On the 5th December some of our members attended Impact for Women to assist with Christmas wrapping in their annual Bags of Love Christmas Event. 

Sadly we learned that almost 50 women and children have died at the hands of domestic violence this year - represented by a pair of shoes for each death. We added 5 new pairs of shoes to the line. Over 2000 women have escaped violence this year and they will be the recipients of the work we have done today. 

Impact is an amazing charity helping women and children fleeing extreme violence at home.

See how you can help here 

It was with much joy that most of were able to come together in person on the 15th December to celebrate Christmas at our usual venue, The Belgian Beer Cafe. For many of us, this was the first time we were able to see each other in person since March and we started our night going around the table and saying what we were grateful for after a year of disruption. We were also joined virtually via zoom and were grateful for technology and our ability to connect. 

Judy Parslow, our International Director did a fantastic job in coordinating and running the festivities, including a competition on bubble blowing - Bishan Dhillon taking the crown!

Santa paid us a visit and we all donated $5 for the Salvation Army Appeal as well as made a pledge that over the holidays we would support Australian Business' in the economic recovery from Covid-19 

Food, wine, friends and laughter - It was a fabulous night had by all. We will now take a break from formal meetings and return in the New Year on the 19th January refreshed and energised for a big 2021.

Merry Christmas from Rotary Southbank. 

On the 24th November some of gathered in person at the Red Emporer Restaurant in Southbank, whilst some of us joined virtually via zoom and we inducted our new members of the CEO Satelite Club of Southbank.

With varying backgrounds and interesting stories this group have big ideas and are keen to get involved in projects that make a difference.

Welcome to the Southbank Rotary Family!

On the 20th October we came together to celebrate Oktoberfest, which was our 7th Oktoberfest as a club, however our first virtual one! In honour of our German exchange student in 2013, Shirin, we have continued this tradition yearly and this year we also used it as a fundraiser to help our friends in Bali at the Rotary Club of Tamin raise funds for their project, Women's Health Mobile Clinic.

Nick Klaus, an old friend from the Belgian Beer Café came along and taught us how to taste two different beers, from the smell, the texture, the colour and then the taste We all enjoyed the experience. Our two beers experienced were Weihenstephaner Hefeweizen and Weihenstephaner Dunkel.

We had a lot of fun and had a few auctions with gifts kindly donated from Wendy Bennett, Stockland Wines and Liam Jones and ending up raising over $1000 for our friends at the Rotary Club of Tamin, Bali.

We look forward to having this event in 2021, hopefully in person this time!

On the 15th September 2020 we were joined by guest speaker, Tracy Bell who has just launched her new website Loops of Learning. Tracy is a creative, technology leader with a strong interest in how we build a culture of continuous learning that is able to embrace the challenges of the 21st century. She asked us 'What do you think is the biggest crisis of our time?'

With inspiration from Ken Robinson ("Do schools kill creativity?") and Warren Berger (Author of 'A More Beautiful Question') Tracy had us asking ourselves whether we're doing enough to build capabilities that can solve some of the wicked problems of our time. The geo-political landscape, climate change, social inequality and technological advancements have presented us with complex problems to solve and we must embrace creative ways of thinking to solve them.

We must never stop learning, even as we move on from formal education process.

I am proud to announce that our club, Rotary club of Southbank, has been awarded the Rotary Citation with Platinum distinction for last year, 2019-2020! It was an exciting time to be President and I thank all club members for their support and contribution to our success! It was a team effort, let's continue the good work!

The following is an explanation about Rotary citation from Grant Hocking, our immediate past District Governor:

"The Rotary Citation recognizes Rotary clubs that support Rotary's strategic priorities by completing certain activities. The Rotary Citation is a significant award that honours clubs whose leaders and members show a commitment to success. Clubs that achieve the goals required to earn the Rotary Citation are strengthening Rotary and shaping our future.

Rotary automatically verifies many club achievements via clubs keeping information up to date on My Rotary. To be eligible for the Rotary Citation, clubs need to begin the year as active clubs that are in good standing and remain so throughout the year.
The required achievements were centred around the headings Unite People (membership, sponsoring new clubs, alumni event, youth exchange) and Take Action (Foundation committee and contribution, member engagement, Polio, Project work, Public image).

For the 2019-2020 year, clubs could also receive the Rotary Citation with Distinction when they achieve the Rotary Citation plus one to three additional goals under the headings ; Connect leaders, connect families, connect professionally, and connect community (Silver 1 goal, Gold 2 goals or Platinum 3 goals)."

Broadly speaking, hacking is creative problem solving, it need not involve technology or have the aim of creating an app as an outcome.  A hackathon is any event of any duration in which people come together to solve problems and most run parallel workshops, Elle said.

• Strengthen the community that the hackathon is for.
• Be welcoming to newcomers to the community.
• Provide an opportunity for participants to learn something new.
• Provide a space and a time for participants to make headway on problems they are interested in.

1)    What are we good at?

2)    What has COVID done?

3)    What else do we want to do?

It was suggested that hackathons and design-thinking are a modernised and more sophisticated version of the simple 'suggestion box'. It was also highlighted that more mature/senior/seasoned individuals are getting involved in start-ups and entrepreneurship and bring immense wisdom. It was further noted that Rotary may have a role to play in bringing lived experience of problem solving in community issues to the start-up sector who may have tech skills but lack application in the real world (or could lead such initiatives).

The Rotary Club of Southbank look forward to organising/participating in a hackathon for change soon. Stay tuned!

We are 6 weeks into the new Rotary year and 3 weeks (half-way) into Stage 4 lock-down in Melbourne, Victoria.

The consensus is that this second round of lock-down has been harder on most than the first round.

We are trying to provide some support to the community at this tough time by way of connection.

One such initiative is the In Balance Wheels of Wellness Webinars that was launched at the start of round two of lock-down.

Additionally, this week we offered our first free live mindfulness session. These sessions will be run weekly by Dale Cosgrave during lock-down. We hope this additional support will provide our community and ourselves with more tools to get through this challenging time. This third week of Stage 4 restrictions started to take a toll on me as there are a lot of stressed out people out there and the pent up negative energy from others (isolation) can affect us. It is important to stay calm and breathe and focus on our sphere of influence and control and on self-care, inner peace and gratutide and a good night sleeps works wonders too. This week I had to infuse more positvity and motivational readings into my routine and get more sleep. I took this selfie yesterday after putting on some make-up for the first time since face-mask wearing became mandatory and it felt good to experience the normality of that daily ritual again (self-care).

Another initiative we launched recently in the face of the current pandemic is the face-mask fundraiser.

We are selling Rotary branded face-masks for $12.00, and they are good quality and much more affordable than most cloth face-masks on the market and will help us fund some future club projects. Please share the below link with your networks and encourage them to purchase a Rotary branded face-mask from us. We are offering discounts for bulk orders.  https://www.southbank.org.au/face-masks.html.

We are currently scoping a range of projects including international projects and have some exciting meetings and presentations coming up. Now more than ever we will continue to be people of action, in innovative and exciting new ways.

Our own President, Jasmin was recently featured in the Southbank News talking about club and how we are supporting the community during lockdown

Check out the article here 

On the 13th August 2020, members of the Rotary Club of Southbank, and our satellite club of Southbank Orbit joined the Rotary Club of Northside for their trivia night. It was a night of fun and laughs with prizes for the best dress-up and a well organised trivia competition with all proceeds going to Steps Outreach Service. There were a number of auctions with both Jasmin and Bishan successful in their bids including some Tupperware, which Jasmin donated back to the Steps Outreach Service.

Anne Mitchell, manager of Steps Outreach Service (and also a member of the Rotary Club of Carlton) spoke to us between rounds about First Steps and some of their projects and the support that they provide for the homeless. During Covid they continue to provide support to the homeless by ensuring they have accommodation and food and also through virtual connection.  They are doing some amazing work Check out their story here 

Our team name was 'Lockdown Lovers 2.0' and we started off strong but got a little stumped on the movie round so didn't take home the crown. It was however a lot of fun and a great way to connect virtually with other clubs. Some of questions had us needing to be creative with our answers!

Over $2000 was raised in total for the Steps Outreach Service which is fantastic. You can still donate to the cause here