Latest News

Speaker 16th March - Tommy Quick

Tommy is a survivor of childhood stroke. He was only 12 years old when he was one of the 300 to 500 babies and children who have a stroke each year. His life was changed forever as he had to relearn how to do the most basic tasks and his communications skills and processing speed were also affected.

Tommy visited our club and was a guest speaker just before he set off pre-covid on a 3000km bike ride raising funds for childhood stroke. Tommy was well on his way when he was hit by a car and almost died. This accident ended his bicycle trip and was followed by more rehabilitation.

Speaker March 2 - Catriona Robinson-Nguyen

Catrione, daughter of PP Jamie Robertson and Suong Nguyen is well known to many of our members who have watched her grow up. Her first official connection with Rotary was when our club sponsored her to the National Youth Science Forum around 10 years ago and since then her career in Science has been outstanding and extensive. One area that she is focussing on is Science Communication – helping the general population to understand scientific information necessary for everyday life. The COVID pandemic showed how important this area is in providing accessible information and in helping to counteract pseudo-science. Her communication skills are outstanding and engaging. 

Footscray Art Prize

As a partner in the Footscray Art Prize our club will once again sponsor the Young Artists Awards of $500 for both a Primary and Secondary category. The prize is open to younf peoiple in Melbournes West Entries  close on March 20th. the FAP exhibition will be held in July-August.

The nationwide visual art prize has a total of $33000 prize money.

Full details at FAP website.

School Supplies for Timor Leste

Club members recently donated school supplies for Timor Leste at the meeting on Feb 2nd. Maria loaded all the donations into Suzanne Zammit's car a boot for delivery to DIK awaiting shipment in due course.

Youth Challenge Sailing Program

Horn of Africa Project

As mentioned in the last Bulletin Jama Farah has begun developing a further project to assist medical care in the Horn of Africa. The initial donation of dialysis machines from the Austin has been supplemented by a large donation of supeceded but perfectly functioning equipment from Western Health. This latest donation includes an ultrasound scanner, three ECG machines, four ventilators, infusion pumps and thirteen reverse osmosis filters for dialysis machines.

The plan is to obtain a container and ship a container of equipment in the first half of 2023.

Christmas Function

Our final meeting for the 2022 year naturally had a Christmas flavour. Thanks to Maria and Dianne for decorating the tables with a Christmas flavour.

A trivial pursuit quiz with a Christmas theme prepared by Maria with John Granger as quizmaste There were several winners and thanks go to Phillip Caruso for providing the prizes, bottles of fine wines. Graeme gave a presentation about his recent Nullarbor experience he and Joy had by road and rail.

Foundation News

The latest District 9800 Foundation News contains articles concerning the End Polio Now programme. Over the last 35 years Rotary has been an important partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative which has decreased the number of wild polio cases worldwide by 99.9%. At the end of 2022 there were 30 cases reported, 2 in Afghanistan, 20 in Pakistan and 8 in Mozambique. It is estimated that if eradication efforts ceased today, within 10 years polio could paralyse as many as 200,000 children annually.

For the full newsletter click here.

Timor Leste Project

Kensington Primary School held a fundraising drive to purchase stationery supplies for two small, remote schools.The boxes of pencils, books, rulers etc. are now at DIK waiting for the next shipment to Timor Leste which will be early in 2023. This shipment will support around 80 children at the two schools.

Medical Texts for Horn of Africa

District Governor Amanda Wendt pictured at DIK with Jama Farah and some of the more than 1000 medical text-books that were donated. These books will find homes in universities, hospitals and medical practices in African Countries. This generous donation from McGraw Hill will improve the health outcomes for many people.

Foundation Scholarship

The Rotary Club of Footscray Foundation Scholarship was presented to Sophia a Year 10 student at Footscray High School. The scholarship spans the two VCE years with $1000 to be used for costs involved in Year 11 and another $1000 for the costs involved in Year 12. Sophia was surprised and very excited to be awarded the scholarship. She thought it would help with the purchase of an expensive calculator she needed to buy for Year 11. We give thanks to the teachers for their help in choosing a deserving recipient of the Scholarship.

Meeting December 1st

Our Speaker on Thursday 1^st December was Claire Jones who is a practising lawyer. Her topic was “Mediation the Harvard Way”. Claire had just been to the Cambridge Massachusetts with her husband and baby daughter. She took part in a course on mediation at Harvard University.,

Tommy Quick

Members may remember Tommy speaking to us during one of our "lockdown" Zoom meetings before he embarked on his Australian 4 Points Challenge.

A stroke survivor at age 12, Tommy suffered from a car running him over while on his epic ride in SA – 12 months later Tommy has learned to walk all over again and is now amazingly ready to resume his 9000km bike ride to raise funds for Stroke awareness in Youth.   He has completed one third (riding to and from Western most point of mainland Aust) and is now ready to take on the road to the Southern, Eastern and Northern most points of Australia and return.  (hence Australian 4 points challenge name).   His financial goal is to raise $1m and you support him here.    

Horn of Africa Project

Jama Farah has begun developing a further project to assist medical care in the Horn of Africa. He and Maria have met with a representative from the Austin Hospital to discuss their donation of six recently superseded dialysis machines.

Footscray Art Prize

The Footscray Art Prize will be held from July 15th-Seprtember 17th. Applications are now open and the main prize has been increased to $20 000. Maribyrnong Council has an acquisitive prize for a person living the one of surrounding LGAs. The Footscray Art Prize dinner will be held on August 5th at St Augustine’s Hall in Yarraville. Our club will again sponsor the prizes for the primary and secondary students.

Club Meeting Nov 17th

At our meeting on Nov 17th we heard details of current activities and projects.

Elizabeth Drozd updated us about the Western Region Aged Care Fund.

Suzanne Zammit spoke about the Footscray Art Prize. Applications are now open and the main prize has been increased to $20 000. Our club will again sponsor the prizes for the primary and secondary students.

Jama Farah informed us of a project currently in development. He and I met with a representative from the Austin Hospital to discuss their donation of  six recently superseded dialysis machines which will to be sent to Africa.

Jamie Robertson, began the Vietnam Dental Project in 1992. He visited Vietnam earlier this year to organise the visit for 2023.

Cluster Meeting

Our first meeting for the month was the Cluster Meeting with the DG which was held at the Yarraville Club on November 10^th. From the five clubs in the cluster we had 53 people attending with 16 bookings from our club. Our main speaker for the night was DG Amanda Wendt who spoke about attracting younger members to Rotary and the ability of clubs to change and meet their needs one way of doing this was to form Satellite Clubs.

Western Emergency Relief Network

A request for help from PDG Ross Butterworth to help WERN with flood relief. WERN is a charity changing lives every day for those marginalised in our society or suffering trauma threough emergency situations. WERN is made up from people and organisations wanting to make a difference.

Victoria has been hit by significant storms and flooding throughout the state. Our neighbours need our help, with cash, furniture and our time.

Can you help?

Beyond Water

BeyondWater and Rotary clubs across Australia have partnered together since 2007 to give 240,000 people (and counting) clean water and sanitation facilities EVERY DAY to East Africans. 

What began with our founders Pete & Sharon Crean (RC Pohutukawa Coast, NZ) to give one child clean water has expanded to schools, medical clinics and remote communities across seven countries. Our leadership program, The Girl Project, now operates in four locations in Kenya and Rwanda.

With the generosity of Rotary, Interact and Rotaract Clubs thousands of students now have good toilets and somewhere to wash their hands.

The Melbourne Cup

At our meeting on Oct 20th Darcy Brennan gave a wonderful talk on the history of the Melbourne Cup, the horses, trainers and the jockeys. His love for the sport of racing was evident and he brought along photos showing the famous horses that captured people’s imaginations and hearts.

Yarraville Tennis Club - a Century in the Community

Our speakers on October 6th were Dr Denise Clarke and Graham Richardson from the Yarraville Tennis Club. This a community organisation with over 100 years of service to its community and currently flourishing with over 400 members. What lessons do they have for us? The tennis club has had its ups and downs over time and staying the course through tough times has allowed the club to survive to take advantage of better times.

Walk West 2022

Western Health Foundation is excited to announce that registration is officially open for the 2022 WalkWest Virtual Landmarks Challenge

The virtual event will run from Wednesday 9 November through to Wednesday 30 November and best of all - it's completely free to register!

You'll have 21 days to get out and explore Melbourne's west! We're encouraging you to challenge yourself to a marathon effort of walking 42km in 21 days - the distance between Flemington Racecourse and Werribee Zoo.

RI President Shekhar Mehta urges countries at COP26 to protect mangroves

By Ryan Hyland

Rotary International President Shekhar Mehta joined the Rotary delegation to the 26th United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, on 10 November to explore ways Rotary can work on environmental challenges, including by restoring mangroves, a crucial ecosystem that can mitigate the effects of climate change in coastal areas.

The climate summit, also known as COP26 (short for Conference of the Parties), brought together nearly 100 heads of state and governments over a two-week period to set new targets for fossil fuel emissions. This was Rotary’s first time at the annual conference.

Speaker 7th April

Italian Night