From our Board meeting on Friday 22 November, it was decided to have the Club Assembly on Friday 21 March 2025 at Dunmore Lang College focus on a Membership Drive. Members are asked to invite potential new members to the breakfast where we can showcase what we do. So please think about who you may want to invite.
The first club meeting for 2025 will be held on Friday 7 February 2025, with a social breakfast, at Café SaBu on Saturday 1 February 2025. Please look out for more details about these dates.
The Tree of Joy is in full swing now with wonderful donations from our community. On Monday 25 November Bernie, Peter Mason and I met with Anita Allen and James Hole, the Manager of Bendigo Bank Cox’s Road, North Ryde, for a photo of Bendigo Bank presenting a cheques for the $1,000 sponsorship for this year’s Tree of Joy. We are very appreciative of Bendigo Bank's continued sponsorship of the Tree of Joy which helps the club provide gifts to CCA, Macquarie Hospital and St Vincent de Paul, along with the very generous donations from the Community.
On Saturday 23 November I attended the District 9685 Presidents' Meeting. At the meeting District Governor Niranjan Deodhar shared the following information with us regarding our district.
• District 9685 was the top giver per capita to the Rotary International Annual Fund at US$196.53 – just US$0.57 above the next district, which was 9810.
• Second top giver to the Annual Fund overall at US$305,997 – just us$550 below the top, which was District 9800 at US$306.547.
• Second top giver to Polio Plus – at US$94,382. Second to District 9920 (in New Zealand) which gave US$250k to Polio.
• Second top in Other Funds by US$362,726 to District 9675 which had an extraordinarily large Direct Gift from a Personal Foundation to a Global Grant.
• Second top in Total Contributions – at US$773,767 to District 9675 at US$865,145.
• Leader in grant funded projects.
The other important piece of information that the District Governor wants clubs to focus on is the District Conference, 21-22 March next year. Please try to be there if you can and bring a friend!
On Thursday 28 November some of our members participated in the Make a Stand Annual Walk – Walk Against Abuse, which was organised by Ryde Hunters Hill Domestic Family and Sexual Violence Committee which supports organisations such as The Northern Centre. It was good to catch up with Cate Sinclair, CEO of The Northern Centre, and who has been a guest speaker at our club.
The club has received a letter of thanks from the Rotary Foundation for our donation of $2,000 to PolioPlus, which came from our Bunnings BBQ in October.
We had another successful Bunnings BBQ last Saturday 30 November, which raised $2,400 for our club. Thank you to everyone who was able to help on the day. Funds raised will go to the local community and Rotary projects that we support annually.
The final Carols committee meeting is being held this Thursday 5 December, with a site inspection at the Common with Ryde Council on Monday 9 December. Banners and posters are now displaying the event and members from our club and Macquarie Park are busy doing letter box drops with the flyers promoting the event. thank you to everyone who has offered to help with these tasks and who have offered their help at the event.
The club’s Annual General Meeting will be held on Friday 6 December, from 7:30am, via Zoom followed by a club assembly.
Members, please let Club Director, Peter Mason know if you cannot attend. This will be the last Club meeting for the year.
Bernie and Peter Mason have kindly offered to host the club’s Xmas party at their house on Friday 13 December, from 6pm. Bernie and Peter have sent out invitations. Please let Bernie or Peter know if you will be attending as they are organising the catering as soon as possible.
