Rotary has been a key focus for many of us over the past week with the Multi-District Conference on Saturday, All American preparations on the same day and the event itself on the Sunday, a Board review of the Club survey responses on Monday night and a packed agenda for the weekly meeting on Tuesday. Thank you to everyone who continue to give up their free time to support the Club.
We will talk more about the All American next week when Peter Brock will debrief us on the final outcome and I have discussed a bit on the meeting this week below, but I would like to say a few words about the Conference. In spite of the fact that Kris and I got up at 5.15am to attend the Leadership Breakfast, we did make it to all of the presentations on the Saturday and stayed on for the gala dinner. As Russ indicted, our Club was well represented at the booths which were well laid out and easy to access. However, whilst there were some very good presentations, I believe there needs to be a serious relook at the conference contents as I found few people to be genuinely “inspired” and we have seen a year on year consistent decline in attendees (there were about 1600 in total, but given that four Districts were represented, an average of 400 per District is somewhat disappointing). The Conference is a fantastic opportunity to showcase what we can do as an organisation locally as well as globally, to highlight our relevance to society and to bring in external, engaging speakers to entertain and/or educate. The first step in improving things is to acknowledge our current situation and I know that we can acquit ourselves as an organisation so much better.
It was great to see so many guests attend last Tuesday’s meeting; two from Catherine and two from Susi, plus our own AG brought along the AG Elect for next year (Brian Hodgson), so good to meet him for the first time as well. Hopefully they will all make a return visit to find out more about us.
Once again we packed a lot in with Pete Hadwen giving a sincere toast to Pat Holling at The Glades and also enlightening us as to the generosity of Protea Flora Monbulk who have been providing on average 15 proteas per year to the Glades pro bono for at least 10 years and at ~$10 per plant, this adds up to a sizeable contribution in excess of $1500.
Russ Nielsen whetted our appetite for a full debrief on the All American from Peter Brock next week, but suffice to say that in spite of significantly higher costs for the event due to the increased number of toilets and professional traffic management, we still made a very healthy profit. This was due to a number of factors including almost 3500 spectators, somewhere between 850 and 900 display cars, good weather and without doubt great planning and preparation.
Our special guest speaker Monica Innes was a breath of fresh air and who could not fail to be impressed with what she gave to those that she met in Cambodia and at the same time had the great presence of mind to recognise and sincerely appreciate what she and all of us enjoy here in Australia. For me she embodies exactly the sort of spirit that we love to see in Rotoracters.
