Posted in Supporting Causes that matter to you

Club First Lady Saira Griffin and I attended Rotary Club of Central Melbourne's 'Oh Kolkata!' fundraising event on Saturday 4th May 2019. You guessed it right, it was a night of celebration with an Indian flavour designed to raise funds for their international project in Kolkata with the Rotary Club of Calcutta - Victoria and Sierra Madre California.      The Kolkata project will provide an opportunity for under privileged men and women to receive t...

President-Elect Sally Page presented her Member Behind the Badge segment on Tuesday 23rd April 2019 where we had a number of visiting Rotarians particularly from Rotary Club of North Melbourne, Rotary Club of Brighton and Rotary Club of Melbourne South to hear about Sally's upbringing, social + work life, hobbies and her ambitions in Rotary. It was a great opportunity to hear her share about her life & achievements and we are superbly exicited having Sally Page leading Rot...

I was given a wonderful opportunity to share my story with Rotary Club of Southbank on Tuesday 9th April 2019. As always after our lovely gathering and talking about some inspiring work that our club has contributed recently, I had the opportunity to share my story. Prior to the event I was struggling to find a perfect speech. Being a perfectionist, being perfect all the time is one of my core goals. However something inside me kept saying that I should share my raw self and be open an...

On Sunday 31 March 2019, three (3) members from Rotary Club of Southbank (Immediate Past President Liam Jones, President-Nominee Jasmin Dhillon and our newest member Jaqui Clark) and two (2) friends of Rotary participated in the MS Melbourne Cycle + 1/2 marathon, Run/Walk to fight MS. The team were inspired to participate after a talk from Martin & Diana Taurins from Rotarian Action Group of Multiple Sclerosis Awareness (RAGMSA) in December 2018 last year.  Where they shared the...

On Tuesday 26th March 2019 evening, we had Hao Teo, the founder of iDibs, gave an insightful talk about EASE (Evolution of a social enterprise). A social enterprise has adapted and changed into different models over the past decades. Hao has provided us with the conventional model of a social enterprise which relied heavily on rich donors or large contributors. He talked about the new different models which are sustainable in nature.           &n...

Twenty (20) of us gathered on Tuesday, 12th March 2019 at the Belgian Beer Cafe in Southbank to hear Warren Sparrow talk about Angel Flight and how they assist in transporting rural Australians to medical appointments in major cities. Warren Sparrow (Earth Angel) retired from Air Traffic Control in 2010 and has been volunteering with Angel Flight for 10 years. He has completed over 300 missions and also volunteers as driver for a local Doncaster community health group. He shared some stori...

Just a friendly hello and updates! Hope your training is going well. We have raised $1910 which is really great as we had set our fund raising goal at $1000 but let's see if we can triple it and get to $3000 (that's $1090 to go - if you get corporate donations who do matching donations that would help a lot as the fundraiser is matching eligible). Big shout out to Dion who has received 33 donations (maybe a future Rotarian!) Team
We have 4 team members currently Dion,...

What do you reckon was the strangest item pulled out of the Yarra River on Clean Up Australia Day? Have a go! On Sunday, 3 March 2019, the Melbourne City Rotaract Club organised a Clean Up the Yarra event for Rotaractors, Rotarians, and community volunteers. This annual event coincides with Clean Up Australia Day, a nation-wide initiative to inspire and empower communities to clean up, fix up and conserve the environment. Forty-five passionate "People of Action" stepped forwa...

On a warm and beautiful Tuesday evening on 26th February 2019, we had Ayman Barbaresco who presented his topic on Limitless Boundaries. At birth, Ayman has dealt with many medical complications during his young years including two brain tumours and ongoing medical complications with a genetic disorder called Neurofibromatosis.       Born in Sydney to a Jordanian father and Italian mother and relocating to Coffs Harbour (Northern NSW) at the age of three (3), liv...

Whenever you pass or walkthrough the hospital areas in Parkville, Victoria; you will see the Rotary emblem and you ask yourself how did this all happen? A number of Rotarians and guests gathered at the Bone Marrow Donor Institute (BMDI) Rotary House in North Melbourne on Wednesday evening 27th February 2019 where Managing Director of Fight Cancer Foundation (and a new Rotarian with Rotary Club of Melbourne), Eric Wright shared with us the journey which started way back in early 1990...