At our dinner meeting held at O’Tooles Corinda last week, members were briefed on the Nepal Chicken Project, the Club’s first international service project to be undertaken in conjunction with the Rotary Clubs of Redlands Bayside and Cleveland together with the Bentham Foundation.
The Bentham Foundation was established in 2012 to assist the Hetaunda region of Nepal, particularly the Chepang people. Rotary’s involvement will be to construct a chicken farm to ensure children living at the hostel established by the Foundation (eventually 500 children) are provided a source of protein and sustainable income from the eggs and poultry meat produced. It will also benefit the local community in terms of the supply chain required to support the industry.Our Club has been approved for a District Grant for the project amounting to $5,500.
Pictured (left to right) are: Ritchie Andit & David Bray (Redlands Bayside Rotary), Mick Bentham (Founder) and Lachlan Howland.

On Wednesday July 22nd at 6.50am, David Siegrist will arrive from Lucern in Switzerland for his 12 month Rotary Youth Exchange with the Rotary Club of Brisbane Taylor Bridge. Debbie and I were lucky enough to be hosted by his family for a couple of days.

Hello Taylor Bridge.
Since last we spoke Debbie and I have had the pleasure of visiting Jacqui Rashad, our Rotary Youth Exchange Student in Switzerland.
Thanks to Jacqui’s family for hating us for dinner last night. 

Members were enthralled listening to the background and the journey of Ali (Alice) Mabin, BEFA Asia Pacific 2015 Female Entrepreneur of the Year.
Al mainly spoke about the cattle drive in 2013 where 18,000 cattle were moved around 2,000kms from central Qld to southern NSW. This drive is depicted in her book ‘The Drover’ featuring many beautiful photographs of the epic journey, including the hardships experienced along the way. Al gave an autographed copy to Dee as a prize for the upcoming Girls Day Out event. Thanks Al.
Al’s next book, to be published next week, is called ‘The Driver’. It will be about Australia’s transport industry and features personalised stories about individual businesses that rely on the industry for their survival. Look out for it.
The theme of her presentation to our Club was ‘follow your passion’. We got the message … thanks Al.
Photo shows Ali Mabin chatting to Rotarian Euan Brown.

The Youth Services Director, PP Stephen Ganko and the Youth Exchange Program Officer, PE Craig Clarke are very pleased to announce the Emily Relf has been selected to progress to the next level the process.

Emily is a Grade 10 student at Lourdes Hill Girls College in Hawthorne.She now progresses onto the District 9630 Student interviews on June 4 & 5, and if successful there she will head to the September Training Cap.
Congratulations Emily, we hope to see you at the club really soon.  

SCHOOL OF ST JUDE’S TANZANIA

Guest speaker at this week’s meeting was Noella Phillips from Brisbane Highrise Club. Noella spoke about the amazing St Jude’s School in Tanzania, founded by a young Australian Gemma Sisia. The school opened its doors in 2002 with 3 students and 1 teacher. It now provides a solid education to 1,900 students from impoverished families. Rotary in Australia has been heavily involved from the start, with many clubs providing financial support and/or volunteers during construction and in the school’s operations.

Thanks to a determined group of our members lead by Elisa McDonald and Susan Richmond, after encountering some obstacles our Community Gardenis finally coming together.

The Community Garden looks amazing. Check it out at the Sherwood Neighbourhood Centre in Thallon Street, Sherwood.

Our warmest congratulations to our Rotary Exchange Student, Cindy Wu from Taiwan, who along with her cohort and partners celebrated at the District 9630 ROTEX Youth Exchange Formal last Saturday evening.

Well done to everyone that was involved, a wonderful time was had by all who attended.

Yesterday saw President Kirsten, Cindy, Debbie and myself at the Brisbane International Airport for the departure of our2016 Outbound Rotary Youth Exchange Student, Jacqueline Rashad, who is spending her 12 months away in Switzerland.

Jacqui was out the front followed by Katie Sand from the Rotary Club of Roma and Casey Barton from the Rotary Club of Redlands Bayside.
Jacqui’s parents, Maurice and Patricia were very grateful to our club for making it possible.