Meeting 3067 held 6/12/21

Meeting 3067 was well attended by members and 9 special guests. The guests were: District Governor Jeff Neale and his wife Jenny; Area Governor Rick Henke; Tony Clarke and John Paynter from the CFS Air Operation; Grady Hudd ex Editor of The Bunyip Newspaper; Ian and Michelle Nys; and Julie Smeaton; and honorary members Peter Nettlebeck and Klaus Refetsdorf.

Apologies were received from Bob Ahrens, Steve Barilla, Patsy Johnson, Dino Donati, Dan Barratt and Mark Forgie.

Toast by Leanne Clinch and Chairperson for the evening was Kathy Heindrich

After officially opening the meeting and welcoming guests, Kathy Heinrich reminded people to book tickets for the Christmas dinner. She also reminded everyone that gifts for the auction were still needed and also to bring a gift for a child to put under the tree. Gifts for all ages were being collected but the 12-16 year age group were required most.

Treasurer Kim Potger asked members to check their bank statements to see whether they had been charged for dinner the previous week because someone’s card didn’t go through. This was possibly an expired card.

Ian Sanders reported that he had raffle tickets from the Elizabeth Rotary club to sell during the evening and he had volunteered to sell them at Elizabeth shopping centre for them but sadly only sold 1 ticket in 2 hours. He also acknowledged that guest Ian Nys had been a lot more successful by selling multiple books!

After a short fellowship opportunity and dinner President Elect and tonight’s Chairperson Kathy invited Tony Clarke and John Paynter to update the group on the move of the CFS Air Operations base at the Gawler Airfield.

Tony said they had been overwhelmed by the response for community support for the project. He then gave a brief recap on the group and also the reason they had to move.

The situation was that the fuel tanks and fuel tank storage area for the airstrip was being expanded. And they  operate right next to them. So that means that there would be a problem with fire and flammable materials. So they have gone from a lovely tarmac area, to a grassed area. They were also unaware of exactly what resources they would be getting. what  they did  get was two shipping containers and a dome to cover. So there was no power, no toilets, no operating conditions. When they asked what they could do they were told, “If your committee can support you, you go for it”, which is the wrong thing to say because they got to work!

What was needed was a working surface area. So to do that, they need a bitumen surface at least 40 meters by six meters and the cost of that commercial was $120,000. To airport standards. After reaching out to the community several businesses came on board. Bunnings supplied all the concrete mesh for all the areas and supplied all the formwork and all the materials needed, which Top notch landscaping came along and started working on all the pathway areas and he did that very willingly. And his question was See what more can I do for you. And we said, we'll come back to you. So then they CFSR, we will make gear. So these two shipping containers basically hold the pumps equipment. Hanson Constuction at Evanston Gardens have donated $25.000 worth of concrete and the manpower to lay it for ramps, pathways and a pad. LRM Construction came on board with digging out and laying heavily compactable material in an area to support the large aircraft for refuelling. The area had to meet CASA regulations so a special bitumen mix had to be used . This section was Rotary’s involvement and when Adelaide Bitumen learned that Rotary was paying the bill, they basically cut the cost by half.

 The group are really pleased, what they have now is a very strong, beautifully flat area that is very well constructed. That means now, not only are they loading the first aircraft and getting enough, they can have a second team filling a second aircraft almost at the same time, therefor reducing the downtime to the aircraft by 50%. Tony thanked Rotary very much for their involvement and said  once we finish, they will be having an open day and inviting everyone to have a look at it. Hopefully if they we can get an aircraft down for the day, people can go up and have some photographs taken.

 John Paynter then explained the use of Blaze Tamer a new chemical used to control the fires. It is like liquid silicone and  it's very slippery, so you have to be careful where it is used. For example, you cannot use it on a road or near waterways. It drops in a heavy blanket. It's also very expensive but does the job very well and they will be using it more and more in the future. John and Tony them took questions from members and guests.

Due to having extra guest speakers Barry’s sergeant’s session was shortened. The wheel spin winners this week were Bruce Eastick and Alan Harris. Barry then did a quick bunyip roundup.

Kathy then introduced District Governor Jeff Neale.

DG Jeff proudly announced that ours was the 58^th club he and wife Jenny had visited with 26 more to go. Our District is mostly South Australia and a little bit of Northern Territory a bit of New South Wales and Victoria.  DG Jeff said it is very rewarding to visit all the clubs and hear about the wonderful work we are doing. He also reiterated how important the Area Governors are in a district as big as ours.

Sadly, this years District Governors could not travel to the United Sates to attend the intensive training course for the 520 other governors from around the world because of COVID. Instead, it was done via Zoom from his loungeroom and family room!  They didn't get to meet 520 Governors, but we did get to meet some Rotarians from overseas.

DG Jeff, reinforced President of Rotary International Shekhar Mehta’s message to grow Rotary by his idea of “Each one/bring one” to achieve the goal of growing to 1.3 million members. (Full video can be seen here) https://cdn2.webdamdb.com/md_YNCiUh3RVS95.mp4?1611936094 Each member is asked to introduce one new member before the end of June 2022. If we grow more we can obviously do more. Clubs need to look outside the square in regard to expansion. Gawler Rotary already has its first corporate member but there are opportunities for satellite clubs, e clubs etc. rather than just the traditional clubs.

DG Jeff handed over to Jenny to speak about her partner project All Kids. Jenny’s project fits in well with this years theme “Serve to Change Lives”.

Before speaking about her project Jenny gave us all a date for our diary. -On the ninth of March next year, at the National Wine centre. There'll be a rotary breakfast in recognition of International Women's Day. The breakfast is for all Rotarians, their partners, friends, and the wider community. The speaker will be Dr. Trudy Lin, this year's recipient of the seven News Young Achievers award. Dr. Lin is one of only five specialists in Australia working in special needs dentistry, providing oral care to those who have both complex physical and psychological disabilities.

The establishment of the new centre in the Prek Trabek area will allow the project to expand their reach to children otherwise unable to access education. AllKIds proposes to establish a learning centre and a daycare program in this region. It is not practical to bus the children the 17 and a half kilometres to school and the AllKIds Learning Centre due to the poor and hazardous road conditions. The capital outlay for this project is 21,000 and the annual ongoing operating costs are 54,000 Australian dollars for kids is a proven model. Since its inception in 2012, there has been a 17% increase in children attending school 35% of children are in the top 5% of the year level.

DG Jeff continued his presentation and stated that Rotarians are very much more disposed toward action towards words. As they visit clubs DG Jeff and Jenny are presenting opportunities for clubs to, to do projects overseas and many clubs to are already involved in as well as being engaged very much in their local communities. He believed the number of projects Gawler Rotary are involved in is quite exceptional. He also said that having a membership of 44 is a strong club but we should still continue the challenge to grow. We should continue to share our vocations and call on our expertise ask, who's the best person to advise us to go the right way. And we share a rotary experience back in the workplace, as social circles are voluntary roles that we do. When you look to new members look what you haven't got in your club, what's not represented what field is not there that you haven't got covered. Similarly Rotary has experts in their field to help clubs, call on them, use their expertise. There are Membership officers, Risk Management Officer insurance officer and youth protection. Look in the directory.

In closing DG Jeff reminded members that the conference is on at the beginning of April next year. It is in the Barossa Valley so right on the doorstep.

 DG Jeff asked President Mark  to record briefly in a paragraph his story of being President, what you think you gain, how you have grown as a person being president club, where you believe you've made an impact on the community with your club. This should be a great inspirational book to remember the year, but also the show future leaders what they are doing. He congratulated the club for having future leaders in place too, having the next presidents coming along, organizing the club is important. He congratulated President Mark and his annual board members for the work they're doing; also, the club members for the level of participation that we have. He stated that “It looks to be a great club” and we are really making a difference in this community.