It was great to be able to be back in person and see (and touch) us all in person.

The Mercure Hotel was certainly happy to have us back as well.

The photos above are courtesy of Herbson Singo. I know the presentation went well and Ted thinks he was the star of the show but not enough to make it into the photos. Above Sainab is surrounded by the masked Andrew and me wearing a shirt that fortunately had buttons that just managed to hold in my Covid stomach.

Sainab stood out with a great bright colour matched outfit. and of course, we had to do the Two-up again and it was great to have Cheryl as our winner of the bottle of wine. It actually was appropriate as the idea of the game is to put in a gold coin and the last person standing wins the wine. Well in these Covid times Cheryl was about the only one that had a coin to put in so it was good to see her win.

As we had a couple of members (James and Kammy) that couldn't make the meeting we actually also showed in Zoom as well so it was good to still see their faces on the screen and Herbosn used his phone to pan around the room so they could see the rest of us at the meeting.

The purpose of the meeting was to inform a number of non-Rotarians that had been attending our Zoom meetings and also volunteering at Rimern so they could have a better idea about Rotary with a view that they might be impressed enough to join. There were a couple that could not make it but we were pleased to welcome Spencer Fowler-Steen, Fatuma Ali, Abdullahi Osman, and Ariel Moresay. Both Ariel and his wife Xuan have previously attended our Zoom meetings.

The presentation was technically a three-way one divided between, me Ted Dziadkiweicz, and Andrew Georgiou. The three of us were Presidents in the consecutive years of 1997, 1998 & 1999. In reality, Ted did nearly all of the presentation and he did a good job as at the end of the meeting Spencer, Fatuma, and Abdullahi all made clear they do want to join up as full members. As well Vidya that was caught up with work has also expressed interest and I am sure there are others too so it looks like good times are ahead.

We have our club Board Meeting tomorrow and while only members can technically vote on issues where required we have invited interested future members to attend as well so they can get an insight into how the "engine room" of the club works.

Last Friday was my deadline for our club's article in the Summer 2021c edition of the North West Melbourne News put out by the centre. So I studiously put together what I thought was a fairly informative summary of what we have been up to over the last 3 months ending with a short mention about Herbson's fund-raiser for purchasing food for starving families in Malawi. The editor came back with his usual comment about how boring my article was (dead as a Dodo was his wording). You have to have broad shoulders to last as an active Rotarian. Anyway, he did say the bit about Herbson really grabbed his attention and asked to speak to him directly so I gave him Herbson's phone number. After he spoke to Herbson he was even more impressed with the story he said it is too good for a line in our story so intends to do a big splash on it in the following issue in early 2022 meaning he has to resort to my dodo story. (If I knew how to type a smiley face in Word I'd insert one here)

Anyway for sneak preview of some of the photos about Herbosn's project here they are

It really is a great project by Herbson. He became aware of families starving in Malawi and simply raised funds transferred it over there and as you can see in the photos they have purchased bulk food for many families to eat for a whole year. Here is a screenshot of the Gofundme page and you can see it is now up to over $1,900.00 so if you want to add more to it then go onto the site and you will know the funds will be well used.

I have been advised by our soon-to-be new member, Spencer Fowler-Steen, Editor of the North West City News newspaper that somehow I am meant to do another article for his paper by tomorrow.

As last month's edition actually had such a good response by way of Rimern volunteers and possible new members somehow I will make sure we get something in for that paper too.

RIMERN    (Rotary Inner Melbourne Emergency Relief Network)

Thanks again to our volunteers that helped out on Saturday 30th October who were our President, Sainab Sheikh and Herbson Singo, Rahma Abdirahman, Michelle Donelly, and Vidya Yeleswarapu.

The upcoming roster is unchanged from last week and so this Saturday we have the following rostored on:

Ted Dziadkiweicz, Larry Robb, Herbson Singo, Neil Bateman, and Colleen McMahon

The shift is from 1.00 pm at 32-34 Lincoln St East Brunswick.

If anyone else is interested to get on our roster then please contact Judy Page on 0425 741 624 or email on judypage3@gmail.com. You do have to be double vaccinated