President's Message

David Whiting

member photo
Upcoming Events
Speakers
Dr Ashley Bigaran,
Feb 25, 2025 7:00 PM
The value of exercise physiology in the cancer journey
View entire list...
Birthdays & Anniversaries
Member Birthdays:
  • Mary Engert
    January 5
  • Harold Simpson
    January 18
Join Date:
  • Liz Beattie
    January 27, 2015
    10 years
  • Maxine Knight
    February 1, 2005
    20 years
  • Joe Raimondo
    February 19, 2001
    24 years
Home Page News
100 Christmas Bags
100 Christmas Bags - done & dusted for another year
With the assistance of a District Grant from the Rotary Foundation, the Rotary Club of Keilor packed 100 Christmas Bags of some $140 value each at the Aberfeldie Bowls Club in the lead up to Christmas. That District Grant was more than matched by Club fundraising, and member and supporter donations.
Bolton Clarke Community Nurses picked the Christmas Bags up the morning after they were packed, and began delivering them to their most restricted, isolated, socially and financially challenged patients in the Moonee Valley and Brimbank local government areas.
We had a long “production line, and more than 25 Rotarians, family members and friends involved in the packing evening at the Aberfeldie Bowls Club (on a day where the temperature exceeded 40C).
This has been an annual project of the Club for more than 20 years – one that provides plenty of hard work, but lots of reward and good fellowship. Delivery of the bags is also an annual highlight for the Community Nurses – and of course for the recipients.
 
Wellness Centre
Guest Speaker Tuesday 25th February 7pm at the Keilor Hotel
Earlier this year our Club donated more than $16,000 from our Trust Fund to Austin Health. That donation was to fund the purchase of equipment for the Olivia Newton John Cancer & Wellness Centre's gymnasium, to support that facility in providing exercise physiology sessions for its cancer patients.
To acknowledge that donation, and to speak to us on the value of exercise physiology in the cancer journey, Dr Ashley Bigaran, Operations Manager, Wellness and Supportive Care at the Olivia Newton John Cancer & Wellness Centre will be joining us at our meeting on Tuesday 26 November.
Ashley has been a clinician and researcher in exercise physiology for more than 10 years, has conducted extensive research into the benefits of exercise for cancer patients, and is herself an Senior Accredited Exercise Physiologist.
All welcome - just let us know you are coming. $20 includes your meal. info@rotarykeilor.org.au
Christmas Bags pre 2024
Another year of Christmas Bags from the Rotary Club of Keilor
 
As Christmas approaches, our Club is again busily preparing for its annual Christmas Bag project.
For more than 20 years this project has seen 100 gift bags distributed annually by Bolton Clarke Community Nurses to their most isolated, restricted and loneliest patients in the Moonee Valley and Brimbank local Government areas.
Often recipients of our Christmas Bags don’t have a network of family, friends or community, and our aim is to offer them some small measure of comfort and joy at Christmas time. We always look to have our bags contain basic food supplies, toiletry and personal care items, as well as some seasonal “goodies” that, together, go some way to providing meaningful support and an uplift in spirit. That support and uplift in spirit is always visibly demonstrated in the reports we receive from Bolton Clarke each year.
The project depends heavily on our fundraising, our supporters providing us with monetary donations and/or with product supplies with which to fill the bags.
In a whole of Club effort, we will be packing the Christmas Bags in early December, with the Community Nurses delivering them in their pre-Christmas patient visits. 
For this year we are very pleased to have the support of a district grant from The Rotary Foundation.
 
Covid Protective Equipment
In late February 2024 our Rotary Club was asked by Holloway Aged Care facility in Keilor East if we could assist it by disposing of a huge accumulated quantity of excess, brand new, Covid 19 Personal Protective Equipment, comprising:
  • 104 cartons of Surgical Gown Packs (20 packs per carton)
  • 117 cartons of Cuffed Isolation Gowns (108 cartons of 50 & 9 cartons of 100)
  • 16 cartons of XS D95 Masks (600 masks per carton)
  • 16 cartons of Goggles (200 Goggles per carton)
  •                               
So, it was 253 cartons (comprising almost 21,180 individual items, with a conservative value exceeding $50,000) – enough to fill a small shipping container, and so much that it had rendered Holloway’s Community Hub unavailable for its daily activities.
All of our initial offers to major hospitals and health facilities went nowhere because it seemed they all had the same issue – they also were holding huge supplies of their own.
 
                                                
We began the distribution with a trickle of smaller deliveries, some to the Rotary District D9800 Donations in Kind Store, some to a local Medical Centre, and some to a medical research facility, but it was time for some lateral thinking if the project was to be achieved.
A preliminary check with a major animal rescue service and a large Veterinary Hospital brought no results, but a few “dog with a bone” members came to the party to the extent that all 253 cartons of equipment found new homes by mid-April – providing recipients with resources and cost savings that they value highly.
Large quantities of equipment went to animal rescue and veterinary services, including:
Second Chance Animal Rescue
  • Essendon Animal Referral Hospital
  • Cat Protection Society of Victoria
  • Unusual Pet Vets
  • Karingal Veterinary Hospital
                                
Many cartons of Goggles went to Men’s Sheds, including at Aberfeldie, Strathmore, Brimbank, Melton, Taylors Hill, Sunbury, and as far as Birchip. The Sunbury Men’s Shed also requested some gowns to placate wives who were sick of trying to clean resins and glue from member’s clothes.
 
                                                                                         
 
Last carton loaded – and the Community Hub is clear and available for its intended use.
The project was a great challenge - and in the end we were up for it.
JOB DONE.
Rotary Exchange Student
Rotary Club of Keilor is sponsoring a Rotary Exchange student Irene Anderson Pett who is now in Germany.
 
             
Recent photos were taken at the Blazer Presentation for our outbound students:
 
      
Rotary Exchange students are recognised by their Rotary Youth Exchange blazer.  The colour of the blazer usually depends on which country or region the exchange student is from, Australia being Green.  One Rotary tradition is that students cover their blazers in pins and patches they have traded with other students or bought in places they have visited as evidence of their exchange.  It is popular for the students to bring a large collection of national- or regional-themed pins and trade them with students from other areas. This tradition is popular worldwide.
We had the pleasure of District 9800 Governor Ron Payne presenting the blazers to the students.
To add to the occasion, a special presentation from PDG Grant Hocking to Barry and Vanda Mullen recognising their significant contribution to The Rotary Foundation
Our Club wishes Irene great happiness for her Rotary Exchange in Germany with her host families
Swim 4 Life Project in Thailand
The Rotary Club of Keilor financially supports the Swim 4 life Project, managed by
The Rotary Club of Sammui- Phangan our Club donated $3000 to fund a 12 week learn to swim program for 20 children between 8 - 12. The first cohort has just been completed with every child receiving a medallion and certificate.
Information recently received was that 40 students are about to start thesecond cohort. Unfortunately in the same update, a news item stated that  4 children decided to play and  cool off in a nearby stream, none of them survived.The World Health Organisation has proclaimed Thailand as the number one country in ASEAN for child deaths from drowing.
 
 
Club News
Wellness Centre
Wellness Centre
Guest Speaker Tuesday 25th February 7pm at the Keilor Hotel
Earlier this year our Club donated more than $16,000 from our Trust Fund to Austin Health. That donation was to fund the purchase of equipment for the Olivia Newton John Cancer & Wellness Centre's gymnasium, to support that facility in providing exercise physiology sessions for its cancer patients.
To acknowledge that donation, and to speak to us on the value of exercise physiology in the cancer journey, Dr Ashley Bigaran, Operations Manager, Wellness and Supportive Care at the Olivia Newton John Cancer & Wellness Centre will be joining us at our meeting on Tuesday 26 November.
Ashley has been a clinician and researcher in exercise physiology for more than 10 years, has conducted extensive research into the benefits of exercise for cancer patients, and is herself an Senior Accredited Exercise Physiologist.
All welcome - just let us know you are coming. $20 includes your meal. info@rotarykeilor.org.au
100 Christmas Bags
100 Christmas Bags
100 Christmas Bags - done & dusted for another year
With the assistance of a District Grant from the Rotary Foundation, the Rotary Club of Keilor packed 100 Christmas Bags of some $140 value each at the Aberfeldie Bowls Club in the lead up to Christmas. That District Grant was more than matched by Club fundraising, and member and supporter donations.
Bolton Clarke Community Nurses picked the Christmas Bags up the morning after they were packed, and began delivering them to their most restricted, isolated, socially and financially challenged patients in the Moonee Valley and Brimbank local government areas.
We had a long “production line, and more than 25 Rotarians, family members and friends involved in the packing evening at the Aberfeldie Bowls Club (on a day where the temperature exceeded 40C).
This has been an annual project of the Club for more than 20 years – one that provides plenty of hard work, but lots of reward and good fellowship. Delivery of the bags is also an annual highlight for the Community Nurses – and of course for the recipients.
 
Christmas Bags pre 2024
Christmas Bags pre 2024
Another year of Christmas Bags from the Rotary Club of Keilor
 
As Christmas approaches, our Club is again busily preparing for its annual Christmas Bag project.
For more than 20 years this project has seen 100 gift bags distributed annually by Bolton Clarke Community Nurses to their most isolated, restricted and loneliest patients in the Moonee Valley and Brimbank local Government areas.
Often recipients of our Christmas Bags don’t have a network of family, friends or community, and our aim is to offer them some small measure of comfort and joy at Christmas time. We always look to have our bags contain basic food supplies, toiletry and personal care items, as well as some seasonal “goodies” that, together, go some way to providing meaningful support and an uplift in spirit. That support and uplift in spirit is always visibly demonstrated in the reports we receive from Bolton Clarke each year.
The project depends heavily on our fundraising, our supporters providing us with monetary donations and/or with product supplies with which to fill the bags.
In a whole of Club effort, we will be packing the Christmas Bags in early December, with the Community Nurses delivering them in their pre-Christmas patient visits. 
For this year we are very pleased to have the support of a district grant from The Rotary Foundation.
 
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