Rotary Wanneroo Bulletin 40 2014

President: Norm de Grussa 2013 - 2014

Club of

WANNEROO J U N E 3 0 T H 2 0 1 4

B U L L E T I N N O : 4 0

MEETING AT CAFÉ ELIXIR Exchange Students And Mark Douglas Thumbnail Sketch

Wanneroo Rotary Club Committee 2013—2014

President: Norm deGrussa

Secretary: Graeme Smith Treasurer: Bill Kell

Youth Services: Owen Douglas

International Service: Debbie Singh

Club Service: Phil Cousins

Vocational Service: Neil Cook

Membership: All Members

Sergeant: Phil Cousins Attendance: Jacob Etoka

Belgrade Village: Colin Griffiths Program: Peter Miskelly

Bulletin, Publicity

& Photography: Ray Perkins

President Elect: Bill Kell

NEW WEBSITE: www.rotarywanneroo.org

Apologies: If unable to attend meeting, an apology is to be lodged with President Norm before 3pm on Fridays.

Contact details for Tom Drinkwater: [email protected] or mobile 0439 900 829

DISTRICT 9455

P.O.Box 47, WANNEROO 6946

MEETING 8th July at Owen Douglas’ House

Committee Meeting - Pizza Night

6.00 for 6.30pm

Chairman Ray Perkins

Duty officer Tom Drinkwater

Duty officer

Vote of Thanks

Reserve

Reserve

Fellowship

Guest Speaker

Topic

Duty Roster 8th July 2014

July 2014 Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 COMMITTEE’S

PIZZA NIGHT

9 10 11 12 13

14 VOCATIONAL EVENING V8 CARS

PHIL JOHNSON’S PROPERTY

15 16 17 18 19 20

21 ANNE VENAILLE

Procrastination Improve Productivity

22 23 24 25 26 27

28 CAROL LEIGH

Wanneroo History (In Theatre)

29 30 31

Meeting held at Café Elixir 30th June 2014 President Norm opened the meeting introducing 2 Guests one a current exchange student from Germany

Til Flender from the Rotary Club of Geraldton and is on his way back home and a Past Inbound Exchange Student Paul Ripen from Germany. President Norm explained that he had hosted him for about 10 months and it was very good to see him come back again and we went to the Bullsbrook College for a walk through and all of the staff were pleased to see him. Paul must have stayed up during the night watching the soccer and found the frozen

dinners which they heated up and eaten.

Secretary Graeme Smith: Graeme said he would be very brief as he didn't have a secretarial announcement to

make but made the following announcement. He was disappointed that we did not have a bigger crowd for the

evening as there are too many people away trying to get warmer weather etc.

For those that are here it was very sad to get Norms letter of resignation the other day as Norm has been tremendous with the club as he has been with the club for 17 years and in every year Norm has held a position of some sort from President, Attendance and particularly with Youth and Vocation and he does a lot of work with the

school and Pipe Band in Youth exchange within District and is taking up the Chair this year.

So Norm thank you very much for what you have done for the club as we are certainly going to miss you and wish you all the best and our regards to Penny and as a little momento, you brew your own beer so we thought that we

would present you with a Glass Tankard to give you something to drink it with.

Secretary Graeme handed Norm the Tankard.

President Norm thanked Graeme insisting that it was not

necessary and that it was a very hard decision to make.

Norm said he was being inducted into the Rotary Club of Swan Valley next week and he has been seconded buy DG Hank and Noel Allen to try and raise a club in Ellenbrook where there are 13 members there at present, a Satellite Club of the Rotary Club

of Swan Valley.

It is a new pilot system which he doesn't know a great deal about it. They operate exactly the same way as a Ro-tary Club but the President is a Chair and he is answerable to the sponsor club which is Swan Valley. Norm ex-plained that he is not going to go suddenly as he has the current inbounds to deal with until Bill gets that sorted

out and the National Youth Science Forum applicant. Norm thanked us again.

Paul Ripen past Inbound Exchange Student: Paul said it was nice to be hear again and said that he had settled in

pretty well back in Germany with meeting a lot of friends and family at the airport to pick him up. On the same day it was his welcome party and all of his friends came which was great to see them all. He then had his six weeks holiday because he still had to go to school and he travelled to Spain with his family and also with an Exchange Student from New Zealand that was staying with his family. He settled in pretty well at school but he was in a com-pletely new year as he had to repeat a year but it worked out pretty good as he made a lot of new friends and the

teacher was nice to see him again. Many people wanted to know about Australia as many people want to visit or work in Australia. Two years of school and he will then go to a double track University course including an apprenticeship course for Logistics. That is his plan for the next 3 and a half years and to do a Bachelor of Arts. Paul said that he may come

back to Australia but he is not sure yet but he will try to as he likes the country and all of the people here.

Raffle Winners: 1st Prize; Mark Douglas 2nd Prize; Lucky Laurie

Mark Douglas: Thumbnail Sketch; Mark gave us a rundown of his life from where he was born in the Sydney suburb of Fairfield in NSW to working class parents and then went to a boys high school and then an apprenticeship as a Fitter and Turner in 1974 which lasted for 4 years. He then joined the Army Reserves in the Bushman’s Rifles RNSWR and

then moved onto the 142 Signals Squadron at Lidcombe and after that he met Kay who was a friend of her mothers.

Met at the BBQ and then a couple of weeks later called Kay up for her birthday while on a Army Camp in Singleton and the rest is history. In 6 weeks they were engaged and in 6 months they were married and then moved to Queensland as

he had always wanted to live in Queensland and Kay was a Rockhampton Girl.

They lived a good life and tried to have kids with no luck then moved back to Sydney to get committed and got a mort-gage and 2 weeks after signing the mortgage Kay fell pregnant with the eldest Megan and then 19 months later Kay fell

pregnant with Laura.

After 5 years they left Sydney and moved back to Rockhampton for about 16 years. Mark took on a Jim's Mowing Franchise but with the limited costs for cutting large lawns with minimal income another path was set. They moved back

to Sydney as Megan had to have an operation on one of her legs as one was shorter than the other.

The operation was very painful and took a long time to complete as the leg had to be broken and then multiple screws inserted and then the screws had to be turned to lengthen the bone during the healing process. During this time Mark became a bus driver because that afforded him to spend (Kay was working as a CNS Nurse at Liverpool Hospital) more time with Megan as she was terribly ill with various infections. It was a long slow process over 12 months. Megan was granted a Make A Wish Foundation trip and made a 1 week all expenses paid trip to Rottnest here in WA. They ex-tended the trip while being over hear and when they went back to Sydney they asked the girls what they liked about WA

and they said it was the people and 18 months later they moved over to WA.

Mark is now working in Mining putting his fitting and turning skills to good use and also has good computer skills com-bined with people skills as he worked in retail. He has been able to become a maintenance planner combining all of his

skills for the past 9 years.

Both girls went to Wanneroo High School here and made the best out of it and have both gone to University, Laura did the science award. Both of the girls joined the Army Cadets at the High School and had a ball. Laura ended up in charge of about 150 kids. Laura then wanted to do an exchange student and after doing her own research found that the Rotary Exchange Student program would give her the best experience. She then applied and made a duplicate application and to this day the Registered Mail originals has never been received by our club so the duplicates were presented to the

club with her interview 2days before the cutoff date.

To the present day I am still working as a maintenance planner which I love and also does some consultancy work in the Congo which can be shown to us another day. Its a fantastic place but a dramatic third world country which can be a

shock to some people. Well that’s where we are to the present day as new members of the club.

Norm mentioned to Mark that the thumbnail sketches are quite important to get to know all of our members so thank

you very much for that.

Vote of Thanks; Neil Cook; Neil thanked Mark for his thumbnail sketch and appreciated him stepping in as our other

guest speaker couldn't make it.

Tom Drinkwater: introduced the club to a new system of filling out an attendance sheet for the next week to help give us some indication of numbers for the coming week. It is imperative for our current low numbers to confirm their atten-

dance so that the Cafe can organise the meals and staffing levels.

Please reply by Friday to confirm your numbers for the following weeks attendance.

We also (Ray and I) emptied the Spiral Wishing Well at the Coles Clarkson shopping centre which for a 3 week period

we had a great result.

President Norm asked us to face the flag and sing the National Anthem.

Norm then rang the bell for the last time as President of the Rotary Club of Wanneroo.

MEMBERS BIRTHDAYS JUNE

ALINA GRIFFITHS 6TH

WEDDING ANNIVERSARYS JUNE

JAN & LAURIE DUFFY 30th

I propose as per last year that the Club buys a $50.00 ticket

and the winner of that ticket will be drawn from those

members that have paid their club Dues by the 31st July 2014

GIGGLE’S CORNER

Sooo... what's the problem ???

A wife asks her husband, "Could you please go shopping for me and buy a carton of milk and if they have avocados, get 6. A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk. The wife asks him, "Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?" He replied, "They had avocados." If you're a woman, I'm sure you're going back to read it again. Men will get it the first time.

Water in the carburettor

WIFE: "There is trouble with the car. It has water in the carburettor." HUSBAND: "Water in the carburettor? That's ridiculous " WIFE: "I tell you the car has water in the carburettor." HUSBAND: "You don't even know what a carburettor is. I'll check it out. Where's the car? WIFE: "In the river"

This is a frightening statistic !

25% of the women in this country are on medication for mental illness. That's scary. It means 75% are running around untreated.

A young man

wanted to get his beautiful blonde wife something nice for their first wedding anniversary. So he decided to buy her a mobile phone. He showed her the phone and explained to her all of its features. Meg was excited to receive the gift and simply adored her new phone. The next day Meg went shopping. Her phone rang and, to her astonishment, it was her husband on the other end. "Hi Meg," he said, "how do you like your new phone?" Meg replied, "I just love it! It's so small and your voice is clear as a bell, but there's one thing I don't under-stand though..." "What's that, sweetie?" asked her husband. "How did you know I was at Sainsbury's?

He must pay !

Husband and wife had a tiff. Wife called up her Mum and said, "He fought with me again, I am coming to live with you." Mum said, "No darling, he must pay for his mistake. I am coming to live with you.

Today’s Short Reading From the Bible…

From Genesis: "And God promised men that good and obedient wives would be found in all corners of the earth." Then He made the earth round...and He laughed and laughed and laughed!

Things Got Ya Down? Well Then, Consider This . . .. In a hospital's Intensive Care Unit, patients always died in the same bed, on Sunday morning, at about 11:00 am,

regardless of their medical condition. This puzzled the doctors and some even thought it had something to do with

the super natural. No one could solve the mystery as to why the deaths occurred around 11:00 AM Sunday, so a

worldwide team of experts was assembled to investigate the cause of the incidents. The next Sunday morning, a

few minutes before 11:00 AM all of the doctors and nurses nervously waited outside the ward to see for themselves

what the terrible phenomenon was all about. Some were holding wooden crosses, prayer books, and other holy

objects to ward off the evil spirits. Just when the clock struck 11:00 ,

Pookie Johnson, the part-time Sunday sweeper , entered the ward and unplugged the life support system so he could

use the vacuum cleaner.

MEMBERS BIRTHDAYS JULY

PHIL COUSINS 18TH

KERRY COUSINS 22ND

IAN BRADSHAW 30TH

WEDDING ANNIVERSARYS JULY

Still Having a Bad Day????

The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez Oil spill in Alaska

was $80,000.00. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were being released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A

minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both.

Still think you are having a Bad Day????

A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen shaking frantically, almost in a dancing frenzy, with some kind of wire running from his waist towards the elec-

tric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current, she whacked him with

a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two places. Up to that moment, he had been happily listening to his Walkman.

Are Ya OK Now? - No?

Two animal rights defenders were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaugh-terhouse in Bonn , Germany . Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke loose and es-

caped through a broken fence, stampeding madly. The two helpless protesters were

trampled to death.

What?!? STILL having a Bad Day????

Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet didn't pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came

back with 'Return to Sender' stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it

and was blown to bits. God is Good!

There now, Feeling Better?