Thursday 30 November 2023

Rotary Club of Maleny Bulletin for 6th December 2023

 THE RANGE Vol 65 No 11

Maleny Hotel at 6:30 for 7:00pm for a Dinner Meeting with Guest Speakers from the District's Youth Exchange Programme.

APOLOGIES
Apologies please to Bernice by noon on Tuesday.

DUTY ROSTER
                             06 Dec          20Dec                17Jan
Duty Officer         Scott W          Roly N              Chris B  
ADO                     Michael G      Keith R             Ric V
Registration          Malcolm B      Craig S            Brian A
Fellowship            Murray A        James McC      Bill H

WOOLWORTH SAUSAGE SIZZLE
09 Dec  0800 - 1100  Lionel T   Bruce K   Peter McQ

              1100 - 1330  Roly N   Ric V   Scott W

06 Jan   0800 - 1100  Jim A   James McC   Des C

              1100 - 1330  Chris B   Lenah K   Keith R

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
On 29th November, we had a small gathering at Easton Lawyers to listen to and ask questions of Tove Easton about wills, estates and different types of powers of attorney. I think we all learnt something from it and it was very informative. Tove provided us with wine, cheese and crackers as well to make a highly enjoyable session. Then a handful of us progressed down to Finbars to enjoy some more camaraderie with pizzas and wine and beer. Overall, a great evening enjoyed by all.
KOALA FODDER PLANTATION - As you will most likely remember, along with the Rotary Clubs of Nambour and Woombye/Palmwoods, we assisted to get a plantation of 500 eucalyptus saplings planted in the Mapleton area earlier this year. The purpose of the fodder plantation is to assist Koala Carers who travel all over the countryside to obtain fresh eucalyptus leaves for the orphan koalas in their care.
Rachel Aspinall who is the only Koala Carer on the Sunshine Coast and works closely with Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital sent me some photos recently of how the plantation is going and of the koalas in her care. She currently has three and the other day, she picked some fresh leaf from the new plantation and apparently, they loved it.


          


I attended a Zoom meeting this week for our Kenny cluster of clubs, and Bernie, our AG, informed us that our district has raised $78,000 for Drought Relief. That should go some way to helping our farmers who are doing it tough. A suggestion put forward by Bernie was that, as a cluster, we should come up with a project with which we could all get involved. So put your thinking caps on and, if you have an ideas, let me or any of the board members know about it.
Our cluster consists of the following clubs: Glasshouse Country, Caboolture, Bribie Island, Caloundra, Caloundra Pacific, Buderim, Mooloolaba, Alexandra Headlands and Maleny.

UPCOMING MEETINGS
6 December 
As this is our last meeting at the hotel for this year, the hotel is going to be serving us a special Christmas dinner and dessert. Sounds delicious!
We have 6 visitors coming to this meeting. Bernie (our AG) and Rhianna from the Youth Exchange will be bringing four students from our District 9620 who will be going overseas to participate in this wonderful experience. Two are going to Denmark, one to Japan and one to Brazil.
It will to be very interesting to hear from them and their expectations and we can also ask them questions about what made them wish to do this etc.

20 December 
A wonderful Christmas get together is being planned and it will be held at Roly and Kerry’s  home in Reesville. Cost will be $20 per person payable to our Treasurer Jim either at our next meeting or you can pay it directly into our bank account.

17 January 
First business meeting of the year. Let’s talk about what’s coming up on our calendar for 2024 and air any interesting ideas to do something different.

31 January 
Our first 5th Wednesday on the year. So, it’s a vocational night and Craig has invited Jitendra who is Membership Chair for our District 9620 along to a dinner meeting at the hotel to talk about Corporate Membership.

MINUTES OF MEETING OF 20TH NOVEMBER
President Paulette opened our Business Meeting by welcoming members and visiting Rotarian Kim McDonald-Wilkes from Newoundland. She also provided an update on Ric T who is on the road to recovery from his recent health setback. He has lost weight, stopped smoking and drinking and has his driving license back. Members are invited to call and visit Ric and Jacinta. 

Jim A took over temporarily and conducted the AGM with his usual despatch. The minutes have been circulated.  Congratulations to Scott Wassman on his election as incoming President and to all the other nominees for the new Board.

We will not be involved with parking at Australia Zoo parking over Xmas and the New Year. The Zoo is planning to do this in house with casual staff.  

Sherryl G reported on the very successful Respect and Kite making presentation to about 60 grade 6 students at the Maleny State School on 15 November on behalf of Speak Up Now.
 
Ulysses Dinner – the Club received a welcome donation of $830 towards the Maleny Education Support Fund; this Fund has distributed $10,686 to local families needing assistance for the education of their children over the past year.
 
Guest Speaker. 

Neil A, aka the Platypus Whisperer, gave a very interesting and well received presentation about his attendance in August this year at the Future of the Platypus Conference of the Platypus Watch Network at Healesville Victoria. Neil was excited to receive an invitation to attend as one of a hundred delegates which included 94 academics who have been studying varying aspects of the Platypus for their entire careers. Each academic spoke for 15 minutes which provided a huge accumulation of background knowledge.

Neil reported that there is a real drive to determine the number of platypus in Australia in various locations and watercourses across the nation. No one can say whether there are 34,000 or 340,000 or even more platypus in Australia. Efforts are being made to microchip platypus to follow their journeys across various landscapes and waterways. We were astonished to hear that Tasmanian Platypus are up to 1/3rd larger than mainland platypus as they have adapted to the colder environment there. 
A lot of effort is also being made to establish rehab centres for injured Platypus but Neil was concerned that this was impractical given the distances required to get an injured platypus to such centres. It is difficult to keep Platypus. Australia Zoo do not house or display them. They cannot be sent around the world, and have a unique diet, dependent on their foraging around rocks with electrical receptors. 
Neil also reported about the efforts being made to re-introduce 10 platypus to the Royal National Park outside Sydney after they had been hunted to extinction for their fur pelts many many years ago.

Paulette S thanked Neil for his fantastic presentation.

FUTURE MEETINGS AND EVENTS
13Dec  Board Meeting

20Dec Christmas Party at Roly and Kerry's home

03Jan  No meeting

17Jan  Maleny Hotel at 6:30 for 7:00pm for a Business Meeting

WEDDINGS FOR DECEMBER
6th  Chris & Jocelyn Brooker  12th  Jim & Elaine Atkinson  Roly& Kerry Neiper  17th  Lionel & Judy Tilley

BIRTHDAYS FOR DECEMBER
11th Jim A   14th Lenah K  29th Murray A  30th Zach Harris

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT
 EDUCATION IS OFTEN IN THE NEWS THESE DAYS




WHO WOULD BE A TEACHER?