The Save the Bears Foundation Annual Fundraiser in Melbourne
The Dinner and reception raises funds for the foundation to help eradicate the caging and maltreatment of bears in Asia.

Full details to follow

Leo acting as Sgt. called all ashore for all visitors going ashore and welcomed the small but intimate clan to the table and handed the meeting to President Grant who was also Chairman for the day and invited him to commence the meeting.

President Grant opened by commenting that this years theme is titled Building Communities,  Bridging Continents and thinking of our club and what we already do, we are truly Building Communities with

• St Josephs Mission
• Second Bite
• Australia Day

as all these projects are aimed at helping build communities through out support and service.

We are also in the business of Bridging Continents through our East Timor Projects with

Balibo, Tias Market, Kindergarten projects that can also be seen these as bridging continents.

As some stage soon we will be advises of a related/partner club in San Francisco. We are asked to engage President to President, Director to Director.  Another way of bridging continents and expanding our rotary family.

This Wednesday, is our first Board meeting for the Financial Year,  we have a lot on the agenda, including projects, fund-raising, Membership, Rotary District Awards etc. Let us know if you have any ideas that we as a club should be considering.

We will be having a Club Forum at our next meeting,  which will look at our plans for this coming year and into the future.

The president then propose the  Toast to the Rotary Club of Port Melbourne and its small group of committed members!

Presidents Report (2)

It has been a busy week for our Club Members,  On Sunday morning, when most sensible people are in bed Ricardo, Past President Gerri and I attended a RAWCS (Rotary Australia World Community Service) presentation at International House, Parkville.

There were many worthwhile projects on display.  Projects including our own Balibo Fort Restoration,  Sanitation projects in Samoa, Cambodian Kids Foundation,  other projects in  East Timor, Nepal and other parts of the world.

Our Balibo Project received a lot of interest and Ricardo and I are expecting a few opportunities to present the project to other interested clubs.  A big thanks to Ricardo for his efforts in setting up the presentation.

At our Monday meeting Ricardo also led the charge with a presentation to the club on our Balibo project.

It was an enjoyable meeting last night with Sergeant Leo fining session based upon people’s knowledge of things that were last!

Gerard is away overseas until late August!  Bon Voyage Gerard.  It was also nice to welcome a new face, Guneyt, who was visiting our club for the second time.

Our first Board Meeting will be held on Wednesday evening with many Agenda Items under consideration.

We will be having a Club Forum at our next meeting,  which will look at our plans for this coming year and into the future.

Sgt’s Session

The Sgt always alert for “boy things” asked Robyn if she was actually in distress as she was wearing her badge upside down. Robyn said that was how she always was  but that didn’t  save her from being fined.

It just wasn’t Robyn’s night. Fined unmercifully by the Sgt even though wearing her distress sign but she miraculously recovered to answer a number of last questions and cross fine the Sgt.
IPP Gerri paid up when the answer to who was the last man on the moon was not Neil Armstrong and Pharlap was not the last Melbourne Cup winner.
Ricardo played the wrong card on what was the colour of the last card in the World Cup final and left us wanting more when he correctly ‘guessed the last Dg ‘s name.
Grant was paying plenty, a veritable one armed bandit, as the Sgt parleyed his almost correct answers into monetary contributions.
Even the Sgt was caught on the basis that how many VC’s were won by Australians in Russia and when to who was the last winner and his rank as being too boy centric and what with sport history and not a netball question deemed sexist and he was cross fined big time.

A tidy intimate sum was garnered and stockpiled by IPP Geri.

Our guest potential new member Cuynet participated fully and was happily fined by the Sgt.  in an egalitarian mood to provide him with the full Rotary experience.

Guest Speaker

Our speaker this week, was our own member Ricardo  Krauskopf, who brought us up todate on the International Committees doing’s and progress year to date. Ricardos report provides a great result for the club and he was able to present (with very little technical help) a video of the Balibo project that he hopes will go forward this year as one Clubs International Projects.

Ricardo provided us with the complete display that was presented at International House last Sunday. A big well done was extended top Ricardo by President Grant on his untiring efforts to date.

International Report – Ricardo Krauskopf:

Some of our overseas work.  Last Year we delivered 2 projects on East Timor, both of them come under the ‘Sanitation & Public Health’ sector. These were at:

• Macadede Kindergarten, on Atauro Island,
• Tais Market, in Dili.

This year we have had:

(A) The request from the Rotary Club of Valdivia for help with arranging a 1 year stay for a young woman, Marianne Meier, has been finalized;

• • We have found her accommodation
• • Picked her up at the Airport
• • Found her a job.

Please Note, this needs no further work, but it would be an opportunity to invite Marianne to one of our regular meetings as speaker. Her father is the current President at the Valdivia Rotary Club, Chile

(B) We had a request from Bentleigh – Moorabbin Central Rotary club to stand in as ‘verifiers’ for a project of theirs in Balibo, East Timor. The Club is financing the repair of and partial rebuilding of the Balibo Kindergarten which is operated by the Aust. Flag House Foundation. This is the same foundation which has asked us to help with the construction of the Balibo Fort House Hotel.

We have agreed to stand in as verifiers, at no cost. This has resulted in the Bentley Moorabbin club having listed us as co-sponsors of the project, and invested $1000 on our behalf.  As verifiers, our job consist of going to Balibo and giving timely ‘progress reports‘ to the club. The Verifier is in essence there to satisfy the members that the funds are being spend in the manner in which they were intended to.

Please Note; this is yet to be formalised, our contact there is Merv.[more details coming]

(C) We have donated around $8.000 ‘in kind’ to the Australian Flag House Foundation; this consists of 1 site visit to the Balibo Fort House, in company of the Humberto Marum, the architect in charge of the Balibo Fort House Hotel project.

We have also helped the Foundation raise $15.000 in cash toward the project.

We now need to determine if this is a worthy cause for our Club to spend the money on, there are many other requests for help in East Timor and all around our geographical area.

The advantages of this project is that I am working on it anyway[pro bono], so it is easy for me, but it is a very big project, in total A$409.000 plus furniture, etc.

At this stage Grant and I have discussed that we should ask the Foundation to split it up into possibly 5 components, with different clubs taking care of the different components.;

1. Technical advice, e.g. project concept, architect briefing, builders briefing, interior design and furnishing purchase.
   • Rotary Club Port Melbourne
2. Steel components
   • Rotary Club  Melbourne
3. Concrete components
4. Electrical and Plumbing
5. Furniture

Each of these components would then be costed and different clubs could commit to one or the other. Port Melbourne does not have access to a lot of money but can offer technical advice, Melbourne Rotary has the Timor Steel, and could provide the steel components, and Balwyn Rotary has cash and could commit to another component.

All clubs have expressed interest in helping with volunteers.

Please Note; this is ongoing and Port Melbourne must decide what to do with it.

I will suggest to the board that we limit ourselves to a $5000 cash donation, including matching funds and that we take responsibility for Item No.1 [Technical advice] As I said this is simple we have already delivered a fair part of No.1 anyway]

(D) We also have the milk project on Atauro Island and  I am a bit stuck on that one, and anyone wanting to help with this would be very welcome

Ricard0

This Weeks Funny

Tax Time

The ATO decides to audit Grandpa, and summons him to their office. The  auditor was not surprised when Grandpa showed up with his lawyer

The auditor said, ‘Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I’m not sure the ATO finds that believable.’

I’m a great gambler, and I can prove it,’ says Grandpa. ‘How about a demonstration?’

The auditor thinks for a moment and said, ‘Okay. Go ahead.’  Grandpa says, ‘I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.’

The auditor thinks a moment and says, ‘It’s a bet.’

Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it. The auditor’s jaw drops.

Grandpa says, ‘Now, I’ll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.’

Now the auditor can tell Grandpa isn’t blind, so he takes the bet.

Grandpa removes his dentures and bites his good eye.

The stunned auditor now realises he has wagered and lost three grand, with Grandpa’s lawyer as a witness. He starts to get nervous.

‘Want to go double or nothing?’ Grandpa asks ‘I’ll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that waste basket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.’

The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there’s no way this old guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again.

Grandpa stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can’t make the stream reach the waste basket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor’s desk.

The auditor leaps with joy, realising that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win.

But Grandpa’s own lawyer moans and puts his head in his hands.

‘Are you okay?’ the auditor asks.

‘Not really,’ says the lawyer. ‘This morning, when Grandpa told me he’d been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and piss all over your desk and that you’d be happy about it!’

Don’t Mess with Old People!

One for the Road

Life’s Little Lessons aka

Epic Fail

The Week that Was

Helen and Sue - Hard at It

A great night was had by all who attended DIK in West Footscray.

Bill and Laurie - Swap Notes

Our “DIK working bee” was attended by Paul and his wife Pauline, Sue (on her birthday – HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUE!), Gerard, myself and the late Ricardo (late arrival that is!)

We arrived around 6:15 and assisted in picking, folding then packing new shorts into boxes.  We finished around 8pm after packing over 50 boxes (approx 1500 pairs of shorts) Laurie (Rotarian) and Helen (non-Rotary Volunteer) were impressed with the number of pallets emptied and then re-packed ready for shipping – packing speed 3.5 pairs per minute  – Good Work Team!!

At the completion of our manual labour, we sat and enjoyed a sumptuous meal.  Without great coordination, every one contributed to our meal which consisted of Roast Beef & Lamb, Roast Pumpkin, Carrot and Jacket Potato’s, Gravy, Bread, Pasta Salad,  very fine White & Red wines followed by a selection of Carrot Cake & Bavarian Cheese Cake and Coffee.  We were joined by Helen and Laurie for dinner and even though Bill Dagg had already eaten and declined to join us,  the smell of the roast meats and pumpkin was too much for him to resist.  Two plates of food later……..every one was satisfied.

Gerard - A Bright Shiny Leprachaun

Karen and Pauline - Cracking On

It was my first visit to DIK,  it is a large warehouse complex,  full of pallets of clothes,

hospital equipment, etc. While containers are regularly dispatched,  future funding is still required to get the “Donations in Kind” to those who need the goods so urgently.

It was a very satisfying evening, shared with friends and we did good!

Regards

Grant Travill

Courtesy of Ricardo we bring you an advance screening of the East Timor Balibo project documentary. This has been put together from recent footage, archives and the movie of the same name. Interesting viewing about 10 minutes. Ricardo will present this at International house next Sunday at the RAWCS forum from 0900 to 1200. A little slow loading but worth the wait.

International Service  Seminar

The seminar will be held at International House, 241 Royal Parade, Parkville, on the
11h July with registration commencing at 9:00 am and the seminar being completed
by 12:30 pm.