The focus of our Zoom meeting last .  Tuesday was the celebration of Charter night, remembering the  creation of our Club in 1962. There was a maximum attendance of most of our members . They were accompanied by their partners and we were particularly pleased to see Glad Joslin the widow our recently deceased member Keith Joslin . The meeting started in a good mood of celebration encouraged by the home delivery of cake and birthday balloon to each of members. This was achieved as result of Mary Engert doing the cooking and packing and Harold and Roz Simpson delivering these gift to the front door of all our members . In the course of the meeting we all enjoyed eating the cake and drinking our wine 

The selected speaker to remind us of some of the history of the Club was      Past President Harold Simpson who led our Club in 2000/2001

Things were so different at these times . Our club was still meeting at lunchtime . This was on a Monday and the location was the  Ultima Function Centre in Keilor Park .  We still had 42 members and 15 are still members today  including Marie Barbera who joined us during that year having recently been widowed

The fax was the communication tool between President, District, other Rotary clubs and other organisations interested in telling their story.

 

That Rotary year our Club boasted many Major Projects. This included.

 

Many members were involved in the major renovation of Foodbanks storage area, food packing area & office.     Approx 2800 man hours was involved.

The club supplied a new refrigerated Ford Transit van to enable food picks from various businesses that donated the excess stock.

A couple of anonymous members donated a ton of rice/pasta a month for 12 months which equated to over 800 meals a month.

 

The club financed and organised the training of School Teachers in skills required to help those students in need. Program was very successful and many Teachers were trained from Primary & Secondary schools in our area.

 

An organisation that supplied and built accommodation for young people that had no where to live for various reasons The club undertook the decorating of the Palladium at Crown Casino for the Kids Undercover Ball, in its first year it raised $100 000.00. Our club continued its involvement for a few years.

 

Major focus in house for the club was membership ( nothing has changed)

P.P Doug Fox Lane organised some brainstorming sessions debating ideas on how and where membership could be increased                                                                  

 

Harold Simpson has been a creative and busy Rotarian since that year. As shown in the photo an important activity that occupies him is the Camp Getaway at Axedale near Bendigo . He is a frequent volunteer at this Camp and is now promoting  the rehabilitation of the Mini Golf Course an important feature of the Camp which we created in 2001

 

John F. Kennedy   Rotary Club of Hyannis, MA   President, USA

 

 

Walt Disney   Rotary Club of Palm Springs, CA   Animation filmmaker

 

 

Francis   Rotary Club of Buenos Aires  is  now the Pope

 

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) on 25 August announced that transmission of the wild poliovirus has officially been stopped in all 47 countries of its African region. This is a historic and vital step toward global eradication of polio, which is Rotary’s top priority.

 

After decades of hard won gains in the region, Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) — WHO, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Gavi, the vaccine alliance — are proclaiming the milestone an achievement in public health. They offer it as proof that strong commitment, coordination, and perseverance can rid the world of polio.

The certification that the African region is free of wild poliovirus comes after the independent Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC) conducted thorough field verifications that confirmed no new cases and analyzed documentation of polio surveillance, immunization, and laboratory capacity by Cameroon, Central African Republic, Nigeria, and South Sudan. The commission had already accepted the documentation of the other 43 countries in the region.

The last cases of polio caused by the wild virus in the African region were recorded in Nigeria’s northern state of Borno in August 2016, after two years with no cases. Conflict, along with challenges in reaching mobile populations, had hampered efforts to immunize children there.

Now that the African region is free of wild poliovirus, five of WHO’s six regions, representing more than 90 percent of the world’s population, are now free of the disease. Polio caused by the wild virus is still endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region.

The African region’s wild polio-free certification was celebrated during a livestream event. Speakers included Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, Bill Gates, Rotary International President Holger Knaack, Nigeria PolioPlus chair Dr. Tunji Funsho, and representatives of other GPEI partners. The celebration was followed by a press conference.

 

In the program, Knaack spoke about people needing good news during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “The challenges ahead are formidable,” Knaack said. “That’s why we must recognize this great achievement and commend all the people who played important roles in reaching this milestone. It took tremendous effort over many years.”

Not detecting any wild poliovirus in Africa is in stark contrast to the situation in 1996, when 75,000 children there were paralyzed by the disease. That year, at a meeting of the Organization of African Unity in Cameroon, African heads of state committed to eradicating the disease from the continent.

To bolster the effort, also in 1996, Rotary, its GPEI partners, and South African President Nelson Mandela launched the Kick Polio Out of Africa campaign. Using soccer matches and celebrity endorsements, the campaign raised awareness of polio and helped more than 30 African countries to hold their first National Immunization Days. Mandela’s call to action helped mobilize leaders across the continent to increase their efforts to reach every child with polio vaccine. .