Hello everyone,
I hope this message finds you well and keeping rugged up against this cold snap.
It was with sadness that I read the announcement by DG Christine Owen of the passing of Bob Aitken, on Saturday 20 April 2024, after a very short illness.
Along with Christine, I offer our condolences, as a Club, to his wife, Ann, and the family. Bob was a member of the RC of Lower Blue Mountains, and was widely known around the world, for his contribution to Rotary projects. Of note was his work in eradicating polio in the world. He will be greatly missed.
I have sent our congratulations to Jade Catherall on being elected to the position of Rotary Community Leader for RCG-2. The Regionalisation pilot program is well underway. It is an exciting way to bring Rotary into the relevance of today, and move forward as a modern, up to date community group.
Lately we have been very busy advertising our eFun Run for 2024. The site is up and running, and we are accepting sign-ups and donations. Well done to Pam Wood, for her work in making this a reality.Thank you, also to Bob Selinger for organising a history tour, under his leadership, around the historic Parramatta. Culminating with a tour of Old Government House. It is not too late to come along, just inform Bob. Pete and I are looking forward to some learning and friendship, oh and adding some K’s to our challenge goals.
David Martin has also been very busy, organising the IT tour for this year. He has 8 students coming from Forbes and Inverall, staying with Rotary from our Club and Epping Rotary Club members for a week. There has been a tremendous amount of work gone into making this happen. Thank you to all of you that are stepping up during the IT week, and to Peter for taking the lead on the tour itself.
Pam Bennett is our club member and District Youth Exchange placement officer. Pam has been actively reaching out to families to consider hosting a student for up to 3 months from July. Generally, we try and have 4 families over the 12 months of a student’s exchange experience. It can be less then that if needed. I ask you all to consider hosting a student. If you or anyone in your family would like to have this wonderful experience, please let me know. Thank you, Pam Bennett, for all your hard work in this job for our youth program of Cultural Exchange. If you know of a student in year 10 who would be interested in going on Exchange as an outbound, also please get in touch.
Plans are well underway for our Annual Celebration and Changeover Dinner, on Friday 28 June 2024. Invitations are on their way and I am therefore calling for donations for the raffle. Pam Wood will be organising the raffle for the night and is happy to collect any gift donations from you. Thank you, Mak, for kicking this off at the assembly on Friday. You are very generous and such a thoughtful member of our club.
Thank you in advance.
Cheers
Bernie.