Another chirpy meeting last Wednesday and great all the IT worked well for our guest speaker Janet Mc Calman on zoom. An interesting perspective.
Next time we have a guest speaker on zoom we will have them speak first, so there is time for questions.
We can continue our meeting afterwards
Assistant Governor Alison Bacon called a zoom meeting on Wednesday . A request was had re a Foundation Dinner for the cluster, however no details have been set . This will be a joint event.
Also please keep Saturday 4th February free for a DG event.
Great to see a few other committees getting some plans sorted.
Phil and Neville are off to the Platy-Plant event in Axedale on Sunday, hope they get lots of pics to show us,
Next Friday a fellowship night at the Gold Mines 6pm.
Tony and I have headed off to the flood zone. Stew will be joining us on Monday with trailer loads of donations. Very wet up here.
Have a good week with Rob back at the helm!
Enjoy and stay healthy.
President Judy.
This is not a lake or river. It's just flooding across paddocks as far as you can see. The thin wire across the water in the front of the pic is the top of a fence.
No room for hitch hikers with Stew.
September is Rotary International’s Basic Education and Literacy Month
This month Rotary’s goal is to empower communities to support basic education and literacy, reduce gender disparity in education and increase adult literacy.
Education and Literacy Month serves as a reminder of the importance of literacy for individuals and society.
Janet is a prolific writer and teacher at Melbourne University since 1998 in such diverse fields as Medicine, Dentistry, Health Sciences and the Arts. Just as importantly in the context of this week she is a fifth generation Geelong supporter! Janet in examining the reconstruction of Australia after the pandemic drew parallels with what happened with the rebuild after WW2 and the developments which came out of the Wages Summit of the 1980's. Essentially Janet was suggesting that the principles of cooperation which underpin a liberal democracy have the potential to take our country out of this to a better place.
The notion of the government working collaboratively with business and the unions is central to the nation's recovery. Janet quoted immigration as an example of a feature of the post war recovery. The identification of the work skills required for recovery can only come to fruition if there is a large enough public service to process the visa requirements for overseas workers. The pandemic has shown how dependent Australia is on overseas manufacturing. Australia is beginning to face realities such as the fact that most of our pharmaceuticals are manufactured in Wuhan, China.
Janet suggested that the pandemic has further exposed the fault lines of income and wealth inequality which were already apparent. At the heart of the Jobs and Skills summit is the gathering of people who wouldn't normally vote for each other coming together to share ideas and solve problems. The focus after WW2 was on infrastructure projects like the Snowy Mountains Scheme and the development of the car manufacturing industry. Are there ways to better harness the natural resources of wind and sun to further expand the pathways to renewables?
Janet presented an alternative view of what has happened historically and what might be needed in the reconstruction of Australia after COVID at a time when the world seems to be becoming more polarised. There is no doubt that our current challenges call for a sense of collaboration and consensus. Janet and co-author Emma Dawson have prepared some very well researched ideas about possible responses to the challenges currently facing Australia and the world. We congratulate her on this work and thank her for the giving of her time to be our guest.
