The Weekly Bulletin of the Rotary Club of Coonabarabran Inc. Club No 17922 President: Hugh Raadgever Secretary: Jo Wilkin

PO Box 265, Coonabarabran NSW 2357

Club Meetings : Monday 6.00 for 6.30pm Bowling Club 45 Edward St Coonabarabran

COONABARABRAN

COMET

ROTARY CLUB OF COONABARABRAN INC

Charter

13 May 1949

20 May 2013

Calendar

Tues 21 May

BlazeAid catering

Fri 24 May

RYDA at the Racecourse

Sat 25 May

Thankyou BBQ for BlazeAid catering volun-

teers at Showground

Sun 26 May

District Training Assembly Gunnedah

Mon 27 May

President’s Port meeting !!!

Fri 31 May - Tues 4 June

Horse Expo

Mon 3 June

No meeting - helping at Horse Expo

Mon 10 June

No meeting - Queen’s birthday

Sat 15 June

Club Changeover - Bowling Club, 6.30 for

7pm. $35.00 each.

Mon 17June

First meeting for the new regime - Club

Assembly

27 July to 10 August

Vanuatu trip

Mon 20 May

A great pleasure to welcome Margaret & Bob Geraghty to our meeting on Monday - a chance to renew friendships and to hear a little about their time since leaving Coonabarabran. It was especially good to hear that they now plan to return again, but for longer this time so that they can catch up with more of their friends. As always, our best wishes go

with them.

Also lovely to see Trish, Susan, & Sally of course, and about-to-become-member Ian McLean who will be inducted at the Changeover on 15

June.

Events of importance coming up:

RYDA on Friday at the racecourse - 6 needed for ‘chaperones’. First session starts at 9.30am, to finish at 2.00pm. Chairs will be prepared on

Thursday. Thanks to Ian K for his donation to the program.

Thank you BBQ for BlazaAid cooks Saturday 12.30 start - we have

collectively cooked 4,500 meals for $27,000. (Average - $6.00/meal)

District Training Assembly in Gunnedah this Sunday - 9.00 for 9.30 start at the High School. The program for the day is on the club website

(and attached to this email!)

ROSTER Welcome &

Thanks

Tables

27 May Colin Taylor Colin Welsh, Lindsay Wilkin

3 June Doug Winter Peter Young, Kevin Barrington

10 June Aileen Bell Ian Bell, Peter Brookhouse

Correspondence:

In:

1. Investment account maturing - Community Mutual

2. Disaster Aid Australia newsletter

3. Letter re ANZAC Centenary Local Grants Project

from Mark Coulton MP

4. ARH newsletter & request for funds

5. Insurance Certificate of Currency for RYDA

6. Directors 2013-14 have been handed out to the in-

coming board

Out:

Sympathy card to the family of PDG Rupert Richardson

Horse Expo the following week.

Good reports about MUNA in Port Macquarie - stu-

dents will be invited to report back to the club.

Jokers Wild will be $620.00 next week.

It was agreed to recommend to the Board that we spon-

sor a horse rug prize at Horse Expo for $137.00

Rob C has renovated a donated small generator for use in conjunction with the trailer until news of our applica-tion for a Volunteers small grant comes through. Letter

of thanks to Roachs required..

New shop is operating well, with some more community

members coming onto the roster.

Some clubs in the District are beginning to try new ways or structuring their meeting

patterns. This is what one club is planning to try. (They hold an auction once a month

in their specially designated shed to raise funds).

When our new Rotary year begins after Changeover on 17 June, we plan to trial a new

pattern of meetings. This will be a 6-month trial to assess impacts. We will still essen-

tially be providing the opportunity for meeting 4 times a month in a regular way. The

auction will constitute the meeting for the first

week of the month, our standard club meet-

ings will take place on the second and fourth

Mondays of the month and on the third Mon-

day it will be the Board meeting plus any Pro-

ject committees, subcommittees or even a

Club Assembly. With sufficient notice we can

have vocational visits or social events on the

first Monday of the month. Any 5th Monday

in a month could be an assembly or outing.

In light of the weather events in the US lately,

not to mention our own January weather event,

I found the above jobsite rule interesting.

Rotary Book Shop Roster

9.30am-1.00pm 1.00-5.00pm

Wednesday Alan or Jo

(alternate weeks)

Doug & Terry

Thursday Trish Robert &

Rowanne

Friday Wilkin Girls Bob & Jill

Saturday Sheila

If unable to attend please find a substitute

Substitutes

Colin Welsh 68421437

Gordon Jewiss Afternoon only 68421010

Jim Pearson 68421278

Sue Raadgever 68421640

Calling for expressions of interest

from students in Coonabarabran district area

(not necessarily CHS students but

must live at home)

whose dob fell between 1 Jan 98 and 01 Jul 00

for an exchange with students from New Zealand

05 Apr 14 to 30 Sep 14.

NZ is to host first.

For more info, call Kevin 68421538, (CHS stu-dents: school will have a brochure.)

'Rotary Australia-New Zealand Exchange’

Special ‘Guest’ speaker Bob Geraghty

Bob spoke from the heart about the ‘journey’ he and Margaret had been undertaking since their departure

from Coonabarabran. In their first months they stayed with family, and set out on a trip to Mexico to visit

some of Anne’s host families from her YEP exchange. The

drug wars in the country have severely curtailed travel possibili-

ties, but they were still able to go on what Bob called an

‘upmarket backpackers holiday.’

Once back in Australia, they decided to move to the Bateman’s

Bay area, being well situated in relation to their family, and

bought a house at Malua Bay 15 kms to the south in October

2011.

It was good to hear that they now plan to return to Coona again

in the near future, and this time they will stay longer so that

they can catch up with more friends. Make it soon, Bob and

Twisted English They told me I had Type A blood, but it was a Type O.

A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

PMS jokes aren’t funny, period.

Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.

quiz.

Energiser arrested. Charged with battery.

I didn’t like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

How do you make holy water? Boil the hell out of it!

Did you hear about the cross eyed teacher who lost her

job because she couldn’t control her pupils?

When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

What does a clock do when it’s hungry? It goes back

four seconds.

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it

hit me!

Broken pencils are pointless.

I tried to catch some fog. I mist.

Courtesy bulletin of the RC of Sawtell.

Laurie, Kay and Ian from

the BlazeAide crew

Former Rotary Youth Exchange student designs a backpack bed

for the homeless

During Australia’s colder months, emergency shelters often fill to capacity. Many homeless people searching for a warm bed are turned away, handed a piece of cardboard and a blanket for the night.

Tony Clark, an IT entrepreneur, 1992 Rotary Youth Exchange stu-dent, and the founder of the Melbourne-based nonprofit Swags for Homeless, offers an alternative.

In the past year, his organization has distributed more than 3,000 swags, or portable sleeping units, to charities and shelters through-out Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The Backpack Beds, which Clark and his wife, Lisa, designed, are made of a lightweight fabric and have a built-in, 6-foot foam mat-tress and mosquito netting. But most important, they offer warmth with their waterproof, windproof design. The entire assembly weighs only 6.5 pounds and rolls into a backpack.

Clark was inspired to start the nonprofit when he questioned why so many shelters didn’t provide homeless people with proper out-door bedding. He immediately began working on designs for the versatile bed.

“I thought to myself, ‘How would I like to be treated if I slept on the street?’” Clark says. “Homeless people suf-fering from frostbite, hypothermia, and trench foot are common in wealthy countries. A Backpack Bed is an in-terim crisis measure – one that can save the lives of those without shelter.”

The bed, which can be purchased with a A$68 donation, has won four international honours, including the Aus-tralian International Design Award and the German Red Dot “Best of the Best” award – one of the most prestig-ious accolades in the product design world.

The innovative beds offer more than physical comfort, say those who have used them – they also provide a re-newed sense of dignity.

“Until people are faced with living on the streets, they have no idea of what is involved. Just getting a shower, finding a toilet, or trying to wash clothes becomes a big event,” says Matt, a young homeless man in Australia. “This is the third time I have been on the streets, and previously I didn’t even have a blanket. Tony Clark and his organization change the lives of people like me.”

The success of Swags for Homeless throughout Australia and Europe has encouraged Clark to take his Backpack Beds to the United States. Rotary clubs in District 9800, which includes Mel-bourne, funded and transported 100 beds to Baltimore and parts of New Jersey and New York to help the region’s homeless and those displaced by Hurricane Sandy. District 7500 (New Jersey) worked with Australian Rotarians to coordinate the effort. Swags for Homeless also donated 60 beds for distribution in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

“We knew we had to take this idea and spread its success to other countries and help save others,” Clark says. “Thanks to Rotary, this is an important moment: It will be the first time Backpack Beds will be distributed to street-sleeping homeless and disaster victims in the USA.”