May is Youth Service month for Rotary International and 17th-23rd May was Volunteer Week. I’m pleased to say that our Youth team are volunteering to help run the BBQ for the Special Olympics Fun Run on Sunday 30th May. Also keeping with the Youth theme of RI we have an extra guest at this week’s meeting from Marion Street Theatre for the Young - Jessica Blaxland-Ashby. Bob Howe’s team will have some exciting news in the coming weeks about the Peace Pole Project with Wahroonga Public School or as we know it locally as ‘The Bush School’. This was one of our Rotary 100 Years projects.
What a wonderful meeting last Wednesday for our Community Caring award. We had the pleasure of Mr Harbir Pal Singh Bhatia, Devpal Singh Bhatia, Mrs Surjit Kaur Sahota, Mrs Amarjit Bhatia and Parneet Singh Bhatia join us for breakfast from The Sikh Temple Community, Turramurra. Thank you for joining us. It was an honour to host you all. The Sikh Temple community’s work is ongoing, helping others in need, service above self. Jo Karaolis - thank you for arranging these awards and for the Fellowship fun interviews with Simran, Radha and Sabarish. We have kindly been invited by Mr Harbir Bhatia to visit their community at the Temple soon.
Fellowship is a very important part of Rotary along with connection to community. The third part of our meeting was the discussion of the crisis COVID situation in India. A group of our members - Radha, Christine, Simran, Sabarish, John Cameron, Jo and Anne Prescott have taken on a new project to help. The details of how we can all help will come out in an email soon. Anybody wanting to know more before then can talk with Radha who is leading the project - part of International Committee. NB: You don’t have to be on International team to help.
The Dominic Centre official opening at St Lucy’s School was a beautiful ceremony on 18th May. The sun was shining, and the children were beaming with joy as many visitors attended the morning including Rotarians Jo Karaolis AM, Alister Henskens SC MP, Member for Ku-ring-gai, Jim Verco and Donna Greenfield. The Blessing ceremony was done by Bishop Anthony Randazzo. The Hon. Sarah Mitchell MLC, NSW State Government Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning gave the words of thanks.
A Plaque was unveiled by the Bishop and the Minister along with 3 students Kitty, Paddy and Karuka. Thank you to Principal David Raphael, Deputy Principal Susan Jones and Amy Dillon for inviting me to attend on behalf of the Club. We all look forward to attending St. Lucy’s for our combined breakfast in August.
Thank you to Board members and Committee Chairs for completing your reports for the annual report. Steve McGregor is collating the report now with photographs. Steve has done a great job over the years putting together our annual reports. I look forward to seeing 2020-2021 report! Thanks Steve!
There is a warmth and buzz in the air back at the Club. Thanks to all of you for making this happen. Have a great week and see you Wednesday at the Club or online!
In the 2016 census, only 40% of the people in the Ku-ring-gai municipality had parents born in Australia. One of the goals of the Community Committee was to build our connectedness to the 60% whose parents are from different countries. The 4th largest of these groups is Indian in heritage and we therefore planned for our Indian members to be the focus of our Fellowship Meeting this week.
It was a delight to have five representatives of the Sikh Temple at Turramurra as our guests and to present them with a Community Caring Award for their provision of meals to those in need, especially during the bushfires of 2019-20 and the COVID-19 lockdown.
Mr Harbir Pal Singh Bhatia accepted the award on behalf of the Sikh community. In doing so he explained that the Sikh religion, which is 550 years old, was founded in response to the deep divisions in Indian society due to the caste system and to differences in religion. The turban, he said, was a form of dress that did away with the observable physical distinctions on which discrimination was in part based. For the Sikhs, there is but one God and all are His children; we each come to God by different paths and through different creeds, but it is the same loving God. A Sikh has three pillars to live by: to love God, to work hard to make an honest living and to share what he or she has with others who have too little.
Providing meals and hospitality is one of the ways the Sikhs fulfill their commitments, Harbir explained and said that what they had done in the bushfires was small enough but it was an expression of their values. He said they felt very humbled by the Rotary award and would hang their Community Caring plaque with pride
Left to right Rotary Club of Wahroonga meeting: Radha Simhadri Rotarian, Janelle Speight President RCWahroonga, Mrs Surjit Kaur Sahota,
Mr Harbir Pal Singh Bhatia, Mr Devpal Singh Bhatia, Mr Parneet Singh Bhatia, Jo Karaolis AM Rotarian,
Front Row: Sabarish Chirakkal Rotarian, Mrs Amarjit Bhatia, and Simran Talwar Rotarian and Sikh community.
Click on "Read More" below to catch up on the content from the modified Fellowship interviews including the background to some of the pandemic difficulties.
At this weeks meeting we have the pleasure of a visit from Commander Barry Vincent, Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Police Command and Fiona Zhou, Multicultural Community Liaison Officer LAC.
Our visitors will bring us up to date on local community issues including on how police are dealing with technology and commentary on the various crime categories and their comparative rating with prior years, how the community can assist in supporting the policing effort locally, and commentary on how police are managing with the pressures and mental health issues.
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In addition we will also have as guests, the General Manager of the Marian Street Theatre for Young People - Jessica Blaxland-Ashby and a play director Ashleigh Ho, to provide an update on the Group's activities through this pandemic year. Wahroonga Rotary has provided funded positions at RYLA over the past several years (through our Youth team) for young aspiring play directors and plan to continue to do so into the future.
All of us in our Club have been horrified by images of families in India carrying their sick loved one on a stretcher from hospital to hospital seeking help and hearing of people dying not from the virus itself, but from lack of oxygen. We hear how people with symptoms have no way of getting tested, let alone treated, because the health system is overwhelmed.
As Sabarish explained at our meeting on Wednesday, this is what happens when those with power take their eye off the virus or underestimate the risk: people die. And we watch on, helpless.
But as Rotarians we have the ability to help.
Our fellow-Rotarians at the Rotary Club of Mysore, India have put themselves in the front line, providing oxygen cylinders, protective equipment, home COVID packs including COVID tests and other medical equipment to those who call their Rotary volunteer helpline. But they urgently need our financial help so they can buy supplies. Our Club wants to send that help urgently.
Below a snapshot of the type of supplies we plan to fund - and approximate values.
Item No
Item description & quantity
Cost per unit (AUD)
Oxygen cylinder – 1
$250
Infrared Thermometer – 10
$205
Pulse Oximeter – 10
$205
PPE kit – 10
$75
Face Shield – 100
$75
3 ply face mask - 1000
$70
Full body isolation gown – 10
$25
Sanitizer (300 ml pump) – 10
$25
Please contribute to our
India COVID-19 Relief Appeal today.
Click on the DONATE button or scan the QR code provided.
This event takes place in North Wahroonga at Claude Cameron Grove on Sunday morning, 30 May from 8am to about 11:30am.
The Rotary Club of Wahroonga is conducting the BBQ for this event and members acting as road marshalls (a bit like for the Bobbo, so you can bring a chair!) for the event. Contact Helen Clarke or Bob Howe for further details.
This year our Club has the honour of hosting the annual beneficiaries evening on behalf of our Rotary Club partners, Ku-ring-gai, St Ives and Turramurra.
This event will be in the form of a Cocktail Party to be held at the Hornsby BMW premises Pacific Hwy Waitara - Wednesday June 16 2021.
Still plenty of room available for members to join the function to celebrate this wonderful event.
Click - here - to read more about the event and make a booking.
We all, like the Sleeping Princess, seem to have been asleep for the best part of a 100 years (or so COVID-19 has felt like) and suddenly the handsome Prince, in the shape of our Prime Minister Boris Johnson, comes along with a political kiss to waken us all up with news that the lockdown is now gradually to be lifted. At last, freedom is in sight!
Click on "Read More" below for more of Michel's story.
This week we meet Ron Browne, Chair of Rotary Emergency Services Community Awards (RESCA) in NSW, who explains how it works and the essential need to help emergency service workers impacted by post traumatic stress disorder. Click the link above and visit www.rescawards.org.au
