collaborated with the Down Syndrome Association to organize training for children and adults with Down syndrome. Participants learned how to apply effective communication and cooperation strategies to improve their daily lives and hone job skills.

Asia Pacific: The Rotaract Club of Metro Cebu-CIT Chapter in the Philippines for Project WASHEd-UP, which transformed the lives of kids at Tagatay Elementary School in a remote area in the Philippines. Club members constructed a tank to safely store rainwater, taught the importance of hygiene and sanitation, and treated students who had skin infections and intestinal parasites.

South Asia: The Rotaract Club of The Caduceus in Maharashtra, India, for the Jana Swasthya Project. Members established a digital disease surveillance system to study epidemiological trends. Harnessing the power of mobile technology, they replaced a paper data-tracking system, allowing government officials and experts to access live data with a few clicks.

Europe, Middle East, Central Asia: The Rotaract Club of Istanbul-Dolmabahçe in Turkey for Still Child! Rotaractors organized conferences in rural areas, where local experts, psychologists, and doctors educated residents about how underage girls who are married are, statistically, undereducated and prone to medical and psychological problems.

Sub-Saharan Africa: The Rotaract Club of Lagune de Cotonou in Benin for Notre Bibliotheque. Rotaractors and Rotary members converted an abandoned building into a library for the nearly 400 children who attend Zogbadjè Primary Public School. Not only did Rotaractors design, fundraise, and implement construction plans, they stocked the new library with more than 500 books.

Latin America: The Rotaract Club of Nova Geração Itabaiana in Brazil for Projeto Sergipe. Rotaractors enrolled 100 students in literacy and professional development courses. The club developed a network of community partners and volunteers that donated meeting space for classes and lectures, developed training based on volunteers' professional expertise, and distributed educational materials and resources to students.

United States, Canada, and Caribbean: The Rotaract Club of Birmingham, Alabama, USA, for Ready 2 Succeed. The project  matches high school juniors and seniors with Rotaract mentors to better prepare students for college. Over 75 percent of the program's participants, many first-generation college students, have enrolled in college programs.

District Assembly, Artists, Derek Fox, the Arts Festival Roster and Rotary meets Pope Francis

District Assembly Saturday 21st May
Please let me know if you are attending and I will forward the booking.  We must have a reasonable turn out and if we can fill at least one car that would be great.  I don't want to be the lone Rosebank representative.

Last Week

Ginny McKechnie and Ilse-Marie Briel.

It was no show for our guest speaker, I'm afraid but we did have two of our Rotary Artists present.

Ginny McKechnie

I am a self taught South African artist.

My work covers a range of subjects including abstract, cubist, figures, portraits and flowers to name but a few.

I was born in Pretoria and grew up on a farm in Bapsfontein. After school went I went to The American College of Fashion and Interior Design in Lucerne, Switzerland. I completed courses in Art, Advertising and Retailing and Textiles.

After getting married and having children I opened a clothing boutique in Rosebank, Johannesburg, called ‘Minx Boutique’. The clothing industry only appealed to me for two years, I thereafter became terribly bored and decided to follow my passion – Art.

I mainly do commissioned work and am currently very interested in portraiture. I like all genres of Art but enjoy modern contemporary work the most.

Ilse-Marie Briel

Unfortunately I don't have so much information on Ilse-Marie except that she is originally from Namibia and is married Ds Stephan Briel of the Bergbron Gereformeerde Gemeente on the West Rand.  Instead here is a picture of her with a purchaser of this painting!

This Week

Our speaker is Derek Fox, Past President of the Rotary Club of Boksburg Lake.  He is pictured here with his daughter, Nicola who was Rotoract President at the time and PDG Annie Steyn.  Derek made the rejuvenation of Boksburg Lake one of his priorities when president.  He serves on the board of the Greater Boksburg Chamber of Commerce.

He will be talking to us about Water & Sanitation which are one of the key points of interest for Rotary International.

Rotary Arts Festival Roster

Lenore Terreblanche keeps us up to date with the roster and there are lots of gaps to be filled in.  Mark Franklin has appealed to each Rotarian to be prepared to do four shifts.  Please make sure that the roster is filled up.

POPE WELCOMES ROTARY TO JUBILEE AUDIENCE

Pope Francis greets Rotary International President K.R. Ravindran at a Jubilee audience at the Vatican on 30 April, where 9,000 Rotary members were special guests of the pontiff.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Vatican

Thousands of Rotary members, motivated by a special invitation from Pope Francis, gathered at the Vatican in Rome on Saturday to celebrate a message of compassion, inclusiveness, and service to humanity.

At midmorning, the group -- numbering some 9,000 members from 80 countries -- made its way through the congested streets of Rome, past the tight security surrounding St. Peter's Square, and settled into the area reserved for Rotary in front of St. Peter's Basilica for the Jubilee audience.

Francis, a 79-year-old Argentine, urged the crowd of more than 100,000, which included members of the police and armed forces from around the world, "to build a culture of peace, security, and solidarity around the world."

His message of peace resonated with Rotary members, including R. Asokan from Tamil Nadu, India. "His message about peace is about accepting. Rotary, which accepts all walks of life, can carry his message to all our clubs, therefore carrying his message to all our communities," says Asokan.

Though Francis is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, his words often reach a wider audience. A poll published earlier this year found him to be one of the most liked and trusted world leaders.

That's what made this event at the Vatican so appealing, says Adriana Lanting, who traveled from California, USA, to attend. "To have such a transcending figure together with a transcending organization like Rotary in the same place is something I just couldn't miss," says Lanting, a member of the Rotary Club of Long Beach.

Madrid Zimmerman, another Long Beach member, isn't Catholic but says Francis has a knack for touching people's hearts regardless of where they're from. "Rotary has the same effect," she adds. "We may have different ways of expressing it, but our [Rotary] action in helping others comes from the same place.

"This event is a reminder that we only have one goal and that's to give service to those who need it. I think that's the message I want to bring back to my club," Zimmerman says.

After the Jubilee audience, Francis met with a small delegation of Rotary members led by RI President K.R. Ravindran. The pope spoke to Ravindran about the importance of vaccinating children against polio and encouraged Rotary to continue its efforts against this disease.

"I have been honored and deeply touched to have had the opportunity to meet Pope Francis earlier today, and to have heard him tell us to continue our fight toward polio eradication," says Ravindran, who is Hindu. "It has given me even more pride in Rotary's past, even more faith in its present, and even more optimism about its future, than ever before."

MITIGATING THE MIGRANT CRISIS

On Friday, Rotary hosted a panel discussion in Rome to highlight efforts to alleviate the plight of refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. More than 60 million people, including 11 million Syrians, have been displaced by war and violence over the last four years. Such extensive displacement has not been seen since World War II.

In the discussion, moderated by Vatican Radio, experts from the World Food Programme, the Jesuit Refugee Service, and UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) talked about ways to help migrants start over in their new countries.

Rotary General Secretary John Hewko, speaking on the panel, pointed to several initiatives Rotary clubs have undertaken to integrate refugees into society, including computer coding schools and a vocational training project in Rimini, Italy.

"The plight of today's refugees is really a litmus test for today's compassion," Hewko said.

He encouraged audience members and panelists to use their connections to provide the resources and funding needed to address the humanitarian crisis.

After the panel discussion, Bonaventure Fohtung, a member of the Rotary Club of Upper Blue Mountains Sunrise in New South Wales, Australia, said that Rotary and the pope have the same agenda when it comes to helping migrants. Recently Francis took 12 Syrian migrants, three families including six children, back with him to the Vatican after visiting a camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. 

"We need to go home from this event and set an example. Each club should do something. Just one thing to help these refugees can make a remarkable difference," he added.

The two-day Rotary event in Rome, tied to the Vatican's Jubilee of Mercy and dubbed the Jubilee of Rotarians by organizers from District 2080 (Italy), also included benefit concerts and three fundraising dinners for polio eradication.

Social, Eva-Lotta Jansson...My Rotary Again and Rotary & Refugees.

Last Week

It was a Social Meeting.  Just as well we didn't have a guest speaker as Wanderers seemed to be fully booked with every function room full.  We were in a room off the bar opposite the pizza oven with another group of people for company.  It did mean that we just ordered from the bar menu which provided more variety but a formal meeting would have been impossible.  We had an entertaining time with many jokes and a jolly atmosphere.   We should do this sort of thing on a regular basis.

This Week: Eva-Lotta Jansson 

Eva-Lotta has a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism and a post-graduate degree in photojournalism from the London College of Printing. She currently is a freelance photojournalist based in Johannesburg. 

She works with media and NGOs, often travelling to neighbouring African countries. She often produces multimedia packages, inclusive of writing  articles, shooting and editing videos.  Eva-Lotta is also a guest lecturer in photojournalism at the University of Pretoria, and enjoys doing community photo workshops with younger students as well.

She is particularly interested in environmental and feminist issues and how these and similar issues should be prioritised within a democracy.  I have a feeling she will talk about the acid water issue.

My Rotary Registration

Nicole Nsegbene was ill last week and given the circumstances of the meeting she would have been unable to help members with registration anyway.  I'm sure she will take up her laptop this week and register people.  Please remember to do this, it's important.

CRISIS AT THE DOORSTEP

Muhammad Mallah Hamza (left) with Rotarian Andreas von Bardeau outside Bardeau's castle, Schloss Kornberg.

Photo Credit: Mark Baker

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From the May 2016 issue of The Rotarian

More than a million refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan streamed into the European Union last year. Most entered via Greece after a harrowing raft trip across the Aegean Sea from Turkey. Once there, they made their way north, often on foot, traveling more than 1,000 miles through the rugged mountains of the Balkan countries toward Germany.

That was the uncertain odyssey facing Muhammad Mallah Hamza, a 26-year-old ethnic Kurd, in late 2014 when he decided to leave his native Syria. The trip would lead the recent college graduate to a picturesque Austrian village – and into the arms of a local Rotary club that would allow him to begin a new life while helping others in his situation.

***

I meet with Mallah Hamza in a cafe in his new hometown of Feldbach in the southeastern Austrian state of Styria. The town of 5,000 people, best-known for producing white wine and pumpkinseed oil, is far removed from the chaos of the Middle East. It’s the kind of place where schools and churches are well-scrubbed and bank branches and drugstores are shiny, and where the loudest sounds on the streets are bicycle bells. It’s now home to around 150 refugees.

Mallah Hamza is, as they say in Austria, sympathisch – that is, immediately likable, with a calm demeanor and an easy smile that disappears only when he speaks about the situation he left in Syria. As a recent graduate of Damascus University with a degree in English literature, he explains, he was about to lose his exemption from serving in the army of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and being forced to fight the array of rebel groups, including Islamic State (ISIS), that are opposed to Assad’s rule. “I did not want to die fighting ISIS,” he says.

Mallah Hamza’s perilous two-month journey from Syria to Styria was routine for refugees making their way from the Middle East to the relative safety of Europe. He first crossed the Syrian border into Turkey, where human traffickers arranged passage on a 9-foot-long rubber raft bound for Greece. The tiny vessel held seven others and was barely fit for the crossing. “It rained so hard that night,” Mallah Hamza says, describing the passage. “It was horrible.”

Once in Greece, Mallah Hamza surrendered to police and was placed in temporary detention to begin the process of requesting asylum. Here, he says, he learned that many – perhaps even most – people in Europe do not want the refugees. “The police treated us like animals,” he says. “For three days, they did not give us food or water. They wore masks and touched us with gloves as if we carried disease.”

From Greece, Mallah Hamza set out on a tortuous, nerve-wracking journey north. It began with a two-week trek through the woods to the Albanian frontier, where he and a fellow refugee befriended a border guard who hid them in an apartment in the capital, Tirana. From Albania, more furtive border crossings by night and plenty of bribes paid to police and hotel receptionists took them through Montenegro, Serbia, Hungary, and finally Austria, where they wound up at the Traiskirchen refugee camp, 20 miles south of Vienna. In Traiskirchen, Mallah Hamza lodged a formal application for Austrian asylum and was reassigned to a shelter in the village of Edelsbach, not far from Feldbach.

The final stop of Mallah Hamza’s journey proved particularly fateful, both for him and for the Rotary Club of Feldbach. On his first morning at the shelter, he wandered into Edelsbach to get some bread and found himself face to face with 69-year-old baker Fritz Hummel. The rapport between the two men was immediate, and they struck up a close friendship. “Fritz Hummel treated me like a son,” Mallah Hamza says. Hummel is just as affectionate: “He’s a great kid,” he says.

Hummel describes himself as “not your typical Rotary guy.” Most of the 48 members of the Feldbach club are doctors or other professionals. Hummel, a Rotarian for more than 20 years, works in a bakery that was founded by his father in 1953 and is now run by his son. He’s a big man with an obvious appetite for bread and pastry, but with perhaps an even bigger heart. “I traveled to Syria 40 years ago and I was treated very well there,” Hummel says. “Rotary means helping people, and that’s what I wanted to do.”

Before the refugee crisis, Feldbach Rotarians were best-known for sponsoring the town’s annual Christmas concert and raising scholarship money for local students, but the connection between Mallah Hamza and Hummel led the club to become more deeply involved in solving Austria’s most pressing problem in years. The centerpiece of that effort is a program to collect donations of money and household items to help the refugees adjust. “We give them clothes, food, computers, and televisions, as well as used bicycles,” Hummel says. “We also help them to meet with doctors and lawyers from the club.”

***

The sheer number of refugees – as many as 6,000 a day entering the European Union late last year – has spurred a powerful backlash in Austria against the EU’s largely open-door refugee policy. Opinion polls show that Austrians are deeply divided on the issue of accepting the refugees. A survey by researcher GfK-Austria in October revealed that 49 percent of Austrians want the inflow slowed or halted through tougher border controls.

Given the amount of apprehension and fear, the Feldbach club’s role extends beyond providing material goods and services to trying to inform the general population, according to Rotarian Manfred Krasnitzer. “Rotary members are the town’s opinion-makers,” he says. “When people here have a more realistic idea of what is happening, they can correct their impressions.”

In sketching out a role for the Feldbach club, Krasnitzer says members need to start thinking further ahead. “This means, first of all, helping the refugees to learn German,” he says. “Then we need to identify skills within the refugee population and to help them to make contacts so that they can find meaningful work.”

The desire to demonstrate ways to help the new arrivals sparked an ambitious plan to provide temporary housing in a former hunting lodge on the grounds of a Renaissance chateau near Feldbach. Schloss Kornberg is the family estate of Andreas von Bardeau, a count and a member of the Feldbach Rotary Club. (His wife, Anna, is a great-granddaughter of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburg throne whose assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 set off World War I.)

Bardeau is an affable man in his 50s with a no-nonsense business attitude softened by a dose of aristocratic charm. “I was brought up in a house where we were taught to think ‘European’ and ‘international,’” he says. “I wanted to show people here that the situation is calm.” The Kornberg hunting lodge has a long history of welcoming refugees: The building housed displaced persons for several years after both world wars.

Through his connection to the Feldbach club and his friendship with Hummel, Bardeau got to know Mallah Hamza and eventually hired him to live in and manage the shelter, which opened in November. Mallah Hamza’s ties to Rotary have also helped him obtain a long-term residence permit and a driver’s license, both of which are crucial documents as he starts a new life.

The Rotary club’s actions may have inspired other local groups to do more to reach out to refugees. Back in Feldbach proper, a local high school has started classes for school-age refugees who would not otherwise have access to Austrian schools. While the Feldbach club is not directly involved in the venture, everyone knows and influences one another in a small town like this. Edith Kohlmeier, the school’s cheerful, busy director, provided an hour of her morning to talk about the difficulties facing schools around the country as they cope with an influx of refugee children.

Under Austrian law, pupils must have some type of legal standing to attend classes. With thousands of refugees – including many children without parents – in legal limbo, the law has created an enormous gap in the support network. Kohlmeier’s school had recently undergone an extensive renovation that left a free classroom to teach school-age refugees.

Some 20 high school students who came to Europe without their parents attend classes taught by volunteers from Caritas Austria, a Roman Catholic charity that has been assisting refugees since World War I. “We give the children some structure in their day,” Kohlmeier says. Most of the kids are picking up German pretty quickly, she says, but the bigger problems are the differences among the refugee populations, including the pupils’ varying levels of education. “Many of the Syrian students have had years of secondary education, while refugees from Afghanistan may have never set foot in a school before in their lives,” she says.

***

On the last day of my visit, I meet the first refugee families arriving at Schloss Kornberg, one from Syria and the other from Afghanistan. The lodge has been meticulously fitted out with the latest in kitchen appliances, washing machines, beds, and other furnishings and can house up to eight families. Bardeau paid the initial costs out of pocket, but he will eventually be reimbursed by the state, depending on the number of refugees and length of their stay.

The newcomers beam as they glimpse their new home and its grand setting. Mallah Hamza beams back at them as he shows them where to leave their things and leads them to the kitchen where they will prepare their first meal.

Mark Baker is a freelance journalist and travel writer based in Prague. He writes frequently on travel, politics, and social issues for publications and news organizations including National Geographic Traveler, the BBC, Foreign Policy, and Lonely Planet.

Social Meeting, the Debbie & Amanda Show for Bophelo & My Rotary

This Week


It's a Social Meeting.  This is simply because we never seem to have time to chat at meetings.  Maybe we should try to move around a bit as well!

Some people don't think grammar is important

Last Week

Last week seems like a month!  I think it probably seems longer than that for Debbie Hodge and Amanda Ferris as they were slaving away at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital training people in non-religious Spiritual Care for the dying and their families as part of our Rotary Palliative Care Pilot Project in the Renal Unit.

Amanda Ferris making points whilst Debbie Hodge waits in the wings.

The training certainly had its ups and downs at the beginning but everything came right in the end.  I think it really was hard work for them and in many ways they learnt as much as they gave of their expertise.

Last Friday they gave a report on the week to the Rotary Committee under James Croswell that is coordinating the project as a whole.  This was followed by our normal Rotary lunch with the District Governor, David Grant and assorted PDG's present as well as Dr Charmaine Blanchard  and Dr Mpho  Ratshikana-Mlopo from Wits Health.  See how many you can spot!

I was extremely sceptical about this aspect of the project but having heard the feedback from not only Debbie and Amanda but also from Mpho who I think shared my cynicism, I feel it was worthwhile.

We were able to entertain Debbie and Amanda on Tuesday and Thursday evening last week...or did they entertain us?  I'm not sure.  Anyway we enjoyed each other's company and drank a lot of wine.

Sunday saw a social bring and braai at Kevin and Liz Wolhuter's home in Kyalami.  The weather behaved beautifully and thanks to Kevin and Liz's generous hospitality it proved a fitting send off for Debbie and Amanda and great social time for all of us.

And the name of the project?  It was decided that the course participants at Chris Hani Baragwanath should

 decide on a suitable name.  

It was announced at the Friday meeting but Charlotte Croswell cemented it in our minds and bodies with a cake on Sunday, duly cut by Debbie Hodge herself.  'Life'is a very appropriate name for the project.

"My Rotary" Registration

I have a list of members, including two Board Members, who have not yet signed up for My Rotary.  Nicole Nsegbeni will be available at Friday's meeting to sign in for you, it will only take a minute. We know who you are and she is also Sergeant....beware.

Here is an example of a project advertising in My Rotary:

• Overview
• Contributors
• Share this Project
• Personal Fundraising Pages

Home Repair for Community Hygienic Development

Community area District 3350 Thailand

01 August 2016

Project Description

To increase quality of life of vulnerable people who have no chance to live in better place. Home Repair for Community and Hygienic Development project will fulfill their needs

This will be the first pilot project that we consider for the first 30 House holds need. We have coordinate with local district administration to support and verify the requirement.And Rotary Club in the district will take responsibility for overseeing and maintaining this project with district administration. In case of contributions goal are not met in full, We will have support from construction materials sector.

However we really need the international partner to join our project as we will apply to the Global Grant. 

Spiritual Care Training, Art, RLI and the Council on Legislation

This Week

It's the report back on the training that Debbie Hodge and Amanda Ferris are giving at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital as the spiritual care component of the Palliative Care Project.  There will be much more about this next week.  We are expecting a plethora of visitors from District including DG David Grant.




Last Week
It was a Business Meeting with Debbie Hodge and Amanda Ferris straight off the plane from London.  They survived remarkably well.

A cultural note was added to the meeting by the presence of two more artists who exhibit at our Art Festival, Angela Eidelman and Wendy Baumgarten.

Angela works in watercolour, oil and acrylic. She was the honorary president of the South African Watercolour Society and has painted with such artists as Titta Fasciotti, Errol Boyley and Frans Claerhout. Her work can be found in many corporate and private collections and she has received many prestigious international awards.

I interviewed Wendy many years ago when she was madly in love with Jersey cows and made a completely natural yogurt which was on sale in Johannesburg....apparently she sold the business and now concentrates on her painting.  Something to do with not having to get up early in the morning, I would imagine.

Rotary Leadership Institute Course in Vanderbijlpark.

Mike, Nicole, Peter & Lenore

Lenore Terreblanche and Nicole Bilap-Nsegbe completed Part 1, Mike Lamb, Part 2...apparently Mike is a trustee of RLI and did the very first Part 1 course and has never been back since.  

Sunday

It was such a lovely day so Jean & I took Debbie Hodge and Amanda Ferris to Jan Smuts' House in Irene where we had lunch and then on to the Union Buildings.  It was a great day and we had a lot of fun.  After tea chez nous we took them to where they were staying in Melville just in time for their dinner at 7:00pm.





Don't Forget the Anns' request for donations of wine etc as prizes for their Bridge Drive 18th May.  Bring a bottle and give to Les Short at Rotary. 


Induction Dinner
Traditionally we have our Induction Dinner on the last Friday in June...the 24th.
Please make a note of it in your diaries.  More details will follow.

Don't forget to register on My Rotary...go to www.rotary.org

The Article below was in My Rotary.

COUNCIL GRANTS CLUBS GREATER FLEXIBILITY IN MEETING, MEMBERSHIP

Council member Dominque Dubois holds up a green card to indicate support of a motion while Sandeep Nurang ponders his response during the 2016 Council on Legislation.

Photo Credit: Monika Lozinska.

The 2016 Council on Legislation may well be remembered as one of the most progressive in Rotary history.

Not only did this Council grant clubs more freedom in determining their meeting schedule and membership, it also approved an increase in per capita dues of $4 a year for three years. The increase will be used to enhance Rotary’s website, improve online tools, and add programs and services to help clubs increase membership.

The Council is an essential element of Rotary’s governance. Every three years, members from around the world gather in Chicago to consider proposed changes to the policies that govern the organization and its member clubs. Measures that are adopted take effect 1 July.

The tone for this year was set early, when the RI Board put forth two proposals that increase flexibility. The first measure allows clubs to decide to vary their meeting times, whether to meet online or in person, and when to cancel a meeting, as long as they meet at least twice a month. The second allows clubs flexibility in choosing their membership rules and requirements. Both passed.

Representatives also approved removing six membership criteria from the RI Constitution and replacing them with a simple requirement that a member be a person of good character who has a good reputation in their business or community and is willing to serve the community.

The $4 per year dues increase was based on a five-year financial forecast that predicted that if Rotary didn’t either raise dues or make drastic cuts, its reserves would dip below mandated levels by 2020. The yearly per capita dues that clubs pay to RI will be $60 in 2017-18, $64 in 2018-19, and $68 in 2019-20. The next council will establish the rate after that.

“We are at a moment in time when we must think beyond the status quo,” said RI Vice President Greg E. Podd. “We must think about our future.”

Podd said the dues increase will allow RI to improve My Rotary, develop resources so clubs can offer a better membership experience, simplify club and district reporting, improve website access for Rotaractors, and update systems to keep Rotary in compliance with changing global regulations.

Also because of this Council’s decisions:

• A Council on Resolutions will meet annually online to consider resolutions — recommendations to the RI Board. Council members will be selected for three-year terms. They’ll participate in the Council on Resolution for three years and the Council on Legislation in their final year only. The Council on Resolutions will free the Council on Legislation to concentrate on enactments — changes to Rotary’s governing documents. Proponents predict that the Council on Legislation can then be shortened by a day, saving $300,000.

• Rotaractors will be allowed to become members of Rotary clubs while they are still in Rotaract. Proponents argued that too few Rotaractors (around 5 percent) join Rotary. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want to leave their Rotaract clubs before they have to, upon reaching age 30. It’s hoped that giving them more options will boost the numbers of qualified young leaders in Rotary.

• The distinction between e-clubs and traditional clubs will be eliminated. The council recognized that clubs have been meeting in a number of ways, and given this flexibility, the distinction was no longer meaningful. Clubs that have “e-club” in their names can keep it, however.

• The reference to admission fees will be removed from the bylaws. Proponents argued that the mention of admission fees does not advance a modern image of Rotary.

• A standing committee on membership was established, in recognition that membership is a top priority of the organization, and polio eradication was also reaffirmed to be a goal of the highest order.