Rotary Club of Maleny: Rotary Club of Maleny Bulletin for 6 February 2013

"THE RANGE" Vol. 54 No. 18

Wednesday 6th February 2013

THIS WEEK'S MEETING

Maleny Hotel at 6:30 for 7:00pm - Member's Talk.

APOLOGIES

Please tender apologies to Lionel Tilley by noon Tuesday.

DUTY ROSTERS
Feb 6 Feb 20

Duty Officer Lloyd L Jeff C

Registration Jeff C Charlotte G

ADO & Scribe Charlotte G John W

Fellowship John W Lloyd L

SAUSAGE SIZZLE ROSTER

16th February
Angela Griffin (Leader) Chris Brooker Rick Vickers

2nd March
Lionel Tilley (Leader) Lloyd Larney Bill Hankinson

MINUTES OF MEETING OF 16TH JANUARY

Guest speaker was Jane Stanley who talked about the "Camino" pilgrimage. "The Way of St. James" which in is Spanish, El Camino de Santiago. The main pilgrimage route to Santiago follows an earlier Roman trade route, which continues to the Atlantic coast of Galicia, ending at Cape Finisterre. St. James's remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain where he was buried on the site of what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela.

Jane started in St Jean Pierre de Port and walked 990 kms over 36 days carrying a light backpack and sleeping in hostel's, church facilities and monasteries and even one night in a sea container. Besides the spiritual side of the journey, the most important aspect for her, other observations from Jane were…

"it is quite a difficult walk and you need to be fit",

"the accommodation is very basic"

and it is no gourmet trip as "the food in most places was pretty lousy".

Jane said that after the trip and all that "alone time" she suffered when she returned from a common problem of "Camino Depression" and that is hard to come back to the complications of normal life after spending so much time with a single simple focus.

There were many questions and the members obviously enjoyed the talk.

MAYHEM IN MURGON

It may not have been as dire as events in Bunderberg but Bill H has kindly provided some shots from his son's farm. He will explain these at the meeting - thanks Bill.

Ashley's flat

Albert Island

His dam

NOW THE FUTURE VISION PLAN – WHAT NEXT?

Some personal thoughts about the future of the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International and the effect this might have on Rotary Internationalfrom Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar

In order to know where to go in the future for the Rotary Foundation (TRF) we need to know where we come from and I think we do. We come from 1917 when Arch C. Klumph donated some funds to an endowment, which became the seeds to TRF as we know it today. TRF did not really catch on until 1947, when our founder Paul Harris died, and Rotarians worldwide wanted to honour his memory by donating funds to TRF and only educational programs were supported.

• We know that we come from the late 1960s/early 1970s when the humanitarian programs were initiated.
• We know that we come from the 1980s when our Polio eradication program started.
• We know that we come from the 1990s when the Permanent Fund was introduced and, finally,
• we know that we come from the early 2000s when we started our University program for Peace and Conflict Resolution, known as Rotary Peace Centres.
• And we know where we are today – our “this close campaign” tells us how close we are to eradicate polio. There are only three endemic countries left and as per 7 November this year we have a total of 181 cases worldwide compared to 505 cases same time a year ago. In other words, we know where we are.

SO WHERE DOES TRF GO FROM HERE?

The Future Vision Plan is about to be launched after three pilot years. Parallel to the TRF Future Vision Plan Rotary International (RI) has launched its Strategic Plan. Even though Rotary is a large organization, in my opinion it is not big enough to monitor two plans of that magnitude and therefore they must merge. And we might be well on our way doing so, without really thinking of it, as within one of the three legs of RIs Strategic Plan we can find the six areas of focus of TRFs Future Vision Plan. One of the objects of TRFs Future Vision Plan is to look for strategic partners that we can cooperate with, probably mostly as matching grant partners. If I were one of those partners approached by TRF, I would immediately ask myself how long the mandate of the TRF chair is and when I realize that this is only for one year, I would probably be reluctant to move into such a partnership.

I would like to know who I am working with and that requires continuity. Thus, in my opinion, the TRF chair must sit in office for at least four years and all Trustees for six years (against presently one year and four years). There is a Proposed Enactment 13-72 coming to the 2013 Council on Legislation of Rotary International (COL) in this respect. If this Enactment is passed, then the RI President could not possibly remain on a one year basis. TRF is a part of RI and there would be a clear risk that TRF would run the organization rather than RI, which is not acceptable. Thus the term of the RI President must also change. It may be argued that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have chosen to cooperate with TRF despite our one year chairman term.

However, it must be remembered that the negotiations have been carried forward by the International Polio Plus Committee (IPPC) and this committee has only had two chairmen during its 18 years of existence or exactly the kind of continuity that is necessary for TRF. Therefore there is an opportunity to change the office of the RI President from being headed by a Rotary volunteer to becoming a paid position. Somebody, probably from outside of Rotary, that is in the 40s and hired for, for instance, four years and sees this as a position in his/her career and then moves forward in life. The position is not to replace the General Secretary (GS). The President would be a “working chairman” dealing with strategic issues and GS will continue to handle the administration. This way we would have a President who speaks the language of the younger generation, which we so desperately wish to have as members in our Rotary clubs.

There is a Proposed Resolution 13-189 coming to COL dealing with this topic. A final issue that is important for the future governance of our organization is to concentrate on one theme for RI/TRF and not to be changed every year. An Enactment 13-70 and a Resolution 13-191 are being presented to COL 2013 to replace the annual presidential theme with the permanent theme of “Service Above Self”. Then TRF must follow that path.

Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar,
RI-President 2005-06,
TRF Chairman 2010-11

FUTURE MEETINGS & EVENTS

13th Feb Board Meeting at Masonic Hall

20th Feb Maleny Hotel at 6:30 for 7:00pm - Rotary Youth Programmes

27th Feb Masonic Hall at 7:00pm for Rotaty's 108th Birthday Celebration

22-24 Mar District Conference at Twin Waters - registration now open.

BIRTHDAYS FOR FEBRUARY

2nd Shirley Larney 18th Jeff Cornfoot 28th Marlene Hankinson

NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT

WHEN ONE READS THE TRAVEL REVIEWS IN THE WEEKEND PAPERS, ONE COULD BE FORGIVEN FOR THINKING THAT AFRICA WAS MADE UP OF STUNNING GAME PARKS AND EXOTIC COASTAL RESORTS. THERE IS ANOTHER ASPECT TO THE CONTINENT THAT HAS BEEN CAPTURED BY AN EX-COLLEAGUE OF MINE WHO HAS SHARED SOME SNAPSHOTS FROM HIS TIME THERE - ENJOY!!!