Welcome to this fortnight’s newsletter.
The North Ryde eFun Run closed on Sunday 7 May. To conclude the eFun Run week, we walked across seven of our beautiful bridges in Sydney. Starting at Cunninghams Reach park, Linley point, the walk included Figtree Bridge, Tarban Creek Bridge, Gladesville Bridge, Iron Cove bridge, Anzac Bridge, Pyrmont Bridge, and the Harbour Bridge. With a coffee break thrown in about half way, the 17 km walk took us about three and a half hours. We finished at The Kirribilli Club for an afters get together, celebrating what was a great week exercising and raising funds for a very worthy cause – Youth Mental Health.
Overall, the club managed to raise more than $13,000 thanks to our sponsors and all the people who so generously donated to the cause. Thank you, Rob Wilkinson, for leading the way with exercising and raising funds. A big thank you also to everybody who worked behind the scenes to make the project a success, especially our superwomen – Bernie Mason, Pam Wood and Mandy Van!
It was fitting that the following Friday, 12 May, we had a guest speaker Sue Mallick who is an Occupational Therapist who spoke about “Mental Illness and Vocation” – how to achieve vocational outcomes for people living with serious persistent mental illness. Her talk was a reminder that one in five Australians get impacted by mental illness – its impact on our colleagues, neighbours, family and friends, and particularly our youth is not diminishing – it is just part of life.
On Thursday 11 May, members representing our club attended the City of Ryde Volunteer Recognition Awards. Our club along with the Rotary Club of Macquarie Park was nominated in the Group category for the Carols on the Common and our own Pamela Wood was nominated in the Individual as well as the Community Heroes category. To hear all the wonderful stories of the great volunteer work being done in our community was absolutely amazing, inspirational and uplifting!
This week is the DIGIT week - IT Tour for Country Students. Seven students from the towns of Forbes, Inverell, Ashford and Warialda arrived in Sydney on 14 May. Past Presidents David Martin, Peter Mason and Mandy Van have been taking them around to various information technology organisations. As you know, this year Rotary Club of Epping has been a valuable partner in helping us host the students. The students and their host families attended Epping Rotary’s club meeting on Monday 15 May. It was a great evening enjoyed by all. A big thank you to Rotary Club of Epping and special thanks to the host families - Monica and Geoff Saville, Narelle Barker and Susie and Stephen Llewelyn. There are still two more days to go and it promises to be a fun and experiential week for them. On Thursday 18 May, a dinner will be held for the students at the Riding for Disabled facility in Marsfield.
Our next Bunnings Gladesville BBQ Club Fund Raising Event is on Saturday 3 June 2023. If you can assist on the day please let Garry Maloney know by Friday 19 May, by email. We have found that our busiest times are between 10am and 3pm, so if you can only help for a limited time please keep these times in mind.
I thank everyone in the Club for their commitment, energy and contribution towards making a difference.