Bulletin of the Rotary Club of Ocean Grove Inc.
Joint winner of the Lange trophy for best membership growth.Sole solver of the mystery of the white glove.
www.rotaryoceangrove.blogspot.com
Vol. 26 No. 39
April 29th, 2008
Notice for the meeting at Davidsons Restaurant, corner Fenwick & Little Malop Streets, Tuesday 6th May, 6.00 sharp
It is absolutely essential that you register with Hans for this event, [if you haven’t already done so], no later than noon Thursday 1st May, with numbers. You will not be assumed to be attending, and your failure to contact Hans will be taken as your intention not to be present. THE COST IS $28 PER HEAD, DRINKS AT BAR PRICES.
Chairman Noel Emselle Assistant Cashier Gerry Spencer Thanker Noel Emselle

Beth Tippett (left) and Josie Shepherd from
Operation Open Heart Rawanda with Pres. Alison George (right) (see report below)
Birthdays & Anniversaries
9th May Lauree Fleay. [also Albert Finney 1936, Glenda Jackson 1936, and Billy Joel 1949].
10th Rod & Carole Birrell. [On this day in 1901, the flag of Australia was chosen from entries in a nationwide design competition.]
11th Ann Magee. [ also Irving Berlin 1888, Martha Graham 1894, and Salvador Dali 1904].
12th Geoff & Jan Brentnall. [This is celebrated as St. Pancras Day, a Roman citizen who, unwisely as it turned out, converted to Christianity in 304 a.d. and lost his head because of it.]
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Notice for the meeting at the Ocean Grove Hotel, Tuesday 12th May, 6.00 for 6.30
Speaker John Dodgshun Subject ‘Farewell to an old Queen’. It’s about a ship!
Chairman Rod Birrell
Assistant Cashier & Thanker Dennis Sanders Greeter & Assistant Sergeant Bob Smith
Birthday
13th Jan Fox [also Daphne Du Maurier 1907, Joe Louis 1914, and Burt Bacharach 1929]
And be it known that this is the very last time that birthdays and anniversaries will be linked in the above manner as everyone has had a mention, and you all must be sick of it anyway. From this point on, significant world events celebrated during the week following each bulletin, will be mentioned.
Shigeyuki Furuno
None of you have met Yuki, but I hope most of you will, at our changeover night on Tuesday 1st July. Yuki was an inward exchange student from Sapporo, Japan to my old club, Robinvale, when he was 16. He is now 50, and we have exchanged Xmas cards every year since Jan and I hosted him 34 years ago. He and his wife Atsuko will be coming to spend a week with us , spanning the 50th anniversary of Robinvale RC on 28th June, and our meeting on 1st July.
Yuki had no English when he arrived in Australia, but was fluent twelve months later. He now heads the family business, manufacturing automatic sliding doors [hospitals, supermarkets, airports etc] employing 550 people in Sapporo, and dividing his time between homes in Sapporo and Tokyo. He joined the Rotary club of Sapporo – membership 125 - in April 1999, and is due to be club secretary in two years time.
Yuki took time off from his busy schedule to fly the length of Japan to the southern port of Nagasaki last week to meet Jan and I for the first time in 34 years. We spent a truly magic day with him in the mountain village of Okawachiyama, in the world famous pottery district of Imari. Yuki is a student exchange success story.
Atsuko is a recently qualified wine consultant, which makes their June itinerary fairly easy.
More about the obituary of Common Sense
Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar can sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement
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Tanzanian and U.S. clubs fund limb surgeries
With the cooperation of the RC of Monterey, Cal. And the Rotary Foundation, the RC of Arusha Mount Meru, Arusha, Tanzania, announced in April last year that US$65,000 will help provide reconstructive limb surgery for 288 local children with fluorosis. The debilitating bone disease is caused by high levels of fluoride in drinking water. Orthopedic surgeons at Selian Lutheran Hospital in Arusha will perform the $3000 surgeries for just $250 per operation.
The above article is reprinted verbatim from the RI publication ‘Rotary World’ of January 2008.
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This Day Tonight
18 of our members attended Torquay Rotary last week to hear double lung transplant recipient Martin Mileham relate his gift of life. Organ donorship is neglected in Oz. Any medicare office can help..
John Calnin’s Anzac Day mob of 12 did a great job last Friday, serving more than 200 egg ‘n bacon sandwiches. If you layed 200 eggs end-to-end, you’d have a very sore fritter!
Rod Greer, Dick Clay, Tony Haines, Geoff Ford and Wal Kelly attended a working bee at the Barwon Heads gardens yesterday. Another one will just about do it.
The latest DIK delivery to the North Geelong depot featured 50 boxes of books.
There will be a Prostate Support Group Meeting at the Ocean Grove Community Health Centre on Thursday 12th June at 7.30 PM. 40 in every 100 men over 45 will experience debilitating prostate problems. 10 of them will have cancer and 2 of them will die of it. There are as many men die of Prostate Cancer as Women die of Breast Cancer. If you have any concern about the performance of your ‘old fella’, you should be there. I am going to repeat this advice next week. Don’t stay away because you are embarrassed. Better to be embarrassed than dead!
PR guru Richard has a RCOG promotional video in production. You could be a star!
While you are considering the bit about your best friend, how about the next-door neighbor?. Bowel Scan Kits go on sale for $6 at local pharmacies this week.
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It’s a National Disgrace that two well-trained and dedicated Australian nurses have to pay their own fares to Rwanda and back
Rotary can do just so much to render aid to third world countries, but what is our government doing to play its part in the treatment of global health problems? We are a very rich country and you and I are so very lucky to live here. But were you not just a little bit ashamed that our guest speakers tonight had to fork out airfares of $4,000 each to show that we really are a caring country?
Their project ‘Operation Open Heart Rwanda’ was excellently presented by Josie and Beth, but it demonstrated the huge gap between our health services and those of Rwanda and similar African nations.
They spent a week at the King Faisal Hospital in Kigali, assisting with operations conducted by Australian surgeons, and treating children with heart problems such as ‘hole-in-the-heart’, valve repairs and replacements etc. These girls would like to have had the time to train local nurses, but the local work ethic and poor education represent a huge hurdle. Thank you, girls, for an eye-opener.