Rotary Club No. 17632, District 9510. Chartered 24th April 1954

Welcome to our Club

Rotary Connects the World

Mondays at 6:30 PM

Nixon's Function Centre

Nixon Tce
Gawler, SA 5118
Australia

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President

Anthony Barilla

President Elect

Kyle Smith

Treasurer

Kathy Heinrich

Secretary

Michael Jacob

Immediate Past President

John Lyons

Community Service

Steve Barilla

Director: Vocational/Club Projects

Mark Smeaton

Club Administration

Kathy Heinrich

Director: International Service/Youth/Foundation

Angela Moore

Director: Public Image, Marketing and Communication

Kyle Smith

Bulletin Editor

Angela Moore

Child Protection Officer

Beth Hudman

Club Webmaster

Michael Jacob

NEW DEADLINE-SUNDAY 5pm

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Welcome to our weekly bulletin! Find out who our upcoming speakers are, what we covered during the last weekly meeting and other stories as they become available.

Current Club Meetings Planner

May 24	Youth Service Month
6^th May	Sherine Allouche	Member Autobiography
13^th May	Paul Duke (ROMAC)	Rotary Oceania Medical Assistance for Children
20^th May	Kyle Smith	Member Autobiography
27^th May	Committees	Board

Diary Dates

Monthly
June 3rd	Club Visit Elizabeth Bowland

Member Birthdays

Chris Edmunds

September 5

Murf Murphy

September 19

Spouse Birthdays

Carol Stewart

September 8

Grace Barilla

September 19

Sue Potger

September 23

Join Date

Margaret Leversedge

September 19, 2022

2 years

Meeting Report 3203 May 6th

Formalities
Chair	Toast	Grace
Shawn Lock	PP Mike Williams	PE Anthony Barilla

Chair Shawn opened meeting 3203 and welcomed members and guests Andrew Eastick and Cindy Johnstone- guests of Bruce

Apologies Colin Bazeley, Nathan Pengelley, Brian Burt.

Shawn then invited members who had information to share to come forward.

PE Anthony Barilla

Air Cadet’s ANZAC Day support – went very well. Praise was given to the cadets for their manners and behaviour throughout the evening. The idea of the evening was to provide support to the Air Cadets rather than make a profit although we did make a small profit.
Anthony attended the President Elect Training on the weekend and found it very beneficial. PP Kathy also attended on Sunday and Shawn on Saturday. Anthony will look at some of the legal paperwork such as our constitution to ensure everything is compliant. After hearing more about the Regionalisation project he believes it is not as bad as some people thought. Anthony appreciated being able to meet other president elect’s. He also had a quick meeting with others in our group and they have set up a tentative first meeting with the presidents to organise some group meetings/activities.
Presidents Changeover meeting is set for July 1^st and will be at The Pavillion at Trinity College. Invitations and more details in the coming weeks.

PP Kim Potger as treasurer announced that a total of $3000 was raised from the 2 auctions, raffles and lucky squares at the 70^th Anniversary dinner.

Shawn thanked PE Anthony and invited everyone to enjoy fellowship over dinner.

After Dinner Shawn introduced PP Barry Stewart to present his sergeants session.

Wheel winners were PE Anthony, Deb Williams and guest Andrew Eastick .

PP Barry then presented is entertaining FB funnies and fines session before Shawn introduced the guest speaker for the evening Member Sharine Allouche to give her autobiography.

Sharine was born in the Westmead hospital in Sydney, she has 1 older sister and 2 younger brothers. Both Sharine’s parents are Lebanese, and she grew up in a strict but unconventional family. Her mum is Muslim and her dad Maronite Catholic. Sharine’s father owned several car yards in Sydney and her mum was a traditional stay at home mum.

The family moved to Adelaide after her father visited for business and decided it would be a good place to live. He bought a car yard over here and Sharine attended Paralowie R-12 school before moving to Tyndale. She was always an animal lover and environmentalist and decided to study marine biology after she left school. However, in her first year at Uni her father passed away in tragic circumstances. Sharine was already having second thoughts about Uni and was distracted, so she decided she didn’t want to continue but her mother talked her into staying. Sharine’s heart wasn’t in it, and she rebelled by skipping classes and not attending. She had also met her ex -fiancé so spent time with him instead. When her mother questioned her about her results Sharine had to admit she had not been attending. Her Grandma was going back to Lebanon for an extended holiday and Sharine accompanied her and her Grandpa for a few months to try and get back on track while she visited family.

While she was there Sharine accompanied her uncle to visit Asylum seekers and refugees from the war. She enjoyed working with these vulnerable people and understood they had suffered great trauma. When she returned to Australia, she enrolled in TAFE to complete her Diploma of Childcare and worked in the toddler room for 5 years. However, she still felt the pull of working with those with trauma. Her mum and sister are both social workers and sent her emails for jobs in Child Protection so she decided to try it. She started as a support worker but didn’t like it so moved to being a family contact worker where she stayed for 5 years. It was suggested she return to Uni to receive formal qualifications in Social Work, but she didn’t feel ready to return. She was offered a contract and promotion to Case worker which she finally accepted a moth ago.

Sharine has also received a DCP recognition award for her work assisting young people transition from care to out of care with the Gawler Youth Council.

Sharine has a niece Mia who she loves and is godmother to. She went to Ireland for her christening (her brother-in-law is Irish) and spent 4 weeks travelling and also spent 4 days in Paris including going to Disneyland on her birthday and hiring a driver to take her to all the tourist sites.

With the support of her mum, after and 8-year relationship Sharine decided to call the wedding off three weeks before the wedding.

Sharine then took questions from members and guests. All agreed she has had an interesting life so far!

Shawn asked Pres John to close the meeting.

John congratulated everyone for a successful anniversary dinner and thanked everyone for coming before closing meeting 3203.

Guest speaker this week Sharine hard at work with Kyle and Pres John at the Anzac day eve BBQ

PP Steve Barilla and Shawn Lock join the crew for a spell

the hard working team together

Did You know?

One of the recent major projects of The Rotary Club of Gawler has been to support the Black Ops to establish a new, purpose built garage in Gawler and it has now come into fruition with the support of member for Light Tony Piccolo MP.

See below for the press release from Tony’s office.

News Release

Light Electorate Office

A 148 Murray Street, Gawler SA 5118

P (08) 8522 2878

F (08) 8523 1392

E light@parliament.sa.gov.au

State Parliament logo

Tony Piccolo MP

State Member for Light

Labor Duty Member for Schubert

Sunday, 12 May 2024

NEW HOMES FOR THE ABC

The long journey by The Gawler Apex Club, Gawler Vintage & Classic Vehicles Club and Black Ops – Veterans Garage to find a home where they could support their members has ended with a positive outcome.

The clubs have found themselves a new home alongside the Apex Club on a site owned by the South Australian State Emergency Services (SASES), on Two Wells Road, Willaston.

After extensive discussions facilitated by State Member for Light, Tony Piccolo MP, the three clubs have agreed to share a site and established an incorporated body known as ABC Inc to manage a portion of land that SASES has agreed to lease for up to 42 years.

“While working with SASES on the Gawler Unit, there was discussions about Gawler Apex Club extending their lease on some of the land, so I asked the club if they’d be willing to share the site, organised a meeting and it went from there—a big thank you to APEX,” Mr Piccolo said.

“Many clubs have difficulties in the current climate to gather the resources needed to establish and operate their own workshops/clubrooms, so it made sense to encourage the three clubs to work together as they exist in the same community.”

“While pride and history are important to many clubs, it’s not lost when they join together to share facilities it’s simply another chapter to the story—in everyday life, communities rally to help one another out and we’re certainly seeing that in this project.”

Gawler Apex Club member Leon Budden said, “the club is thrilled to be part of the ABC project, providing a stable base for all clubs to host services and assist the greater Gawler community.”

The Town of Gawler waived fees and offered support throughout the planning process in what Mayor Karen Redman said, “allows their funds to be used for the core purpose of building the new community facilities.”

“Council welcomes the development as it showcases how like-minded community organisations can work collaboratively to deliver positive community outcomes,” Mayor Redman said.

The Black Ops – Veterans Garage had recently received $250,000 as part of a Malinauskas Labor Government election commitment for the construction of the purpose-built garage, while the Gawler Vintage & Classic Vehicles Club Inc wanted a new combined workshop/clubroom, but neither group had space available.

Black Ops - Veterans Garage founder and CEO, Jonny Spicer, said this new community hub will aid their non-for-profit charity that has run purely on donations since establishment in 2019.

“Created by a couple of returned servicemen, sick of losing many of their friends and hearing about the large number of Veteran suicides in the community and Australia wide, upon returning home after war service,” Mr Spicer said.

“We are based on the "Men's shed" concept, designed to offer non-clinical peer support and provide purposefulness through workshop projects.”

Gawler Vintage & Classic Vehicles Club Inc president Gavin Frost is pleased his club “can continue their 40-year tradition of providing vintage vehicle enthusiasts with a space to network, restore, volunteer and fundraise to support other service groups and community groups in the Gawler and surrounding area.”

“The ABC Hub is an exciting new community project and will be an asset and change lives for not only the Gawler Car Club, but also to Apex, Black Ops and the wider community,” Mr Frost said.

The Rotary Club of Gawler has also chipped in funds and helped with the planning and designing of the project free of charge, with past president Mark Smeaton proud their club “can support this fantastic community project.”

SASES Chief Officer Chris Beattie was glad their “collaboration with the three community groups throughout the planning state of the new Gawler Unit has been a win for all involved.”

With development approval now issued, the clubs are now finalising plans before construction will commence in the coming months.

END

On the site for the new homes for the ABC’s are (from left)
Black Ops – Veterans Garage’s Jonny Spicer and Jake Beers, Gawler Vintage & Classic Vehicles Club Inc’s Gavin Frost, SASES’ James Buccella, Tony Piccolo MP, SASES’ David O’Shannessy, Gawler Apex Club’s Bronte Rhodes, Town of Gawler Acting CEO Andrew Goodsell, Mayor Karen Redman, Rotary Club of Gawler’s Mark Smeaton

Recently PP Leanne Clinch shared the following post about Bullying on social media. Many people have been affected at some stage by bullying and it is a stark reminder of how our words can hurt. Too often the word bullying is brandished around and I believe it is losing its meaning so people are ignoring when actual bullying is happening and the effect it can have.

Angela

“Today in one of our classes I introduced the children to two apples (the children didn't know this, but before the class I had repeatedly dropped one of the apples on the floor, you couldn't tell, both apples looked perfect). We talked about the apples and the children described how both apples looked the same; both were red, were of similar size and looked juicy enough to eat.

I picked up the apple I'd dropped on the floor and started to tell the children how I disliked this apple, that I thought it was disgusting, it was a horrible colour and the stem was just too short. I told them that because I didn't like it, I didn't want them to like it either, so they should call it names too.

Some children looked at me like I was insane, but we passed the apple around the circle calling it names, 'you're a smelly apple', 'I don't even know why you exist', 'you've probably got worms inside you' etc.

We really pulled this poor apple apart. I actually started to feel sorry for the little guy.

We then passed another apple around and started to say kind words to it, 'You're a lovely apple', 'Your skin is beautiful', 'What a beautiful colour you are' etc.

I then held up both apples, and again, we talked about the similarities and differences, there was no change, both apples still looked the same.

I then cut the apples open. The apple we'd been kind to was clear, fresh and juicy inside.

The apple we'd said unkind words to was bruised and all mushy inside.

I think there was a lightbulb moment for the children immediately. They really got it, what we saw inside that apple, the bruises, the mush and the broken bits is what is happening inside every one of us when someone mistreats us with their words or actions.

When people are bullied, especially children, they feel horrible inside and sometimes don't show or tell others how they are feeling. If we hadn't have cut that apple open, we would never have known how much pain we had caused it.

I shared my own experience of suffering someone's unkind words last week. On the outside I looked OK, I was still smiling. But, on the inside someone had caused me a lot of pain with their words and I was hurting.

Unlike an apple, we have the ability to stop this from happening. We can teach children that it's not ok to say unkind things to each other and discuss how it makes others feel. We can teach our children to stand up for each other and to stop any form of bullying, just as one little girl did today when she refused to say unkind words to the apple.

More and more hurt and damage happens inside if nobody does anything to stop the bullying. Let's create a generation of kind, caring children.

The tongue has no bones, but is strong enough to break a heart. So be careful with your words.”

Words by: Mum in the Moment

RESOURCES:

Need to find out more about kids and bullying: https://parenttv.com/?s=Bullying

How to help look after your child’s mental health: https://parenttv.com/topics/mental-health/

Apples used to illustrate the effects of words on people

WANTED

Guest speakers:

Do you have a business in Gawler and want to tell us about it?

Are you part of a community group that needs more exposure?

Get in touch and we can see where we can find you a spot.

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