Last week approximately twelve club members went to the movies at the Orpheum at Cremorne. The event was a fund raiser for Rotary’s Polio Eradication Program. We saw an interesting movie "Hidden Figures". A true story of a group of African- American women employed by NASA to do the calculations to send men into space. They managed this task prior to IBM building a mainframe computer to deal with these complicated tasks. The film set in the late 50’s, early 60’s, was quite confronting as it dealt with the segregation of coloured people also. A good film, enjoyable and well worth seeing.
Our Monday meeting, we met at the Union Hotel as we trial the venue for 4 weeks (till March 13). Despite trying to make the menu ordering and choices simpler for the Hotel , they insisted on offering a range of sauces and cooking choices to give us a gourmet experience. It seemed as though most members found parking available to the west of Pacific Highway.
Our speaker, Terry O’Mara is a much honoured Australian with an interesting and realistic view of men and women’s differences and abilities to deal with retirement. Terry talked about setting up a Men’s Shed and how his Rotary Club dealt with local government to fund it.
Angelo and his "A" team set some sort of record for the BBQ by selling out of sausages at 4.05pm and finished cleaning up by 4.15pm. Who could match that! I was part of the morning team – we certainly took longer to get set up. Unfortunately despite this amazing feat, Angelo intends to go away during May, June and July. So we will require volunteers to step in and run the BBQ roster and start the Trifecta Sales in his absence.
Alon announced that we are again sponsoring a MUNA team from Shore School. Let’s hope that they repeat some of the successes of last year.
Mark Staples , Philip Smith and Ian Pocock are our IT team – dealing with the eBulletin (which you all read ; DON’T you). Mark is bearing the brunt of keeping us up to speed but feels that he is being reactive rather than proactive so would welcome finding an IT replacement to fill Les Walsh’s shoes.
Next week, our speaker is Rod McLeod from Angel Flight.
The following week, we have our own Harold Sharp speaking on Membership. Everyone knows that Rotary needs to renew and reinvigorate its membership due to the age of our members. Our Membership Portfolio has languished because of a number of factors that have combined to render it ineffective. Hopefully Harold can give us the means to reverse this situation. I urge all members to attend our meeting on March 6 at the Union Hotel to listen to Harold and hopefully we can revitalise this portfolio and increase our membership with younger active members. To gain these sort of members, we as older members will need to accept change but it should be exciting. We have a younger President Elect – so we are on the right track.
IMPORTANT – Meeting Venue – The Board has decided to trial meetings at the Union Hotel for the next four weeks. The facilities, food and customer service were very good last week. Parking has been identified as a possible flaw. Two hours free street parking is available in Waverton Streets (west of Pacific Hwy, McHatton St). Two hour meter street parking is available on Church and West streets.
For your Diary:
– District Conference at Penrith: March 11.
- District Assembly, Parramatta, 23 April.
A final item – our 1st January Member Subscriptions are due – please expect an invoice from the Treasurer. Subs are $120 for Members and $175 for Corporate Members. Bank Details WESTPAC BSB 032-298 A/c Rotary Club of Crows Nest 394298.
Please note: Monday 20th February our meeting will be held for the next four weeks, ie 20th February to 13th March inclusive, at the Union Hotel, Cnr Pacific Hway & West St. Suggested parking is the Council Car Park, Ridge Street, for $15.60 for under 2 hours and, free 2 hr parking in the adjacent Waverton streets (i.e. McHatton St), West of the Pacific Highway.