The Weekly Bulletin of the Rotary Club of Coonabarabran Inc. Club No 17922 President: Ian Klein Secretary: Doug Winter Treasurer: Peter Young

COONABARABRAN

COMET

ROTARY CLUB OF COONABARABRAN INC

Charter

13 May 1949

29 July 2013

Calendar

27 July to 10 August

Vanuatu trip

Fri 2 August

BBQ for Primary school at town oval

Sat 3 August

Race meeting - catering

Mon 5 August

Next meeting - darts night at CBC

23-26 August

RV Fellowship visit

Sat 5 October

Siding Spring Open day

Notes from the Meeting 29 July 2013

Please ring Gordon before lunch on Mondays if you are an apology 6842 1070.

Darts and finger food next week! Bring darts if you have any.

Primary Sports day on Friday - BBQ at town oval from 9.30. Colin W to take BBQ trailer there.

Races on Saturday - setting up by 10am - help will be needed until 4pm.

BlazeAid volunteers request - starting to run out of cake - if you can help it will be appreciated.

Thanks from a Bowelscan candidate whose test came back positive.

Request from Victor Schmidt to provide catering at concert in the NP - discussion followed, but general feeling was that we should not undertake this.

Also discussion about RYSTARS - will leave decision until next Assembly.

Doug & Hugh at

Tamworth airport

enroute to Vanuatu

NEXT WEEK:

PLUS

Correspondence:

In:

1. Five more Bushfire Fund applications

2. District e-News - see outline on this page, and see

the copy attached to the same email as your bullet-

ing has been attached to!

3. Volunteers Grant acceptance - $4,300 for upgrad-

ing the BBQ trailer

4. RAWCS - thank you for $1,000 donation

5. Statement of term deposit from Comm Mutual

6. Wrap with Love bulletin

7. Photo Competition run by Macular Degeneration

Society

8. Thank you email from Chris & Ron Nash.

District eNews for 19 July 2013

There was information last week on the following mat-ters:

1. Proposal for a District e-Club to be established.

2. A call for support for the RYLA program. If clubs cannot find candidates, the Hastings Education Foundation has several they would like to be supported.

3. A call for more candidates for the NZ Matched exchange - NZ has twice as many applications as Australia at the moment.

4. News of a Friendship Exchange to the southern part of New Zealand (D9980) in either November 2013 or Feb-ruary 2014. Applications are open.

5. The Milton Club in D9980 in NZ are again offering their famous ‘tramps’ - walking holidays. AG’s have been

District eNews for 26 July 2013

There is information this week on the following matters:

1. Contact Ken Hall if you are interested in the proposal for a District e-Club to be established.

2. Another call for support for the RYLA program. If clubs cannot find candidates, the Hastings Education Founda-tion has several they would like to be supported.

3. A farewell to Margaret Brookes, wife of Ken from the RC of Warialda who has died after a long illness.

4. RC of Laurieton is hosting a Rotary Variety Showcase on Sun 25 August 2-4pm. Tickets will be $10.

5. Nominations from clubs by 31 October are being called for our District’s representative and alternative repre-sentative for the 2016 Council on Legislation . PDG’s are eligible.

6. A recommendation that we review our club’s constitu-tion and by-laws in view of changes made at the Council on Legislation in time for the AGM in December.

7. Early information about the changes to the Working with Children Laws and requirements. We will not need to comply until 2015, and there will be no charge for volunteers. Until then, new members need to complete the usual form.

8. Information about how to contribute to the Centurion Club - giving $100 each year to the Rotary Foundation.

9. Youth Exchange Program website has been updated and has information to current hosts and clubs.

Doug & Hugh boarding in Tamworth

One of the highlights of driving to Perth is always seeing the

Great Australian Bight

Colin’s Trip to Bangladesh

Colin Welsh gave a most interesting talk on Monday about his recent trip to Bangladesh. He was based mostly in the city of Dhaka which, with a population of 15 million, has a nightmare transportation prob-lem with vehicles of all kinds from rick-shaws to overcrowded buses moving endlessly and in all directions. He found it quite fascinating, in spite of the fact that getting anywhere across the city makes doing business very difficult. Horns blare constantly, there are road bumps that slow some of the traffic only (the rest races over them) and there are people and produce of all kinds being moved from one point to another in a crazy confusion.

There was little evidence of OH&S or building regulations

anywhere (memories of the garment factory collapse are

still very fresh), and drains which are filled with garbage

block water and create flooding when it rains, as it does

regularly.

However, Colin found the people to be very friendly, wel-

coming and helpful, there were very few beggars, and he

observed passers-by going out of their way to assist a

blind man. The food was fantastic, especially if you like

hot curries, and the area in the delta of the Ganges River

is very fertile so food grows easily. Nearer to the Indian

border around Rajshahi, he found to be very lush and not

so crowded. It was a very interesting talk about a fasci-

nating country.

An announcement at the Rotary International Convention in Lisbon, Portugal, set the stage for a bold new

chapter in the partnership between Rotary and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the campaign for po-

lio eradication.

“Going forward, the Gates Foundation will match two-to-one, up to US$35 million per year, every dollar Rotary com-

mits to reduce the funding shortfall for polio eradication through 2018,” said Jeff Raikes, the foundation’s chief ex-

ecutive officer, in a prerecorded video address shown during the convention’s plenary session on 25 June. “If fully

realized, the value of this new partnership with Rotary is more than $500 million. In this way, your contributions to

polio will work twice as hard.”

The joint effort, called End Polio Now – Make History Today, comes during a critical phase for the Global Polio

Eradication Initiative . The estimated cost of the initiative’s 2013-18 Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic

Plan is $5.5 billion. Funding commitments , announced at the Global Vaccine Summit in April, total $4 billion.

Unless the $1.5 billion funding gap is met, immunization levels in polio-affected countries will decrease. And if polio

is allowed to rebound, within a decade, more than 200,000 children worldwide could be paralysed every year.

Rotary and the Gates Foundation are determined not to let polio make a comeback.