Latest News

Connecting Communities | 19–25 May

National Volunteer Week 2025 celebrates the power of volunteering to bring people together with the theme ‘Connecting Communities’. Let’s acknowledge the spirit of connection and the incredible impact volunteers have in building inclusive and thriving communities.

The club is very appreciative of the support from our sponsors at the successful Annual Golf Day.

The Golf Day on March 28th at Eynesbury Golf Course was a great success, with 67 registered paid-up players and 63 actually playing on the day. Our net return was a pleasing $6245. The Board has set a target of $10000 for next year. There was great support from the sponsors, which was much appreciated. The advance notice to past players in December resulted in their continued support.

Rotary SAFE Families looks forward to you joining our second Mega Meeting and representing Australia in this global pandemic of family violence and abuse that is a huge problem around the world.
We are honoured to be joined by our Patrons, Gordon McInally, Immediate Past President RI and Grace Van Zyl, Chair RAG for Peace.

On April 10th His Excellceny Anwar Muktar Mohammed, Ethiopian Ambassador to Canberra and Consul Genersal, Yalet Getachew Ashenafi visited Donations in Kind to see first hand the donations of equipment to be transported in the 19th container to be shipped to the Horn of Africa.  PE Elizabeth Drozd, Jama Farah (Project Coordinator)  and Ron Hunt were present representing the club.

DIK is needing more volunteers and is currently asking Rotary members, friends of Rotary and any interested volunteers to assist at the warehouse with unpacking donated goods.  There is currently a backlog of boxes waiting to be unpacked, sorted and prepared to be donated locally or for overseas projects. 
Jama, Ron, Maria and Elizabeth helped last week and will volunteer at DIK as much as they can over the coming weeks.  We welcome other Club members to join us. Everyone is welcome including your friends and family members. 

The speaker at our meeting on April 24 was David J Dobney -Rotary Ambassador to School of St. Jude in Tanzania
The School motto 'Fighting poverty through education' is an ongoing Rotary Australia program incorporating International Service and Youth and Community development.

Catriona Robertson was our guest speaker and spoke about her recent trip to the Antarctic with 117 other female STEM professionals. The trip to the Antarctic was the culmination of an online professional development program for women in science. Homeward Bound is an  organisation based in Australia  that aims to increase the representation of women in leadership roles in science fields. The program focused on the topic of “Climate Change”.

Our club is taking part in a short term exchange. District 9800 only supports long term exchanges, but Gemma who lives in Newport applied to District 9790 to go on a short term exchange. As she lives so close to us we agreed to be her sponsor club. 

A message from DGE regarding the District Governor 2027-28
It is with great pleasure that I announce the formal appointment of Claire Davison as District Governor for Rotary District 9800 in 2027-2028. Claire’s passion for service, strategic mindset, and dedication to making a lasting impact—both locally and globally—make her an outstanding choice for this role.

Congratulations to Vince on his 2025 Enterprise Maribrynong Award for his contribution to the business community.
The award citation (copy attached) recognises his time as a councillor and mayor, his service to Rotary and “actively contributing to the growth and success of Footscray’s business community”.

The Environement is Rotary International's theme during April.

At our meeting on March 6th the speakers were Mark Stevens and Edward Irving from Octopus Investments, specialists in investing in renewal energy infrastructure.

Lucy Collins who our club sponsored to the January National Youth Science Forum in Brisbane was our speaker on march 20th.

Elizabeth Drozd organised a Clean Up Australia event along the Maribyrnong on behalf of the Rotary Club of Footscray on March 2nd.
A willing group of five volunteers, three adults and two children helped Elizabeth and they collected about 8 kilos of rubbish in just over an hour.  It was a good event and Elizabeth says “we all felt good to have this an opportunity to make the Maribyrnong River cleaner.” Well done to the team. 

At our meeting on March 6th President Bob Newman presented a Paul Harris Fellow Award to Ron Burgoine of Kincrome Tools for his support of the club and particularly the Community Bike Hub. For many years Ron has supported our club Golf Day with sponsorship and prizes. With the establishment of the Bike Shed, now Community Bike Hub, Ron provided the tools used in the workshop.
The Chairman of Community Bike Hub Andy Moutray-Read spoke of the impact of Ron’s support to this community enterprise.

Jama Farah has provided a comprehensive Horn of Africa Project report including details of the the 18th container of essential goods having reached it's destination in the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia.

Full report here.

At the February the 6th meeting Jama Farah presented certificates of appreciation to President Bob Newman, Frank Dri, manager of Donations in Kind,and in absentia, Laurie Fisher who recently retired as manager of DIK for their support of the Horn of Africa Project.
The citation was as follows :

At our meeting on Feb 6th recently returned Exchange Student Anita Pflug spoke about her year in Sardinia
She had two Rotary host families during her stay. During her stay with the first family she formed astray bond with twin sisters who are of similar age. The second family loved the outdoors, hunting travel hiking and her host mum loved cooking.
She had a busy social life attending various festivals, parades, dancing and eating.
Her special activities coordinated by Rotary included:
- attending a “model” UN
- a weekend where Exchange Students prepared food from their home country. She and a girl from WA cooked kangaroo!
- “Italia tour” to Milan, Pisa, Sienna, Naples, Rome and Pompei. This was a bit rushed with a day in each city
- “Euro tour” to Geneva, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Prague, Vienna and Budapest.
There also managed to attend school and enjoyed being in a class of 30 students.
The host clubs were small and meetings were over long lunches.
Anita, is extremely grateful for the experience and over the year gained gained confidence and learnt not to take things too seriously.

Following her presentation Anita presented a banner from the host club to President Bob

Join in a Clean Up Australia event on Sunday March 2nd. Elizabeth Drozd has arranged this event on the banks of the Maribyrnong. Meet at the Footscray Canoe Club and walk along the river and pick up rubbish from !0.00am to 11.30am. Full details here.

On Sunday 23rd March members participated in the WalkWest fundraiser conducted by Western Health Foundation along the Maribyrnong River. With donations from members and friends the club raised $1000

Our speaker on Thursday, 20 February was Kellie Vivekanatham who is Acting Director of Aged, Mental and Subacute Services at Western health.
Kellie told us about a research program into a new Model of Care for dementia patients at Sunshine Hospital

The 2025 cohort of Rotary Exchange Students, including Eloise our sponsored student, departed from Tullamarine on on Saturday 18th January, on their adventure in various parts of Europe. Eloise recently spoke at our club meeting and was keenly anticipating her exchange in the Czech Republic, which is now a reality. We look forward to updates from her during the year.

Since it was founded more than 100 years ago, the Foundation has spent more than $4 billion on life-changing, sustainable project.

What impact can one donation have?

• For as little as 60 cents, a child can be protected from polio.
• $50 can provide clean water to help fight waterborne illness.
• $500 can launch an antibullying campaign and create a safe environment for children

A further appeal has been launched to fund a further container of Medical Supplies to Africa.

The Ayder Hospital in Tigray region of Ethiopia and is dire need of equipment following war in the region. For full details of how to donate click here.