Darryl
Never one to be shy, Darryl got in a quick plug for The Travel Agent even before the toast for Australia - talk about shameless!
International Toast
from Norm
RC Truro in Cornwall
who have just experienced their worst floods ever.
They proudly promote themselves as a “dual gender” club
(five of their 35 members are women)
Still a bit of a way to go before they compete with Facebook
(In a nod to the "it's complicated" sexual identities of many of its users, the social network on Thursday added a third "custom" gender option for people's profiles. In addition to Male or Female, Facebook now lets U.S. users choose among some 50 additional options such as "transgender," "cisgender," "gender fluid," "intersex" and "neither.")
For Rotarians into the fine detail, their 18th Feb meeting (6pm for 6:30) featured guest speaker John Coates and the menu was roast topside of beef, Yorkshire pudding with gravy, or mushroom and goat’s cheese risotto
Visitors
Soon to be Rotarians Anna & Bernie
Sue, and of course Carol
Apologies
Noel, Gerry & Ann
Makeups
Mark at District Board
Deborah & Helen had a Cluster meeting
Presidents Report
Deborah welcomed the visitors.
Pam got a second “welcome back”
We all sang Happy Birthday for Alf
Clean Up Australia 2nd March?
Study of creeks?
Where is this going?
28th-30th March Conference
International Convention in Sydney
Trivia Night 6th March at Unity.
Deb & Carol attended a Quota International 95th anniversary
Deb attended the Meridan Leaders Investiture
See the photo in a previous post
Golf day progressing well - more teams needed
Inductions
Congratulations to Bernie and Anna who were inducted into the Club.
Ian said he had written everything out so I would not need to take notes
I hope he didn’t expect me to type them - my secretarial skills are somewhat limited
(click to enlarge)
Speaker
Pauline introduced Carol, a friend of Deborah’s with a wide world of experience including a Blood Bank, producing Standards for paints & varnish, book depositary, running a pub and as a political agent. She arrived from the UK in 1978 but remarried and returned in 88 for 12 years (Australia may have been a shock initially)
Nice building, but the queue at customer service looks a bit slow
Carol spoke about her eight year experience as a Councillor in Wandsworth, south of the Thames in inner London, and famous for the Battersea Power Station, its art deco Council Chambers, and setting for some of The Bill
Year - but looks more like smog than cloud - gotta love the English
There were 61 councillors with four year terms looking after a population of 280,000 with 20% being from ethnic backgrounds. The Mayor is a “figurehead” and is voted in by the majority party. Seems the Leader and seven Cabinet Members do most of the grunt work.
Their mantra was “good service at a reasonable cost”
They were obviously impressed with Carol and after four years she was made the Cabinet Member for housing, with a $500m Council budget plus more from the central government.
It’s a lot more than numbers and dollars. Traditionally public housing was needed for labourers, but now the unemployed and previously homeless are the main users, with many and varied detail issues to be resolved. One case was a 60yo deaf man and his barking dog driving his neighbours insane - when they took away his dog, the man started howling.
Homeless people are at the top of the list for housing, and once allocated, the units are theirs for life.
Much is older stock, with repairs and upgrades to security, intercoms, doors, CCTV, lighting etc the order of the day. Although economic rationalism would suggest demolition of older stock, upgrading was preferred to maintain social harmony. Alternative solutions were limited due to lack of land. Carol described the upgrading of a 18 storey block with 5 units per floor with new cladding, windows, doors, kitchens & bathrooms
After the social disaster of Britain’s post war housing, much has been learnt about maintaining social cohesion. The residents are deeply involved in decision making - it may be hard to manage but it’s good for residents as they have some control over their environment. Numbers and dollars are important, but flexibility and residents’ input is paramount. Some units are sold into private ownership, which allows entry into the housing market and creates pride of place. They run a tight ship with rent nonpayments severely dealt with, and antisocial people “named and shamed”
Carol spoke about renovations and social upheaval, sheltered housing for the elderly, and hostels for battered women, graffiti and illegal immigrants.
Carol and the Queen Mother at a function - Carol is the one standing up straight
- everything else, including the building, is on a lean
Questions included about rent affordability, pets (encouraged), public or private (don’t care) and “would she run for Mayor here?” a couple of times
Hey! on closer inspection that's not a regular Rotary badge Darryl -
Aaaaah - more product placement *#@*##
Directors
Roger to do radio interview with Anna on Valley FM Thursday 20th 9:05am
(and Pauline, the “website number” is www.valleyfm.net.au)
John - keep those teams rolling in for the Golf Day.
USC BBQs next Mon, Tues, Wed
park free Tues & Wed but put in for reimbursements for Monday.
Start at 10:30 am for 12:00 feeding frenzy.
Desks for DIK for the Solomans. The truck is hired, Komaki will pay costs.
Thursday 20th 7:00AM at Caloundra Primary School, George St - a show of hands indicated plenty of volunteers, Genta and Gerry to drive to Brisbane.
No Sergeant this week.
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