President Ian Ash started the meeting by acknowledging the work done by the firies in tackling the bush-fires. Chris & Jeanette have not been allowed back to their home just yet so have no idea about its condition.
President Ian provided an overview about the cheque handover held at the Monash Children's Hospital Cancer Centre and how grateful the staff were to receive the cheque. John Henderson did the club proud with his speech at the event :)
Sangeeta Bajaj advised that we have 98 signed up for the Pride in Workmanship awards in a couple of weeks’ time. John Koenders will be the MC for the evening and she is excited about the trophies that she has ordered from the business in Hallam which is now under new management.
Guest Speaker Robyn Kamer
Guest speaker was Robyn Kamer former Assistance Principal at Dandenong High School who retired in July 2018.
Robyn impressed us with her obvious passion for teaching which she has clearly still not lost since she does relief teaching on a regular basis and loves it! Robyn became a teacher since she wanted to “make a difference and shape people’s lives”. Robyn was actually a Rotaracter but due to the limiting vocational membership constraints back then was not able to join her local Club and ended up joining the Lions Club for a while. She did eventually join Dandenong Rotary Club 5 years ago, but since all the work was done during the working week, she was unable to give the necessary time due to work commitments and ended up leaving.
Initially she taught short-hand, typing and mathematics but the advent of computing saw her shift to purely teaching maths which she loved. Describing herself as “unashamedly competitive”, Robyn enabled successive school houses she lead to win school athletics, swimming and chorals. She sees that changes in teaching have bene overall positive (apart from the workload) since teachers are now more accountable (they are required to produce student development plans) and more focused on student learning, irrespective of their level.
Dandenong High School is the most multi-cultural school in Australia with other 100 languages being spoken by students from diverse, multicultural backgrounds and many boat people’s children attend their along with a number of children from Somali and Afghanistan.
It was mentioned in our club survey that more information about wider Rotary activities would be valued therefore some background is being included on RAWS this week.
