PERTH ROTARY - PRESIDENTS UPDATE - 30th JULY 2019
Fellow Rotarians and friends of Perth Rotary,
We have all been saddened by the loss of our Past President and tireless Perth Rotary member Dick Cook who left this world last night.
Dick joined our Club in September 1979 and since then he spent his life serving with a plethora of responsibilities in different offices.
At our meeting on Friday we will honour Dick’s memory with a minute’s silence and also present his bio as an informal memorial service from his Rotary friends. I hope we have you all coming.
Getting back to our purpose as Rotarians, next Friday’s meeting shouldn’t be missed for one more reason. We will have the unique opportunity to listen to the General Manager of Channel 7 Telethon Trust Marie-Anne Keeffe about this Mega fundraiser which has been named "the highest donating Telethon (per capita) in the world", having surpassed $100 million in total donations in 2010, $200 million in 2015, and $300 million in 2018!
We will discover how Telethon has developed this epic fundraising capacity and of course Marie-Anne will welcome our questions. This is a meeting that will be discussed a lot. Please make sure that you book as early as possible for your guests because there will be a limited number of seats available.
However, last week’s meeting was also a very special one! We welcomed two new members to our Perth Rotary family: Charlie McCarthy and Warren Palmer, we had a great guest speaker and also a high number of members and friends.
The highlight of our meeting however was the arrival of Laura, our inbound Rotary youth Exchange student who presented the Brazil flag to the Club and impressed us with her personality from the very first moment. Laura is kindly hosted by Emma and Fred Cork at the moment and we are looking forward to having more host families for this gorgeous exchange student.
Carol Shannon presented the history of tall ship Leeuwin and Leeuwin Ocean Adventure Foundation and she emphasised on the leadership skills and the friendships that develop among the programme participants on-board. On 27-31 January 2020 there is a 5-day voyage for Rotary Youth Leaders to kick start their academic career. For more information please contact Kelly Gibson.
We were also delighted to see our very own Past Presidents Larry Hirsch and Nigel Barker coming respectively as past Commodore and Commodore of the International Yachting Fellowship of Rotarians. Past President Jeff Leach is also a past Commodore of IYFR and on that let me remind you that Jeff and Helen will wait to see us this Saturday night at the Big Bonfire Night that they generously organise every year at their farm.
I welcome you to another busy Perth Rotary week and I’m looking forward to seeing you all at this Friday’s meeting.
Yours in Perth Rotary,
Vangelis Katsaitis
Perth Rotary President 2019-2020