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

2 Sept 2013

Calendar

Tues 3 Sept

Community Mutual Breakfast 6.30am

prep for 7.30am start

Mon 9 Sept

Breakfast meeting 7.00 for 7.15am

Mon 16 Sept

Visit to the Trade Centre at the High

School proposed

Sat 5 Oct

Siding Spring Open day

12-14 October

District ‘Muster’ in Armidale

Sat 21 Oct

Race meeting - Coona Cup

Mon 2 Nov

District Governor’s club visit

Notes from the Meeting 2 Sept 2013

Please ring Gordon by Friday this week to confirm if you will be at the next meeting - breakfast at the Bowling Club. Accurate numbers are needed!

There were many apologies on Monday evening, including from the two people who were to be our guest speakers. Better luck next time.

Instead we heard from our two newest members who gave an ac-count of their lives so far. Interestingly, both Ian and Margaret had lived here, had gone away to live elsewhere, and then they both chose to return to live in Coonabarabran once again. Great choice, say we!!!

Please remember there will be a breakfast at the Community Mutual building tomorrow morning Tuesday, with preparation starting at 6.30am for a 7.30 start.

Liesl Fretwell confirmed as an exchange student to NZ. We need a counsellor - Robert will discuss the matter with Rowanne, and get back to the meeting.

The District Governor Rob Anderson will make his club visit on Mon 2 November.

Ideas for how to make use of the $800 donated by the RV fellowship people were discussed. Jo was asked to approach them to see if it needs to be something to do with the bushfires directly. Seats at the cemetery were proposed. Moved Peter, sec Rob C.

Be listening to Ian on the radio with Rob D this Saturday morning at 9am!!!

Rob Cox and Ian Bell met with Steve ......... on Tuesday to progress plans for the seat shelters in the Bakery Park.

The Volunteers Grant for extensions to the catering trailer must be accepted immediately. The acceptance is now overdue. John has un-dertaken to take the lead with this project.

Applications for a Foundation District Grant are due by the end of October. See details over page.

There was a lengthy discussion about Jokers Wild, raffles etc. The old form of Jokers Wild will return.

NEXT WEEK:

Breakfast at Bowling Club

7.00 for 7.15am

What were they talking about last week?

Correspondence:

In: (some from week before)

Nothing requiring attention this week.

District e-News for 30 Aug 2013

There is information this week on the following matters:

1. District Grants - see below. 2. District Muster in Tamworth 12-13 October 3. Friendship Exchange to India information. 4. District Hat Day to raise money and awareness of ARH

around 11 October. 5. Police Awards in Port Macquarie 6. RyMarine to run in Coffs Harbour 17-20 October

ATTENTION ALL CLUBS!!

Why not apply for a Rotary Foundation District Grant? (Formerly ‘District Simplified Grant’)

In 2013-14 under the new Foundation Future Vision Program, it is easy to apply for a District Grant, and there

is more money available than ever before, in fact, a total of $40,000 for D9650. Decisions will be made at Dis-

trict level rather than by RI. Here are the details:

1. District Grants — Within Australia (DGA)

Are for smaller local community projects

Require active Rotarian participation

Minimum grant of $1,000 per project, and a maximum of $4,000 per club

2. District Grants — International (DGI)

Are for international projects that do not qualify for a Global Grant (ie projects with a budget total of less

than $30,000)

Require an international partner that can be a Rotary District, a Rotary club or a third party

3. District Grants- Scholarships (DGS)

Are for scholarships to be awarded by clubs to students at any level of education

Must be a new scholarship and not one previously supported by the club.

Here’s what to do:

1. Consult the D9650 Rotary Foundation Grant Management Manual for 2013-14, (especially P1-2 and P7-9)

which can be downloaded from the District website in the Foundation section, for more details.

2. Complete the application form, also on the District website, either in writing or on your computer.

3. Send to PDG Jo Wilkin by the end of October

4. Consult either PDG Ken Hall (Foundation Chair Ph 6761 7024) or PDG Jo Wilkin (Grants Committee Ph

6842 8277) if you have any questions that are not answered in the quite comprehensive Grant Management

Manual.

Just think of what your club could do with $4,000!!

Ian and Colin last week

This is the first of the articles to be found in this month’s copy of ‘Rotary on the Move’, a magazine which can be downloaded from our club’s website. I plan to include one each week during the month of September - they are worth reading. This was written by Noel Trevaskis who many members will remember was a keynote speaker at one of our District Conferences. He is currently one of Australia’s two Rotary Coordinators.

Focus, Commitment and Engagement

Clubs and Rotarians often ask me what a Club needs to do to increase its membership; to me there are three critical things.

The first one is the Club has to have a Focus on membership. The second one is Commitment, the Club and members have to be committed to membership. And the third one is Engage-ment, engagement by everyone in the Club.

All members of a club have to be focussed on membership; in Rotary membership has to be-come part of our DNA. To many clubs when asked how many members they would like in the Club usually reply as many as possible. Every Club should have a focus on what is the mini-mum number of members that they would be comfortable with. They need to focus on achieving that target and how they are going to achieve it and within what time frame.

For this to happen it takes commitment, commitment particularly from the Club President and Membership Chair and their committee. Membership should be spoken about by the Club President at every Club meeting. Likewise the Club Membership Chair should be meeting constantly with their committee and continually asking members to provide them with names of potential Rotarians to invite to meetings. Every Rotarian has to be committed to membership. Consider forming your Club into teams of three members with each team committed to the task of bringing in a minimum of one new member a year.

All clubs need to have all their members engaged with club. Being engaged means not just with Rotary pro-grammes, it means with the “whole” Club. If Rotarians enjoy Rotary and if they are engaged with their Rotary Club they should want to share their experience with people who are not Rotarians. If we share Rotary with peo-ple we will change lives, not just our own lives will be changed but those people who join us will be able to enjoy the same experience of helping to change lives.

Being a Rotarian is a life changing experience for so many people around the world yet nearly one million Rotari-ans haven’t shared that experience with others. It is estimated that one million Rotarians haven’t asked anyone to Rotary. If we really enjoy our Rotary, if we are engaged with Rotary why haven’t we invited someone to join Ro-tary so that they can have the experience of changing people lives?

Every Rotary Club and every Rotarian has to be involved in membership, we all need to be focussed, committed and engaged with Rotary. We need to Engage Rotary so that we can Change Lives!

That changed life can be ours, a friend, a work colleague a community leader a business acquaintance, they just need to be asked! They need to be asked by you and me, no-one else is going to do it for us.

More pictures from last week