Co-Presidents Report for 10 January, 2025
This weeks’ report is a double-banger, recapping our last meeting just prior to Christmas, as well as this weeks’ casual get-together at Lake Weeroona.
We hope the Christmas break was a happy time for all to enjoy with their
families and friends.
Our last meeting for 2024, on 19 th December, turned out to be even more exuberant than usual. Our two guests, Glenda Bryson, a member of Bendigo Rotary Club, and our guest speaker, Olivia Tenace, of Dementia Australia, must have wondered what they had let themselves in for. We seemed to be particularly fired up with the imminent approach of the festive season. It was nice to see that PP and PHF Mark Weragoda was able to attend in person, instead of usually when driving his car to work, and we could see he enjoyed our camaraderie on the day.
Chairman for the day, Doug Lougoon, conducted a very humorous quiz which gave us a lot of information about Christmas Day that we didn’t realise was so important and interesting. Apart from the most obvious one, it seems that many well-known people were born on the day; died on the day; or were participants in significant events on the day. It’s certainly been a very busy day in history over the years, and it was good fun to hear about such a lot of hitherto unknown information. Thanks very much, Doug.
Secretary Paul Henderson re-convened our AGM so we could finally vote to accept the audited financial report for the 2023/24 year. We would sincerely like to thank Treasurer Madeleine Schoo for her diligence in compiling this important document, and to Leonie Weragoda, who very generously gave of her time and expertise to guide and assist Madeleine.
PP and PHF Toni Carrington celebrated 30 years of membership of Rotary in December. Toni was inducted into the Rotary Club of Hay, NSW, on 1st December 1994, and has been a Rotarian continuously since. In 1997, she moved to Bendigo, and joined the Bendigo Strathdale club; then in 2006, Toni switched over to our club. Many of our members have also been long-term Rotarians, and so when significant milestones such as this are reached, it’s nice to know this, and to publicly acknowledge them.
Our guest speaker, Olivia Tenace, of Dementia Australia, remarked afterwards that she thoroughly enjoyed being present on the day, and was quite keen to be included on our bulletin mailing list so that she could keep up to date with our projects and activities. That was very encouraging to hear, and we will continue to ask our guest speakers if they would like to be included on the list.
This week, we started with our usual barbecue breakfast at Lake Weeroona. The weather was great, the food was very good, and it was a cheery start to the new year. Thanks go to Kevin Reade for organising the event with all his behind-the-scenes activity, and to our chefs for the day, Ted Gretgrix and Ian Johnson.
In excellent news, we welcomed two previous members, Kathryn Mackenzie and Kevin Dobson, who will be officially re-joining us very soon. Both Kathryn and Kevin were valued members of the club previously, but either resigned or transferred to another club due to their respective work situations. However, they are both now in Bendigo for the long term, and we are very pleased to welcome them back with us.
In our position as co-presidents, we would like to thank all members for their hard work on our clubs’ projects, and their support and friendship for us for the year to date. We look forward to a fulfilling and satisfying next 6 months of achievements and public service with you all.
Co-presidents Adrian and Ray.
