Meetings are held at 6.30pm on the first and third Thursdays of the month.
Meetings are held at 6.30pm on the first and third Thursdays of the month.
A certificate of appreciation was presented to Hibo Osman Garad at our meeting on June 19th and received by her husband Jama Farah. This is to recognise her great support to Jama with this project, regularly preparing food for functions at Donations in Kind when club members, members of the Ethiopian Community and often politicians and diplomats gather to inspect the contents of containers before leaving for Africa.
The Changeover from President Bob Newman to incoming President Elizabeth Drozd will be held on July 3rd at the Plough Hotel.
We are honoured that outgoing District Governor, Michael Lapina will be present along with the Mayor of Maribyrnong, Cr Pradeep Tiwari. There will also be Rotary guests from Flemington/Kensington and West Footscray clubs and PDG Iven Mackay and his wife Marilyn.
During the evening there will be a presentation to John Granger marking his 50 years oF membership.
It should be a great night.
Event
President Elect, Elizabeth Drozd has been getting around visiting clubs in our area and attended the Changeover dinner of the Flemington Kensington Club last week, when Melina Cacetta was welcomed as the new Club President.
Chris King spoke about photography at our meeting on June 5th. A dedicated amateur photographer, Chris emphasised techniques for shooting good photos and making use of our phones as cameras. He demonstrated some of his treasured shots of birds, glaciers and scenery from his collection.
His tips for photograpy:
Be alert, be ready, have the camera/phone with you
Patience can be a virtue as can being very quick
Composition - look for leading lines, in close or go big, use a odd number of subjects in a scene
Lighting - use natural window light, use torch on phone, try to avoid flat even light.
Be prepared for Constant Learning.
Above all, enjoy your photography, listen to others critique, but produce the images you want to produce.
This award, valued at $2500, commemorates the dedicated work of Evan Phillips for the Rotary Club of Footscray. For some years, in conjunction with WPC Group, a not-for-profit group training organisation specialising in the employment and training of apprentices, the Rotary Club of Footscray make an award to an apprentice from the Western Suburbs.
From a large field of applicants, three candidates were shortlisted and interviewed. Zak Duque-Weikel, an apprentice motor mechanic at the Porche Centre was selected as the recipient for 2025. Nico Leopanao CEO of WPC Group spoke of the qualities Zak demonstrated in the selection process leading to this award. Zak spoke very well in accepting the award and demonstrated passion for his career path. Thanks to Emanuel Tumino for his leadership in the organising of this award.
The project continues from strength to strength.
To celebrate the loading of the 19th container, the Ethiopian ambassador was present at DIK for the occasion.
A video of the occasion can be viewed here .Please ignore the advertisement in the YouTube link!
This link accesses the latest report from Jama Farah, Project Coordinator.
The purpose of the meeting on May 15th was to hear about the work of Mambourin and make awards to their staff.
Danielle Carey-Munro, Chief Executive Officer, gave a presentation on the provision of services for those with disabilities. There are three areas of focus: skills development, helping create opportunities of employment and providing care to those seeking independence and work. Currently the organisation has 473 participants, with an average age of 36 and the primary disability being intellectual.
PE Elizabeth and David Dippy from the Rotary Club of East Keilor, wearing Rotary branded shirts, recently participated in a Tree Planting session organised by Maribyrnong Council and Friends of Maribyrnong Valley/River. Such events provide a great opportunity to promote Rotary and our other environmental activities.
Over 30 volunteers attended planting 300 trees and shrubs.
There are several other sessions planned in the future and everyone is welcome to attend.
Moonee Valley Council will also be having a tree planting later in the year.
The club is very appreciative of the support from our sponsors at the successful Annual Golf Day.
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
A successful RYPEN Camp has just been completed. 16 students, 5 Supporters and 3 Rotarians attended. The students were 15-17 year olds in years 9, 10 or 11. The supporters are the enthusiastic young people who voluntarily give up their weekends to act as team leaders for the students, and the Rotarians are the members of the RYPEN Committee including Suzanne Zammit.
Suzanne found it such a breath of fresh air to be at Doxa encouraging the students to explore and step into their potential and they so do.
We are now in the peak of club changeovers and DGE Dale, DGN Amanda, DGND Ron, partners and I have been greatly enjoying every event. I know I speak for all the G-train members when I say how amazing it is to see the incredible spread of Rotary activities across the District; to take in the atmosphere of every club; and to learn about the many successes that clubs have achieved during the 2020/21 year with the projects they have undertaken that make such a difference in the world. We are also buoyed by the plans that club leadership teams have for the year ahead.
I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all Centenary Presidents and club leadership teams for your incredible efforts in ‘Opening Opportunities’ through what has been a challenging year.
Welcome to the new Rotary Year of 2021-22, the Centenary year of Rotary here in Australia and New Zealand in which we follow the lead of our Rotary International President Shekhar Mehta and ‘Serve to Change Lives.’
In between two Covid lockdown restrictions, on 10th July at Hyatt Essendon Fields, 250 Rotarians came together to celebrate the District 9800 Changeover. It was wonderful to enjoy face to face friendship and fellowship again.
Clubs across the District, in many cases forced to juggle dates due to COVID restrictions, hosted their changeover events. Both Maureen and I, plus other members of the District Leadership group attended all Changeovers across the District and we were all impressed by the extent of community activity and impact over the last 12 months especially during the difficult COVID period.
The District Networker Newsletter will be issued twice a month commencing the first and third week of August.
Our District website has been updated and District events will continue to be published under 'Upcoming Events' on the home page.
The popular Morning Tea with the DG will continue on Saturday mornings commencing August varying the format to include themed events and some interactive sessions.
Any other feedback on enhancing communication across the District will be gratefully received.
On behalf of the District Leadership team, we look forward to working with clubs and Rotarians to help increase our community impact over the next 12 months.
Dale Hoy
It seems only a few weeks since Jama Farah asked me to be president elect (PE) for his year as president. In a fit of absence of mind, I said, yes. We are now nearly at the end of my first month having had the Changeover night, the District’s changeover night, a second meeting at The Plough Hotel and soon to come, my first Zoom Board meeting. Apart from that, there’s been a Zoom meeting of our cluster’s Presidents and a veritable e-blizzard of emails from everywhere except someone in Nigeria offering me a fortune.
The Club has been consistent in organising meeting throughout this two-month period. In April, a zoom meeting in the first week was followed by a dinner meeting at The Plough Hotel later in the month. The Footscray Rotary Board Meeting was organised on the 13th May.
Tommy Quick is the guest speaker for tonight’s zoom meeting. Tommy Quick is a young 28-year-old stroke impacted man, who is riding a recumbent bike 9000 across Australia and up the East coast with the goal to raise $1m for stroke research. He only has 62 days until he starts in WA and heads to Melbourne.
Looking forward to meeting Tommy and listening to his story.
The Rotary Club of Footscray fundraising dinner for youth projects – held in conjunction with the 2021 Footscray Art Prize was organised on the 8th May 2021. The event began with a special viewing of the Footscray Art Prize exhibition at the Footscray Community Arts Centre followed by dinner and an auction at the Australian Croatian Club.
We raised just over $3000 from the dinner, this includes tickets sales and silent auctions.
Suzanne would like to applaud the generosity of the club members who attended and their guests, for donating goods, time and their skills to make it a very enjoyable evening.
For those who have been unable to visit the Footscray Art Prize in person, here is a link to the catalogue and a virtual tour of the main prize exhibition at the Footscray Community Art Centre.
The catalogue includes the Young Artists entries, the prizes sponsored by our club.
Rotary District 9800 Governor Philip Archer
The Rotary Centenary Coins and Stamp launch was held on Thursday morning and was truly a wonderful event. The seamless online communication link between the Melbourne and Sydney UBS boardrooms was impressive and allowed us to showcase the best of the two centenary clubs of Rotary Melbourne and Rotary Sydney.
I would like to acknowledge the leadership of those clubs dating back one hundred years. Sir John Monash, the second President of the Rotary Club of Melbourne, and indeed every president since charter, has led a broad church of members who have been able to assist the growth of Rotary in Victoria and across Australia, chartering new clubs and implementing a range of impressive projects that have brought significant benefits to the communities they have served. I congratulate the current Rotary Melbourne leadership team of President Marion MacLeod, Immediate Past President Kevin Sheehan and Hugh Bucknall, all of whom have been so active in the promotion of Rotary’s 100 years of giving and leading our centenary celebrations. They have helped to lay the foundation for the next century of giving.
The Rotary Club of Footscay is a partner in the 2021 Footscray Art Prize. Full details of exhibitions for Major,
Street Art and Young Artists Prizes https://www.footscrayartprize.com/
The fundraising to ship containers of hospital and school equipment to Ethiopia has successfully reached its target. The Rotary Club of Footscray in association with Donations in Kind wishes to transport three containers of medical and school equipment to Somali Regional State of Ethiopia. The current donation total stands at $21575 of the $21000 target.
A BIG thank you to all those who contributed and offered their support for this massive project for the Club.
You are welcome to see the update of the project here.
Here is a picture of President Jama Farah and Past President Suzanne Zammit have been to DIK to check out the contents of the first container of our Horn of Africa Project.
Two meetings were organised by The Rotary Club of Footscray members in the month of February, one online via Zoom as a general check in to see how everyone was doing and second, face to face informal at 540 Barkly St., Footscray. It was great to see members and share a few laughs.
