Winner of the Holmes Trophy for the best attendance by a Club at the 2006 District Conference
www.rotaryoceangrove.blogspot.com
Volume 25 No 14
Notice for the meeting at the Ocean Grove Hotel, Tuesday 10th October 6.00 for 6.30.
Speaker Janet Dean Subject Climate change Chairman Rod Bush
Assistant Cashier & Thanker Charles Dawborn Greeter & Assistant Sergeant John Dodgshun
Birthday 11th Patsy Bush
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Notice for the meeting at the Ocean Grove Hotel, Tuesday 17th October 6.00 for 6.30
Speaker President Richard Subject Looking Forward Chairman Helen Trigg
Assistant Cashier & Thanker Colin Brown Greeter & Assistant Sergeant Martin Geerings
Birthdays & Anniversaries 19th Rod Birrell, David Cooke 23rd Bill Walton
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Reflections on the AFL Grand Final
It’s a great day for your editor, and a tradition of long-standing. A family matter. Last Saturday was one of the best. My Aussie readers will find the following fairly mundane, but the Poms & the Canadians might be fascinated.
This was the annual Grand Final of just one of four codes of football played in this country. [population, about 20m]. The venue was the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The protagonists were teams from Sydney,[about 700 km to our north], and Perth,[about 3,400 km to our west]. Understandably, not many of their supporters reside in Melbourne.
But the official attendance was 97,431, a record for the past ten years. The winning margin was one point- the smallest margin possible, achieved only three times before in the 123 years history of the competition. The same teams fought the same battle in 2005, with the result reversed, by 4 points.
The principle sponsor for the event was Toyota, with constantly screened ads. around the perimeter fence throughout the game, but if any child attending the match was asked to name the car most prominent, I bet it would be Holden, which had a huge manned and powered ‘blimp’ with a 20 metre advertising screen, circling the ground, at about 500 metres, all day.
One of the pre-match features on the arena was a huge circle of the 16 Club banners, held flat to the grass by about 700 adult attendants, all in white,- shoes, overalls and caps. And it was all removed in about 3 minutes which was about the time it took 5 Army sky-divers to swoop onto the ground from 3,000 metres. A very loud musical group slaughtered ‘Waltzing Matilda’. [ as usual]
It was probably the only occasion for the last 12 months in this very cosmopolitan country, when 10,000 members queued for up to 8 hours before the game, and they were almost totally white anglo-saxons.
The game, for a Pom or a Canadian, was difficult to follow, but the teams were easy. The Sydneysiders wore uniforms of red and white, and the Perthites, blue and yellow. The umpires- green. The lustily sung anthem was “Up there Cazaly”!! All 22,000 members present were very well behaved. Having waited up to 25 years to get into the members’ stand, we were not about to risk suspension!
175,000 beers were consumed, [mainly out of plastic cups], and 25,000 pies. It was a fabulous day!
• By the way, it’s called……………. That one day in September.
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Last Sunday’s market
In Judy’s absence on leave, Marion Walton spoke glowingly of 54 occupied sites in glorious sunshine, and her report was visually supported by Richard’s digital expertise, [photographic, of course].
Reconstructive surgeries benefit poor Peruvians
For the third time, Rotary club- sponsored volunteers from Germany and Peru teamed up to put a smile on the faces of Peruvians with cleft-lip and cleft-palate deformities.
The 13-member medical group performed reconstructive surgeries on 41 patients and treated 33 others for a variety of ailments during a free medical camp, held inPisco, Peru. Supported with a US$6,950 Rotary Foundation Matching Grant, the event was co-sponsored by the Rotary clubs of Pisco and Ludinghausen, Germany.
“This program is extremely important, not only because of the surgeries provided but because later, language therapy is available to improve verbal communication,” says Patricia Sanchez Moreno de Uyen, president of the Pisco Rotary club. “Rotarians with training in language therapy participate in this phase.”
People with cleft-lip and cleft-palate deformities often face discrimination and self-esteem issues. In the three years since the clubs started working together, the surgeries have transformed the lives of 137 patients.
The Pisco club decided to address this largely unattended problem in 2001 after club members reported finding several cleft palate and cleft lip cases among the city’s poor. Because surgical expertise was unavailable in Pisco, the club enlisted the help of other clubs to sponsor the first three patients for surgery in Lima, the Peruvian capital.
Two years later, while visiting Peru, Ludinghausen member Michael Betz initiated the contacts that led to the series of Matching Grant-supported surgeries.
Ed note: Southampton members will be with us in Feb. We have, at Margaret Campbell’s initiative, conducted a successful ‘matching grants’ type program with them in the past. How about we OG members give careful thought to how it might be done again?
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Why is it so?
Why is ‘bra’ singular and ‘panties’ plural?
Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs!
If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?
Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window.
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Noel Emselle. [Our newest member]
Noel has visited OG regularly since 1952, joined the local surf club in 1953, and is now a permanent resident. His classification is ‘Floor covering- consultant’ and he has been appointed to the vocational service committee. He joined the RC of Footscray in 2001, and we extended him a warm welcome to our fold tonight, accompanied by his sister, Barbara. Unfortunately, his wife Trish was unable to be present.
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Rotaract- represented by three delegates tonight, as guest speakers..
A comprehensive talk by Christine, supported by district chairman Cheryl and Rotaracter Steve. Three district Rotaract clubs compared to 62 Rotary clubs is not a good score when there are 6,800 clubs in the world of 22,500 Rotary Clubs. Why is it so? Hans thought that it might be the lack of regular meetings.
And here is a summary of the topical news, read by YOU!
Rotary hats, modelled by Norm and Geoff tonight, are available for $30 in four sizes via Foxy. If you don’t buy a RAWCS sticker from Tim, you will be in trouble. PP Helen wants service comm. people at a 5.30 meeting before Rotary next Tuesday. Peter Cullen seeks ‘Pride of Workmanship’ nominees.
