remember to attend dg michael milston’s presention

Tuesday 4th October at 7.00pmEST and 8.00pm ESDT.  

The email to attend the GoToMeeting has been sent to all members. All are welcome to attend. If you have not received the email with the link to the meeting please contact me – johnroberson@bigpond.com

What does it mean to practice peace?

Nations observe 21 September as International Day of Peace, a “day of global ceasefire and nonviolence.” Rotary’s commitment to building peace and resolving conflict is rooted in the Rotary Peace Centers, which yearly prepare up to 100 fellows to work for peace through a two-year master’s degree program or a three-month certificate program at partner universities worldwide.

• Learn how you can support the Rotary Peace Centers
• Discover 5 reasons to apply for a Rotary Peace Fellowship

District Governor Michael Milston Official CLUB Visit

Tuesday 4th October at 7.00pm EST (Brisbane) – 8.00pm ESDT (NSW & VIC)

DG Michael  and partner Ann Dib will deliver a presentation then will take questions.

It would be great if ALL members could make the effort to attend.

If any other Rotarian wishes to make-up  or  any prospective member or interested person wishes to attend please email me (johnroberson@bigpond.com)and i will send you the GoToMeeting link and instructions on how to join the meeting and presentation.

The monthly Board meeting will be held after the presentation.

MEMBER SURVey RESULTS

The survey asked members to consider Club goals and what they wanted to achieve by being a member of our Rotary E-Club.

These are comments made by our members in the recent survey that all members completed. Thank you to all for completing the survey and the sincerity of your comments. 

Please feel free to email, make comments on the website and discuss the comments below with your fellow members:

• I still very much feel I am learning the ropes about Rotary as a whole.
• Encourage those who wish to join Rotary but don’t have the time for weekly meetings, to understand the benefits of the E-Club.
• Increase membership and raise fund for the Rotary Foundation.
• I’m comfortable with the Club taking six to twelve months to establish itself.
• We need more members attending more regularly.
• Find ways of working with the Youth in our communities to participate in the youth programs available.
• Raise awareness and develop networks to promote our RAWCS projects.
• Fund raising for our Club RAWCS projects.
• Participation in a Rotary club that is much more convenient and fits in with my busy lifestyle and personal situation.
• Encourage more engagement with members via the Facebook group – as an E-Club I think it’s really important that social media is used effectively.
• We need some local projects – at least one – to support.
• Be part of a functioning Club that continues to actively support international projects, and develop relevant community projects.
• We need to get used to visiting the website regularly and each of us keeping up-to-date between meetings.
• Learn together about the ways other E-Clubs in Rotary function – what their successes and difficulties have been.
• Networking and flexibility of E-Club membership.
• Come up with a  fundraising project, around a current relevant issue that even those members that are more remote from the District can be involved in.
• As a new member, I hope to continue to learn more about the work of Rotary as a whole and build my knowledge of this great organisation.
• We need to sort out the technology (is GoToMeeting the best tool, do we all need better headsets, etc).
• Be part of an enthusiastic group of  Rotarians who want to actively serve humanity.
• I hope I can be involved in the Club’s activities, even though I am going to be remote from the District more often than not.
• Leverage my experience working in international development beyond my own project which may wind down over the next twelve months – then again it may get a new lease of life with some Rotary input.
• Not sure what goals I want our Club to achieve yet.
• I feel that I’m too new to offer much in developing goals and stating what I personally want to achieve.
• To further grow as a Rotarian, joining with other members to be part of something incredible to make a difference and do good in the world.
• Increase our membership to have a variety of members with different interests, knowledge and ideas.
• I’m quite enjoying listening to others, reading about Rotary and its projects, and just getting a general ‘feel’ for the organisation, its clubs and what they achieve.
• Establish a functioning e-club that is taking action to raise awareness and support international and local projects. A club that someone who knows nothing about Rotary would be inspired to join. 
• Increase active membership, with a plan of how we will become a functioning club that is actively working on Rotary goals and projects.
• I am interested in piloting an Australian based alternative schoolies project in an Indigenous context.
• Increase our membership.
• Contributing to  the good work of Rotary International.
• I wonder whether we might also consider a more structured and active online campaign for recruitment? How can we draw people to our online presence?
• Participation in Rotary Australia World Community Service (RAWCS) style projects.
• I want to get my head around all the different web presences for Rotary – its very confusing between RAWCS projects, ClubRunner, our own site, and I think there are others.
• Increase support for the Rotary Foundation.
• Support  those in our club who have existing projects.
• Encourage our members to attend District Conference for yearly fellowship.
• To become an active club within the District of 9700.
• I want to be able to contribute to my community.

These comments show a positive enthusiasm by most members to continue the development of our Club; the desire to educate and mentor our newer members with the ideals of Rotary and  to encourage our serving humanity in the best possible way that we can.

LOOK AT THE SECRETARY & TREASURER PAGES

Both have been updated.

Our Club international Projects

We now have five International Projects listed on our website that are managed in part or entirely by members of our Club. They have recently had a Donation link added to each page that goes directly to our RAWCS payment gateway. Have a look! Make a donation!

Ethical Dilemma Discussion: what do you do?

Your club is working to provide technology and training for teachers and children at a school in a very low-income area with limited educational resources. During your search for sponsors, a club member in a senior position at a well-known business offers to pay most of the project’s costs. This sponsorship would allow you to complete the project quickly, and kids would be in classrooms learning in just a short time. You are grateful for the generosity but hesitate because this business has been in the media over some ethical concerns. You aren’t sure it’s a good idea to accept the sponsorship, but raising the funds in other ways could sharply delay the project.

Some comments by Rotarians on this Forum Topic are listed below:

Thank you to all who attended the Guest Speaker and Board Meeting on Wednesday 7th September. Matt Eakin gave a great presentation that you can access under Member Login/ Video Meetings on this website.

This is Basic Education & Literacy Month and I believe the comments below are very relevant  and explain the power of the Rotary Youth Exchange program to change lives and the world.

Reminder – Board meeting & Guest speaker – MATTHEW Eakin

On Wednesday 7th September at 7.00pm EST. All welcome to attend but you need to contact me at johnroberson@bigpond.com by 12.00 noon Wednesday 7th if you want to be sent the email with the link to the GoToMeeting

Posted by DG Michael Milston FOR Basic Education & Literacy Month

 “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free” – Frederick Douglass

This month when we can think about the reasons why we give such emphasis to basic education and literacy in our work serving humanity. Sometimes, what we think of as self-evident truths, require a review to ensure we have sound reasoning and therefore our efforts can help bring about change.

Now you may have an education background, and then again you may find the following very interesting. Did you know that:

“The brain is the only organ that is not fully formed at birth. During the first three years, trillions of connections between brain cells are being made. A child’s relationships and experiences during the early years greatly influence how their brain grows” [Zero to Three, in its booklet titled ‘Getting Ready for School Begins at Birth’].

So these very early months and years are most important for learning. Many of us in the developed world take learning for granted, but in fact it was not always so. Over the generations parents have been encouraged to read to their child, sing with them and play. But how does an illiterate parent read to their child? And how does the family in poverty afford a book or an education?

And of course there are many other influences; these have been summarized by the Victorian Government in their publication – ‘Making the most of childhood: the importance of the early years’ 2010 – as follows…

Children’s development and learning are affected by:

• influences within themselves – their genetic inheritance, temperament, gender, and health
• influences within the family – family relationships, parenting styles and values, the family’s financial situation, parents’ level of education, parents’ occupation, and parents’ physical and mental health
• influences within the community – children’s services (both availability and quality), support for parenting, housing (both quality and security of tenure), safety and crime in the neighbourhood, unemployment levels and the general feeling of trust among the residents
• influences within their culture – with different cultures marked by differences in parenting styles, beliefs and values, and different views on how children should be educated.

Rotarians in our District have understood the needs of our communities for many years. And the focus on literacy is often supported from the very beginning, with projects (as recently publicised by the Rotary Club of Wagga Wagga) to give every new-born a book for mum to read to them.

Consequences of failing to effectively improve literacy

Of course, we all recognise that when poverty is involved it is much harder to ensure the necessary early childhood learning practices. In a US study it was concluded:

“A large body of research continues to document the negative effects of poverty on children and their later life outcomes. Children growing up in poverty complete less schooling, work and earn less as adults, are more likely to receive public assistance, and have poorer health. Boys growing up in poverty are more likely to be arrested as adults and their female peers are more likely to give birth outside of marriage. [Poverty And Education: Finding The Way Forward by Richard J. Coley and Bruce Baker, 2013 Educational Testing Service, USA].

And then “there is … research indicating that high crime rates are typically concentrated in small geographical areas characterised by structural disadvantage, including low economic status, poverty, segregation, a high proportion of single parent families, residential instability and a large proportion of racial/ethnic minority groups” [T.Allard, A. Chrzanowski and A. Stewart Targeting crime prevention: Identifying communities that generate chronic and costly offenders quoted in Rethinking Justice – Vulnerability Report 2016, Australian Red Cross].

The importance of this education and literacy therefore starts from the day we are born for that’s when the foundations for the future are laid, and when we begin moving down the path that will take us through childhood, the teenage years and ultimately into adulthood.

The importance of the early years is now well known throughout Australia and the rest of the world. These years are a time when the brain develops and much of its ‘wiring’ is laid down. The experiences and relationships a child has, plus nutrition and health, can actually affect this enormously. Positive experiences help the brain to develop in healthy ways.

Rotary Clubs have been providing important support over many years. And it is emerging now that in our local early childhood learning space – preschools and childcare centres – that children are learning the Wiradjuri language. This development is doubly important as it provides the Aboriginal child with a connection to and validation of their culture, and for the non-Aboriginal child it opens there thinking to understanding diversity and their place in it. The examples of these language practices are evident in Wagga Wagga and Orange, and quite likely in other communities in Wiradjuri country.

So What do children need to support learning in the early years?

They need:

• adults who help them to stay safe and healthy
• positive caring relationships that are ongoing – the most important factor in supporting a child’s learning. All children need people, or at least one person, who believe in them, care for them, and want to support them as learners. Children do some of their most powerful learning from copying what people around them do, so it is important that they are with adults who are learners themselves
• adults who appreciate the uniqueness of each child, and who respect and respond to the child’s feelings, needs and interests
• help to learn to control their behaviour and patient teaching about what behaviour is accepted
• opportunities to ‘be in the world doing things’. Children need to be actively involved in meaningful experiences
• books to look at and read, stories to listen to and people with whom to have conversations. Loving language and books makes a great and strong start to developing a wide vocabulary and literacy skills
• time to really get involved and build relationships with other children and adults
• a group experience – this might be a playgroup, a childcare or occasional care centre, a family day care home, a kindergarten program, school or outside school hours care

Information in this Conversation was sourced from:

Getting Ready for School Begins at Birth Zero to Three, Washington, DC.

Making the most of childhood: the importance of the early years, State of Victoria (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development) October 2010

Some of our new members have requested an explanation of their access to Rotary websites.

First and foremost is our own Club website where we meet and communicate with each other. This can be reinforced with personal email messages, Facebook messages and phone conversations. In addition we propose to hold some face to face meetings of our members in when we are in someone’s locality. If your username or password do not work please contact me.

DG Michael Milston has introduced his District Governor Communications format for this Rotary year. His objective is to allow you to consider each piece of information and decide if it tweaks your interest and you want to read on, or if not then you delete it. To achieve this, each bulletin will mainly be single topic focussed. So how will it work?

He will be sending out, by email, regular short “tweets” in a bulletin format called “Quick News“; a (probably monthly) “Conversations” bulletin which will look at thoughts and ideas around the monthly Rotary theme; and finally, but not least, a regular (probably monthly too) “What’s On” bulletin (see read more link below).

All these bulletins will, where there is more information available, refer by linking, back to the D9700 website. All these bulletins will be sent to your registered email address. Needless to say I welcome any feedback, contributions, comments, and thoughts.

There will also be other items of interest to Rotarians and others on the D9700 website also know as ClubRunner, so do make a point of checking the site. Some of the bulletin stories above will also be on the Home Page. All Rotary Club members can login using their email address that they use for our E-Club. If you do not have or cannot remember your password  click on the link at the bottom of the login page.