Discon Feedback, and how Rotary helps Refugees...there are a lot in South Africa!

Last Week
A large club compliment was at Discon, the Annual Rotary Conference in the Kruger National Park and those of us who didn't go had an enjoyable lunch in the Chariots Bar at Wanderers Club.  Nothing to report there as we just had a nice time.
Whilst writing this the Discon contingent are driving back so there is nothing to report on that either.  Let's have some music instead.

This Week

It's a Business Meeting which probably means that it is a report back on Discon and no doubt there will be something about the Arts Festival. It's only a week to go for Jean Bernardo's Induction as President at the Bryanston Country Club so make sure that you have booked!

Diversity in Rotary is important and here is an attempt to educate Rotarians in one aspect of it.

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The statistics are staggering. More than 28,000 people are uprooted from their homes each day as a result of war, oppression, and poverty. That’s nearly 20 people per minute.

The Rotaract Club of Nakivale, Uganda, helps provide refugees with sugar, soap, and clothes. 

 By the end of 2016, an unprecedented 65.6 million people, from West Africa to South Asia, have been forcibly displaced, making it the world’s worst migrant crisis in history. 

The wave of migrants and refugees has overwhelmed the international community, putting a particular strain on neighboring countries and Europe. Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees with nearly 3 million. Pakistan is second. Germany is the only high-income country in the top ten host nations, with about 700,000 refugees and asylum-seekers. 

The seven-year war in Syria has been the been the biggest driver of the refugee crisis, with millions fleeing the country since the conflict began in 2011.

A shockingly high percent of the world’s displaced are children. More than half the refugees are under age 18. 

Rotary clubs are doing their part to help alleviate the global refugee crisis with projects that help bring water and health care to refugee camps, funds for families to move to safer countries, and more. Over the last several years, clubs and districts have used roughly $3 million of global grant funds toward refugee-related projects. 

On World Refugee Day, held every year on 20 June, people worldwide salute the strength, courage, and contributions of refugees who abandon their homes in a desperate search for safety. 

Here’s a sample of how Rotary members have changed the lives of thousands of refugees: 

• In Nova Scotia, Canada, the Rotary Club of Amherst brought two families from war-torn Syria to their country, where the refugees are starting a new life. The club galvanized other community groups to help the families assimilate with the town and culture. The Rotary Club of Merritt, British Columbia, also pooled resources to bring a family from Syria to Canada. 

• The Rotaract Club of Nakivale, Uganda, is raising funds to help residents of a huge refugee settlement start their own businesses. The club, based inside the settlement, also provided refugees with sugar, soap, and clothes. 

• Rotary member Pia Skarabis-Querfeld, a physician in Germany, built a network of volunteer doctors to help thousands of refugees that have streamed into Berlin, Germany. In 2015, during the peak of the refugee influx into Germany, her nonprofit, Medizin Hilft, had more than 100 volunteers at its clinic. Her club, the Rotary Club of Berlin-Teirgarten, sponsored a Rotary global grant of $160,000 to fund the project through March 2018. Also in Germany, the Rotary Club of Lemgo-Sternberg, provided resources to train 60 volunteers to teach German to about 600 refugees. 

• Rotary Districts 2452 in Lebanon and 6560 in Indiana, USA, helped provide lifesaving heart surgeries for 32 Lebanese children and 10 Syrian refugee children. The district used a $185,000 global grant to fund the procedures. 

• The Rotary Club of Kigali-Virunga, Rwanda, collaborated with members from the Rotary Club of Dortmund, Germany, to provide wells to a refugee camp in Gahara Sector, Rwanda.

• Rotary members in Seoul, Korea, and Taipei, Taiwan, are using an $89,000 global grant to provide ear, nose, and throat diagnostic equipment for the Raphael Clinic in Seoul to treat North Korean refugees. 

Melodene Stonestreet, a Chariot Ride and Rotary at the Commonwealth Games on Australia's Gold Coast.

Last Week

Pam Donaldson had to go to a funeral so we still know little about her but Melodene Stonestreet stepped into the breech and told us lots of funny stories about herself as a medical student and subsequently studying physiotherapy.  I don't think she ever did any work at university.
We ha such a good laugh at her study career that we never heard about work or Rotary so I suppose we will have to have Part 2 at some stage.

Despite our depleted numbers owing to the Arts Festival we had three visitors.
Visiting Rotarians Shatu Garba and Rosinnah Dlamini from the Rotary Club of Greenwich in England as well as Zimbabwean Simbah Mutasa who is working in Johannesburg.

Simbah Mutasa

Rtns Rosinnah Dlamini & Shatu Garba

Our thanks to all who did such sterling work at the Rotary Arts Festival.  It's all over now and despite everyone pulling their weight most of the burden rested upon the shoulders of Jean Bernardo and Joan Sainsbury.  As helpers we haven't had to cope with the frustrations, disappointments and physical tiredness resulting from the huge number of hours that they have put in.  We mustn't forget the artists who provided workshops and the Rotary Anns who coordinated the food for the launch and stepped into the breach where necessary.  Finally the members of the Arts Festival Committee without whom many things that are unseen would just not have happened.

This Week
A mighty contingent from our club is off to Discon in the Kruger National Park.  God speed and don't be eaten by anything larger than a mosquito...and look out for them too.

Those of us who are left holding the fort will have a social meeting in Chariots at Wanderers.  It will be at the usual time and we will eat off the menu.  These social meetings are a pleasant interlude so do come along.  Also keep a lookout for anyone trying to visit us.....I will mention it to reception when I arrive.

Make sure that you have booked with Les Short for the Induction Dinner at Bryanston Country Club on the 29th June!  Then there will be a whole new Rotary Year before us with Jean Bernardo at the helm.

ROTARIANS KEEP THE VILLAGE MOVING

Rotarians from District 9640 and beyond capitalised on the XXI Commonwealth Games to build Rotary’s public profile and raise over $200,000 through taking up housekeeping services at the Games Village. 
A total of 180 housekeeping attendants were mustered from the Rotary clubs of CurrumbinCoolangatta-Tweed, Gold Coast, Parkwood, Runaway Bay, Surfers Sunrise, Summerland Sunrise, Warwick Sunrise, Toowoomba North and Sunnybank Hills. Volunteers from several charity and church groups also came on board, to form 22 teams comprised of five members in each.
 Church groups from the Pacific Islander communities of Brisbane and the Gold Coast provided a large number of the volunteers. All were required to undertake rigorous accreditation and training beforehand, as many had no prior experience whatsoever in the hospitality sector. 
Finding people available was a challenge in itself, as many were committed elsewhere or scheduled to be away from the Coast. However, all was achieved within less than three months from the opportunity presenting itself to the opening ceremony, due to the determination and hard work of those involved in recruiting, management and administration. PDG John Wigley and Bill Dagg, who had assisted with a similar effort at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, flew up to support the effort. 
Recent Gold Coast City Councillor Margaret Grummitt acted as District 9640 Commonwealth Games Coordinator. When the Games launched, Rotarians were hard at work behind the scenes for a gruelling, but rewarding effort.
 “I stripped bed linen the first couple of days,” Darrell Brown said. “Other days I made beds non-stop, or made up linen packs. Day 10, I was a toilet and bathroom cleaner. Everyone would do their housekeeping shifts and go back to their normal jobs, working late into the night. We pulled together with great camaraderie. The atmosphere in the village was electric – it really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.” 
At the end of the Games, Paul Lovett, CEO of Incognitus, the housekeeping company that oversaw operations, presented a cheque for $222,720 to assistant governor David Baguley, who coordinated the volunteer workforce. 
“Paul praised the team and commented that we were the best housekeepers he had ever had,” Darrell said.
 The hard-earned funds will be split between a variety of worthy causes, including, but not limited to: • Providing crisis care and support to families of patients in intensive care at Gold Coast University Hospital; 
• The Rotary Club of Surfers Sunrise’s project making wheelchairs for children in undeveloped countries out of discarded bicycles; 
• Australian Rotary Health PhD Scholarships in mental illness; 
• The Rotary-backed Malaria Vaccine Project, developed at the Gold Coast’s Griffith University. 

James Croswell, Rotary Arts Festival, Pam Donaldson and Voz Box..We could use it in South Africa.

Last Week
A surprising number of Rotarians present despite some being on duty at the Rotary Arts Festival.
James Croswell gave us an interesting talk about himself.  He really made me think of the luck of youth probably because we were innocent of the consequences or just took more risks.
His visit to Morocco on the spur of the moments on a South African passport sans visa really took the cake and how he managed to get out of the country "Thanks to a girl I met at Club Med..." who chatted up the official at the airport in Marrakesh so that he could just pick up his passport and jump on the plane is typical.

Thank James for such an interesting talk.  You have also done some amazing civil engineering projects but we forgot those!

We also had a couple of visitors who had attended the Arts Festival and decided to come and see what we got up to.  Alice Yang and Mike Maclachlan.

We look forward to seeing them again.








The Rotary Arts Festival Official Opening had taken place the evening before at Rosebank Mall and I have just under 150 photos of the event, many of them pictures of pictures.
I will sift through them in due course and send them to the individuals I recognise!

Because the exhibition is spread over two floors and quite spread out it was difficult to see how many were there.

President Lyn Collocott addresses us at the opening

Jean Bernardo and Joan Sainsbury.  The two Rotarians who have worked very hard at putting the exhibition together.  Jean as chairman of the Arts Festival Committee and Joan organising the artists.
The late change of venue was a huge problem for them and they miraculously pulled it off.

Thembi Ndlovu busy processing a sale

This Week
Pam Donaldson will be the next in our Rotarian chat series.
She is very elusive and I couldn't find a photograph of her anywhere so you will have to put up with Korky the Cat limbering up for the World Cup instead. instead.

We will rectify the omission this Friday.

As a Rotary Youth Exchange student in Ecuador seven years ago, Mary Elizabeth McCulloch volunteered at an orphanage that was home to both adults and children with disabilities. 

She noticed that those who had trouble speaking – mainly because of cerebral palsy – were seated alone by the windows, and for the most part no one communicated with them. 

Today, at age 26, McCulloch is founder and CEO of ProjectVive, a social enterprise company that has developed a low-cost device called the Voz Box, which allows people who have difficulty speaking to express themselves. The product launches this year in the United States and Ecuador.

Q: What did your experience in the orphanage inspire you to do?

A: After I returned to the United States and started at Penn State (graduating in 2016 with a degree in biomedical engineering), I began working on a low-cost speech generation device that would work in low-income and resource-constrained settings. I worked on it all through college, on evenings and weekends. Along the way, people joined my team, ProjectVive, to develop the Voz Box.

Q: How does the technology work? 

A: Our technology is for people with low motor control, who can’t tap a finger on an iPad or keyboard. We have different interfaces: a glove that works when someone flexes a finger; a watch that senses motion so the wearer can raise their arm to click; or glasses that detect blinking. These work with an application called CoughDrop AAC, which has grids of letters, words, and icons the user “points to” with the interface devices. Our devices can also control other applications, so the user can go to YouTube or Facebook, chat with friends, or look for jobs. 

Q: Who will this technology help?

A: Worldwide, there are 4.6 million people who can’t speak because of ALS or cerebral palsy. Too many people think that if they can’t contribute, it’s because they have nothing to contribute. But these disabilities aren’t reflections of cognitive ability or potential. We are empowering people with disabilities by giving them a voice and the ability to live out their life goals. 

Q: What would the world look like if people with disabilities had a bigger role? 

A: There are a lot of big societal problems facing the world today, and this is an untapped population of global problem solvers. Research shows that someone who has experienced adversity is more apt to make decisions to help others, to have empathy and sympathy. They are natural problem solvers. 

Q: When will the product be available?

A: The launches are in May in the United States and in June in Ecuador. We won’t be exporting from the United States; we are helping local people make and maintain the devices, and training users’ family members and caretakers to take care of them. And we’ll make sure the devices are in the users’ indigenous language, as well as Spanish and English. We are looking for our next pilot countries to launch ProjectVive and give more people with disabilities a voice. 

Rotary Arts Festival, James Croswell and an accolade for Polio Plus

Last Week

The Platter that Jean Bernardo specifically requested.

As we are about to enter the last Month of the Rotary Year 'Business' has dwindled on the one hand....on the other hand the Rotary Arts Festival opens this Thursday so there has been much handing out of platters for the opening and Jean Bernardo updated us on what is going on and what we have to do.

The important thing is that we all pull our weight and make this, our major fundraising event, a big success in the new venue.  Good Luck, Joan Sainsbury, Jean Bernardo and all on the committee.





This Week
James Croswell will be talking to us.  During the Arts Festival various long-standing members of the club will be chatting about themselves.  He's also an engineer....there are a lot of them about.

James is a specialist in land development and, with his 40 year background in township, resort and estate development, can assist with the entire life cycle of any development. Services include project identification, concept and preliminary design and cash flow production. James is a pioneer in gated communities and computer aided design and drawing. James has prepared and presented more than 40 technical papers on subjects ranging from township level of service to labour intensive construction.

James has overseen to development of approximately 1200 land conversion projects and thrives on sustainability and resilience planning and delivery.

Despite his expression in this picture he has been known to smile.

June was obviously a bad month for births, only Charlotte Croswell entered the world  and there were no weddings at all.  In desperation some people joined Rotary.



Rotary’s commitment to eradicating polio worldwide won Best Nonprofit Act in the Hero Awards of the One Billion Acts of Peace campaign, an international global citizens’ movement to tackle the world’s most important issues. 

A Rotary Vaccination Team imunises children at a railway station in Karachi, Pakistan

 Rotary vac Karachi, Pakistan. 

Khaula Jamil

Khaula Jamil The campaign is an

The campaign is a 

The campaign is an initiative of PeaceJam Foundation and is led by 14 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Rigoberta Menchú Tum, with the ambitious goal of inspiring a billion acts of peace by 2020. 

Each year, the campaign picks two finalists in each of six categories for their work to make a measurable impact in one of the 10 areas considered most important by the Nobel laureates. Winners are chosen by people from around the world. The campaign is an initiative of PeaceJam Foundation and is led by 14 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Rigoberta Menchú Tum, with the ambitious goal of inspiring a billion acts of peace by 2020. 

Rotary and Mercy Corps were the two finalists in the Best Nonprofit Act category. Rotary and the five other winners will be recognized at a ceremony on  June in Monaco. Betty Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for her advocacy for peace in Northern Ireland, will present the award. 

Brian Leech, a Business Meeting and a LobsterFest

Last Week
Brian Leech gave us talk about his early life and his career.  He is 89 and joined our club in 1977 having been a member for a short while in East London.  He gave the impression that he had drifted into Civil Engineering by accident and I was intrigued that he was responsible for Camps Bay High School as  the playing fields basically stick out of the lower slopes of the Twelve Apostles and Table Mountain Sandstone isn't the most stable foundation!
His exploits in the establishment of Lilongwe as capital of Malawi were also highly entertaining. 

Thank you, Brian, for such an entertaining talk.

As the Arts Festival is upon us the next few weeks will be taken up with members of longstanding chatting about themselves.  This was a very good idea of President Lyn's as new members always have to but newer members never really hear of the exploits of those who have been around for a while.

This Week
It's a Business Meeting but it's very much winding down time for the end of the Rotary Year so I am sure it will be more social than anything else.

Computer Problems
My laptop suddenly decided that it was going to slow down below a crawl and do all sorts of funny things.  I have always used Gmail linked with my domain on Outlook so that I can access my emails anywhere and always had my documents backed up in Dropbox.  If it wasn't for that you wouldn't e receiving The Ramble this week.

For many years, the Rotary Club of Grove met at a beloved greasy spoon 6 miles from the city center. Once a week Rotarians “could either have fried chicken or they could have fried chicken. Either-or,” jokes Ivan Devitt, a club past president and Grove’s vice mayor. In 2011, they decided it was time for a change. That move augured a boom time for the club.

“We bounced around three different places before finding the right venue,” a spacious church recreation center where meals are catered by local restaurateurs, says Don Wasson, a club member and past governor of District 6110. Around the same time, a member recommended the club put on a lobster fundraiser. Skeptics insisted that “people aren’t going to pay $60 to come to a lobster dinner,” says Devitt. “But as it turned out, they did” – in droves". 

That first year, more than 300 people showed up – twice as many as expected, says membership chair Jerry Ruzicka. The $35,000 in net proceeds – for a club that had an annual budget of $20,000 – was donated to the local YMCA. “They were in danger of closing,” Ruzicka says. “Now they have 600 regular members, a new building, and they don’t need our financial help anymore.” 

The entire city gets involved in LobsterFest: Numerous volunteers help cook and serve meals. The event allows the club to disburse about $130,000 a year to about 40 charities. And what attendees learn about the club has paid off in new members. 

The club uses the red badge system to identify new members. Even though it’s a small town, people don’t necessarily know one another, says Ruzicka, who implemented the red badge idea about three years ago. “It lets everybody know you’re a special person who needs to be met and invited to join the different things we’re doing in the club.” The extra attention paid to new members “has pretty much locked our back door” to retain them, says Wasson. 

Club members participate in the community in a number of ways, such as volunteering at the botanical garden, the humane society, and an advocacy group for children. Rotarians have also renovated playgrounds, repaired the concrete steps of a women’s shelter, and filled backpacks with food to be handed out to families in need.

The club abandoned a system of having every Rotarian take a turn lining up speakers for meetings. A committee now handles guest programming, and speakers have included well-known university athletics coaches, state governors, and a former U.S. senator – prime catches for a small-town club. “Those kinds of programs make people want to come to your meeting,” Ruzicka says. When executives of local charities address the gatherings, the edict is “no politics, no religion, no requests for money,” he adds. “They know we’re giving back everywhere, so they’re willing to share their story” with a team that keeps its plate full.

Ronnie Kasrils and the Coronado Seven, Brian Leech as well as the Dreaded Queensland Fruit Fly

Last Week

Ronnie Kasrils, President Lyn and the Coronado Seven

Ronnie Kasrils also had his latest book on sale
and here he is signing a copy for President Lyn,

Ronnie Kasrils gave us a most entertaining chat about his relationship with Jacob Zuma from when he first met him as an enthusiastic Zulu boy in Durban, aged 18 through their relationship in exile in Mozambique to the former President we know today.
He also added quite a number of entertaining anecdotes about himself and life in general.  It was a talk much enjoyed by all as well as our seven guests from the Rotary Club of Coronado, California.
I admire their stamina as they had only got off the plane that morning.




Saturday evening saw a social function with the Coronado Seven, reduced to five by exhaustion!  We met for dinner at Dolci Cafe in Craighall Park and really had a good time.  A big thank you to the Rotarians who acted as  taxi drivers from and to the Sandton Sun....I won't ask you to reveal the tip

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And a special thank you to Cafe Dolci who have allowed us to pay individually.  This does cause some delay but it does make things easier for us.

As the evening progressed either there was an alcohol effect or the restaurant began to list, I'm not sure which.
We are looking forward to a future relationship with the the Rotary Club of Coronado and hope you will visit again either as part of Rotary or as individuals.

This Week
Brian Leech is the oldest serving member of our club by which I mean that he has been a member the longest.  He's  going to talk about himself and the club over the many years he has been a member.

He likes watching cricket and is the only one who doesn't need dark glasses.


Rotary Art Festival
This is the third week I have put in an appeal for members to put their name on Costa Qually's list for the Art Festival.  I don't know what proportion of the members have done so.  Next week I will give you the percentage.  We have over 40 members which means that we should be able to rely on 160 slots being filled before asking for any help from partners or the Rotary Anns.

ROTARY ERADICATING HORTICULTURAL PEST

THE Queensland fruit fly is the major horticultural pest in the irrigated region of Sunraysia along the MurrayDarling rivers in NSW and Victoria. The damage it does to the economic value of crops, especially to exports, amounts to millions of dollars each year. The Rotary clubs of the Great Sunraysia are working with the horticultural industry and government agencies on a massive trapping program to eradicate the pest. The clubs are concentrating on the residential areas – the area of greatest risk. Household fruit trees, the uncontrolled disposal of domestic fruit and vegetable waste and fruit brought into the region by travellers are the three sources of the pest. Three times a year, club members deliver traps to every household in the region and, in some cases, install them for elderly and disabled residents. Because each trap only catches flies from a radius of 15 metres, it is essential to get blanket coverage. The growers operate a monoculture, so commercially fruit flies are much easier to control. However, households grow and consume a range of fruits ripening throughout the year and each one is a potential fruit fly host. The traps serve two purposes: the trap itself attracts female fruit flies and an associated amulet distracts the male fly from mating. The clubs are rewarded with $2 a trap for each delivery, with 28,000 traps delivered to households each time. Some clubs use it as an opportunity to involve others in the distribution. Under team leader Gary Klippel, the Rotary Club of Mildura Deakin, Vic, manages a team of students from Mildura Senior College for its deliveries. Brian Englefield, of the Rotary Club of Robinvale Euston, Vic, is so committed to the cause he personally delivers traps to households in Merbein, Vic, as well, an hour and half from Robinvale. Other Rotary clubs involved are Irymple, Vic, Mildura, Vic, South Mildura, Vic, Wentworth, NSW, and Swan Hill, Vic. COVE

Frayne Mathijs, Visiting Rotarians, Ronnie Kasrils and New Approach to Membership from New Zealand.

Last Week

 Frayne Mathijs spoke about the plans for Universal Health Coverage and its importance but she didn't mention the financial aspect.
Unlike most Western European countries we do not have an aging population, quite the opposite, so maybe the emphasis is different as the requirements certainly are.  It will be interesting to see what happens long term from a government perspective as a Universal Free Health System has been mooted but not very much seems to have been done to implement or even say how it would be implemented. Perhaps it has gone the same way as the Nuclear Power Stations Plan?

We had two visiting Rotarians, Hideo Kawamato from the Rotary Club of Kobe who not only presented President Lyn with a banner but gave everyone a Baumkuchen, the Cake of Good Hope and a symbol of peace in Japan.

Baumkuchen is one of the most popular pastries in Japan, where it is called baamukūhen (バームクーヘン) or sometimes just keeki (ケーキ). It is a popular return present in Japan for wedding guests because of its typical ring shape.

It was first introduced to Japan by the German Karl Joseph Wilhelm Juchheim. Juchheim was in the Chinese city Tsingtao during World War I when Britain and Japan laid siege to Tsingtao. He and his wife were then interned at Okinawa.  Juchheim started making and selling the traditional confection at a German exhibition in Hiroshima in 1919. After the war, he chose to remain in Japan. Continued success allowed him to move to Yokohama and open a bakery, but its destruction in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake caused him to move his operations to Kobe, where he stayed until the end of World War II. Some years later, his wife returned to help a Japanese company open a chain of bakeries under the Juchheim name that further helped spread baumkuchen's popularity in Japan.

Our other visiting Rotarian was David Craik from the Rotary Club of Sevenoaks, Kent in England.  He visits South Africa regularly and it looks as if he is becoming an occasional visitor to our club when he is here.

This Week

Our speaker is Ronnie Kasrils.

Ronnie Kasrils at the book launch of A Simple Man in Cape Town in 2017.
The book is highly critical of Jacob Zuma.

After the first fully democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, Kasrils became a member of the Transitional Executive Council's (TEC) Sub-Council on Defence. He was appointed as Deputy Minister of Defence on 24 June 1994, a post which he held until 16 June 1999. He was also the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry from 1999 to 2004 and was appointed as Minister of Intelligence Services in 2004.

Following the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki in September 2008, Kasrils was among those members of the Cabinet who submitted their resignations on 23 September.

Kasrils is known for his strong criticisms of the government of Israel and for his sympathies towards Palestinian political struggles. He rose to international prominence after penning a "Declaration of Conscience by South Africans of Jewish Descent" in 2001 against Israeli policies in the occupied territories. He has participated in events in the Palestinian Territories with all elected Palestinian parties and endorses a two-state solution premised on the 1967 borders.

Kasrils has been strongly critical of the ANC under Jacob Zuma. He is also a noted critic of what he has called the "descent into police state depravity".

 In April 2014 he launched the "Vote No" campaign alongside fellow ANC member and former government minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge. The campaign aims to encourage people to cast protest votes or spoilt ballots in the 2014 general election as a protest against Zuma and the perceived corruption of his government.  In December 2014, Kasrils was elected to the national working committee of the newly created United Front, a workers' party led by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), and also spoke favourably of the Economic Freedom Fighters, a newly formed leftist opposition party.  In April 2016, shortly after the EFF's major court victory over President Zuma, Kasrils joined several other prominent former ANC insiders in calling for Zuma to resign.

Rotary Arts Festival

Or is it the RAF?  I thought that stood for something else.
Do get in touch with Costa Qually who is coordinating the manning or womanning of the Festival as it is imperative that we do fill all  those vacant spaces.

The Rotary Club of Invercargill NRG – the abbreviation stands for Next Rotary Generation – relishes its reputation as a projects-focused, hands-on team. 

A diverse group with members from all over the world – most of them women – the club has restored playgrounds, helped build a house that will be auctioned for charity, and distributed comic books to promote literacy. It has also adjusted some rules to make membership more feasible for younger people.

Rotary Club of Invercargill NRG, New Zealand: Charter date: 7 April 2016; Original membership: 20; Current membership: 28  

When Leon Hartnett, originally from Ireland, moved to Invercargill, New Zealand, he started looking into local service organizations. “I wanted to find something I could do to connect – and to help people.” When a colleague invited him to a Rotary meeting, Hartnett addressed practical concerns upfront. “I asked, ‘How does this work and how much does it cost?’” he recalls. “I had a young family and we had bought our first house. It sounded like a great organization, but I could not afford to be a member.”

Shortly afterward, in May 2015, District 9980 brought Holly Ransom, an Australian who as a 22-year-old had been one of Rotary’s youngest-ever club presidents, to speak at a local community center. Hartnett left that talk inspired – and convinced that Rotary was devoted to new approaches to finding members. He was not mistaken. With the support of the district, he and a small group started doing projects, and soon they had enough people to charter a club. To make the club attractive to younger members, they looked at the costs associated with membership. “We decided no meals. Too expensive. We’ll have nibbles,” he recalls. He estimates that each member saves about NZ$700 a year on restaurant meals.

With an emphasis on service projects, the club made attendance at meetings optional. “But you are required to be active in the club through service,” Hartnett says. “Some of our club’s most involved members rarely attend meetings, but they are always the first to share ideas, give feedback, and then do the actual work. We do still have a good turnout at meetings, with an average of about 70 percent of members attending.”

These changes have attracted younger people. “When our club chartered, we had the youngest average age in Australasia – 28,” says Hartnett. The members now range from 21 to their mid-50s (Hartnett is 43). 

The club often works with other local clubs. “We did a glow-in-the-dark golf event with the Rotary Club of Invercargill South. Their average age is 20 years older than us,” Hartnett says. “They brought logistical skills that we didn’t have, but we had some ways of doing things they hadn’t thought about. They thought we needed to create a website for the tournament. We said, ‘No, we can use Google Docs for people to sign up. Let’s not spend money on a website.’” 

Despite the club’s novel approach, Hartnett says, “as time goes by, we tend to evolve into a more traditional Rotary club. At first we said, ‘Let’s not have a board.’ Now we have a board.” Some things they simply needed to discover for themselves. 

“We are Rotarians in every sense of the word. We’re just doing it our own way.”