Rotary Club of Maleny: Rotary Club of Maleny Bulletin for 20th May 2020

THE RANGE" Vol. 61 No. 22

WEDNESDAY 20TH MAY 2020

THIS WEEK'S MEETING
A Zoom meeting has been arranged starting at 5pm. Log in details will be circulated separately.

APOLOGIES
Apologies please to Bernice as soon as possible.

SCRIBE FOR THIS MEETING
Rick Vickers

SAUSAGE SIZZLE ROSTER
None scheduled at present.

PRESIDENT'S NOTES
We are living in extraordinary times. I am confident that the RC of Maleny will survive this serious hiccup in our history. We have now managed to connect on-line for two club meetings. The board has also had the last two Board meetings on Zoom. I think we are finally getting the hang of it. The District also is having fortnightly President’s on-line meetings which are very informative. It seems that even though COVID-19 emergency restrictions - if all continues to go well - are going to be relaxed gradually, we may be using some form of on-line platform for a while yet. To accommodate this, the Board decided at the meeting this week to invest in a 12 month Zoom Pro subscription. Thanks to Paulette, who is our official ‘Zoom Champion’ for organising this.

This means we have much more flexibility in whom we can invite to meetings and no time restrictions. Paulette will schedule our meetings and be the host, so that I can just concentrate on chairing the meeting. Unfortunately, not everyone could connect for the last meeting. Let’s hope for the next meeting on Wednesday 20 May, we get everyone connected again. I’m trying to schedule a variety of speakers each meeting to make them interesting and informative. Rick V certainly excelled with his presentation last meeting. Thanks Rick, for showing us how it can be done.

Secretary Bernice will send around the minutes of this week’s board meeting. Some of the highlights:
• We will disperse a second round of community grants funding now that we have had reimbursement from the District for the 2019 grants which were completed.
• I have submitted a District Grant application this week for the printing of Domestic and Family Violence emergency signage for men’s amenities on the Range, to complement those already placed in women’s amenities by Zonta. This is one stage of the DV project that I have been working on with the Range Presidents of Zonta and Quota.
• Chris B has proposed the Club gets involved with the Solar Buddy Project. This project, championed by the RC of Ashgrove the Gap, involves making Solar Lights to send to our neighbouring Pacific Island nations. This could be a great hands-on project to which we could all contribute. Chris will investigate this further.

You can find out more information about SolarBuddy at : https://solarbuddy.org/. SolarBuddy is an Australian charity uniting a global community with a big dream to gift six million solar lights to children living in energy poverty by 2030, to help them to study after dusk and improve their education outcomes.

• The club is purchasing a new BBQ and sausage sizzle equipment from Volunteer grant funds we received last year. When we get more fully up and running again, we’ll have a spanking new BBQ set-up.
• The Board agreed to continue shared sponsorship for Kenedi Lucas, our sponsored student who attended St Jude’s School in Tanzania. Kenedi has graduated from St Jude’s and is now attending university, studying a Commerce degree. Have a look at the latest news from the School of St Jude’s at : https://www.schoolofstjude.org/index-home.html

All Directors asked if their reports could be forwarded to the Secretary by 5 June to enable the Annual Report to be completed before the Club Changeover toward the end of June. The Changeover will be very different this year if COVID -19 restrictions are not relaxed.

The annual Rotary International Convention was to be in Hawaii this year. This of course had to be cancelled. Now the Convention will be a Virtual Convention.

Save the Date for Rotary International's Free Virtual Event

"Now More than Ever, Rotary Connects the World: The 2020 Rotary Virtual Convention"
When: 20-26 June.

https://www.riconvention.org/en

I hope you have all had a productive time during this period of COVID isolation. For me, I have enjoyed time to ‘slow garden’- planting some vegie seeds and seedlings, weeding, feeding the chooks, watering the vegie patch, and enjoying walks in our beautiful hinterland. See you all at our meeting next Wednesday 20 May at 5pm.

MINUTES OF MEETING OF 13TH MAY
President Sherryl welcomed members to the first regular meeting of the club via Zoom. This meeting was held using the District Zoom licence and we are wondering if this became an issue as most members were able to log in the previous week using another system.

Bernice asked if any members who haven't already done so to advise by 19 May if needing a hard copy or a digital copy of the Rotary Down Under. Some members have already made their choice and I thank them for doing so.
Ric Townsend gave an interesting session on how the COVID – 19 virus control was managed in Taiwan as that country was the first to relax the restrictions. There were a number of reasons that contributed to the low number of positive cases and deaths – 438 cases of the disease and 6 deaths.
• Taiwan learned from the SARS outbreak some years back.
• Health authorities were disciplined to act quickly and tested the community very early after the disease was reported as a possible threat.
• Flights were banned from Wuhan very early in the epidemic.
• Human temperature checks were conducted widely in the community.
• Social distancing was practiced early.
• Everyone wore face masks if sick to protect the community and the wearing of face masks is also the practice in the winter flu season
• Large supply of face masks and disinfectant are distributed to the community.
• There are teams who had a license to disinfect public areas to protect the community.

Ric also gave us a short talk on the Club Facebook Page and explained how it all works.

Chris Brooker held a sergeant's session but didn't raise enough dollars to warrant John driving around to collect the fines.

Rick Vickers gave a fantastic coverage of his and Cilla's recent time in Morocco. Having landed in Marrakesh, they then went on to join a conducted tour of the most interesting places. This talk was accompanied by some beautiful photography - these are available in a PDF attached to the notice of the meeting.

An interesting tour of the Textile Museum showed some traditional tribal hand woven rugs and also the traditional Moroccan rugs. Cilla also had a wonderful time exploring the hand made jewellery. A visit to the Atlas Mountains and seeing date palm plantations and mud brick buildings were also an interesting part of their travels. The people were very polite and courteous at all times. When the COVID – 19 virus became a world wide topic all public areas closed suddenly. Rick and Cilla were very fortunate to be able to travel home safely before all borders were closed to travel. Fourteen days in isolation after arriving home was a small price to pay for arriving in Australia safely.

Many thanks for this interesting account of your holiday Rick.

Greg spoke of a planned working bee at Settlers Green to erect the signs on Thursday 14 May to commence at 8 am. There will be groups of two people and social distancing will be practiced. There may be some members from the Maleny Garden Club assisting also. Greg will send an email around to the volunteers with all the necessary information prior to the day.

President Sherryl thanked the speakers for their contribution and also the members who were able to join the meeting. There will be another meeting on 20 May for which information will be circulated.

FUTURE MEETINGS
3rd June Zoom Club Meeting at 5pm.

10th June Board Meeting

17th June Zoom Club Meeting at 5pm.

BIRTHDAYS FOR MAY
4th Angela Griffin 15th Greg Williams 18th Cilla Vickers

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT
A MALE VIEW OF THE DOMESTIC LOCKDOWN