Gary Halliday posted on June 23, 2010 12:46
We had another very good roll up to tonight’s meeting. I counted 26 people in attendance. These included our special guest speaker, the inspirational Colin Taylor; Pastor Colin Davidson of The Inspire Church and Poppy and Duncan, fresh from their RYPEN Camp (with their family members).
Our speaker for the night, Colin Taylor, knows a thing or two about automobiles. His life basically revolved around them, especially Chevrolet cars, a passion he shared with long time friend Pat Murray. A hereditary condition though has unfortunately robbed Colin of most of his sight. This minor setback has only led to Colin focussing his attention to something that couldn’t be further from the smell of an oily rag or a revving engine. A friendship he developed with the owners of his favourite Thai restaurant nurtured a hunger not only for the restaurant’s exceptional fare, but also a profound thirst for knowledge of the Laotian people and their way of life. These days, Colin travels to Laos regularly, carrying out his special brand of charity for the needy. He has even purchased a parcel of land in Laos where he can stay while on one of his many visits. Colin is a truly inspirational individual who has not let his personal difficulties stand in the way of achieving his ambitions.
Our RYPEN kids. Poppy and Duncan were also on hand to enlighten us on their recent camp. These two kids demonstrated that these camps always seem to achieve what they set out to do. That is to instil confidence and develop skills that simply can’t be taught in the home environment.
Our board also convened for the last time and made some financial commitments to see out the Rotary year. We are jointly funding an Australian Rotary Health Research PhD scholarship, the research subject is to be “Investigating the role of metals for the treatment of cancer”, this hopefully will compliment the work that Professor Des Richardson and his team are doing at Sydney University. The scholarship is worth $29,000 each year (tax free to the recipient), $87,000 for the full three years, with a possible extension of a further 6 months. In total the Club has committed $38,500 to the funding of this scholarship Our very own Alan Hall will participate in ‘The Variety Bush Bash’ which our club has sponsored to the tune of $1000. Money will go towards the building of specially designed buses for handicapped children. From a sublime to the ridiculous finish to the year, we have also committed $250 to purchase the possible naming rights of a camel race at The Marree Races which our Peter Houghton is also sponsoring along with some friends. We also offered a further $200 to Peter if he happened to be in the saddle of said camel at the finishing line, an offer he politely declined – all proceeds from the Camel Races go to support the Royal Flying Doctor Service. A donation of $1,500 to the Fawcett Foundation to support their work in Bali (Cataracts, Cleft Palates etc) was also made.
Our raffle maestro, Kevin and his partner in crime, fine sergeant Joe managed to extract $300 collectively from our pockets tonight. Our RYPEN kids walked away with all the prizes in the raffle leaving usual winners Jock and Joe a bit miffed at the outcome. Immediate Past President Bob Groat has finally evicted the stomach bug he made friends with in Vietnam two weeks ago and was on hand to share a few friendly barbs during the fine session. Joe Cauchi advised that he is now off on an an-other adventure, to God knows where this time but assures that a card board cut out of himself is available for future board meetings if required by incoming president Peter. Bob Cook finally got his hands on his dinner badge only to lose it within two minutes of having it pinned to his pocket. Luckily it was found among the Polo Shirts Gary brought in to display.
Changeover is fast approaching so please get those numbers into Peter ASAP. We are also looking for families to host the incoming exchange student. Now I know that most of you live in Mc Mansions that are way too big for normal couples. I bet there are some rooms you have probably never even walked into. Surely one of those five or six spare bedrooms can be used to house the young lady who will be arriving shortly from Finland!
Next week will be my last as president of our club and guest June Young will be celebrating her first as president of hers, so it will be a bit like in with the new and out with the old, all in the one night.