Board Members for 08/09

At our meeting last night we elected our board for 08/09. Congratulations to the new board.

President - Suzanna Muchow
Vice-President - Cat McDowall
Secretary - Liz Criddle
Treasurer - Ben Dighton
Director of Community Service - Cat McDowall & Liz Criddle
Director of International Service - Amanda Wood
Director of Club Service - Lisa Cansdale
Director of Professional Development - Sharyn Schooth (08) & Lucy Clifford/Merril Gillman (09)
Sergeant at Arms - Adam Busteed & Karl Goulding
Bulletin Editor - Emily Wood

Photos

Don't forget to scroll down to the end of the page [or just hit End on your keyboard] to check out different Rotaract photos. At the moment we have piccies from the Charter Celebration and Anti-Graffiti.

Youth Homelessness

Homelessness seems to be a 'hot topic' in the media at the moment with today's release of the National Youth Commission's Inquiry into Youth Homelessness. In last week's edition of The Satellite Merrin Jagtman's cover story talked about an increasing number of people who are homeless in Brisbane's south-west suburbs. (Merrin is the same journalist who wrote an article about our club in celebration of Rotaract's 40th anniversary.)

The Sunday Mail reported that "more than 100 000 Australians live on the street, a third are under 25, a quarter live in Queensland." [April 9, 2008, p26). The article contained several quotes from Angela Barnes, executive manager of Brisbane Youth Services. She emphasised the importance of meeting basic physical and emotional needs before beginning employment training and job seeking.

The ABC reported a fortnight ago: "As mortgage stress rises across the country, more and more Australian families are reaching crunch point and having their homes repossessed. The aspirational suburbs of Sydney are among the hardest hit.

In the city's south-west, there are reports that working people are moving into homeless shelters because they have failed to meet their loan repayments. Home repossessions for 2008 are already at record highs and are expected to increase further through the year.

Phil Hancock from Brisbane Youth Service will be visiting our club on Thursday May 1 to discuss youth homelessness with us. BYS have been operating for more than 20 years and run a range of services including street outreach, a drop in centre and a health clinic as well as a parenting program for yong parents or parents-to-be who are homeless or at the risk of homelessness. As always, feel free to bring a friend with you. It should be a good night as we learn about youth homelessness and perhaps start thinking how we might be able to do our little bit to help.

Meeting Update

On Thursday we had our first 'proper' meeting in some while after having our Sudanese information evenings the meeting before and banner painting the meeting before that.

Em, Suzanna and Lucy gave a report on District Conference. They all enjoyed themselves and had fun meeting Rotaractors from Toowoomba (not yet chartered) and hanging out with South Brisbane Rotaractors as well. They definitely encourage everyone to go next year (13-15 March 09 at Twin Waters (I think)).

Anti-graffiti had a small turnout which was unfortunate as the guy who started the group was down from the Sunshine Coast and it would have been nice for him to have a bigger turnout. So thank you Jenna, Adam and Emily for helping out. Afterwards they met up with some members from the Rotaract Club of Strathpine.

We talked about changing the date for next month's Anti-Graffiti as it will fall on the long weekend as it currently stands. We also talked about giving RSVPs at least one week prior to anti-graffiti.

Emily also reported on the interest meeting for a Rotaract club in Logan. There's a small band of very keen and enthusiastic girls so hopefully they can gain enough momentum to start a club.

Amanda also reported on the Sudanese information evening and there was some discussion about upcoming events. The general consensus was that the next event in the campaign - showing a documentary about the Darfur genocide - will be held in the new Rotaract year (starting 1 July) so that our club has enough time to plan and publicise the event.

During Member Behind the Badge spot Laura spoke about one of her passions, Close the Gap, an Oxfam campaign to close the health outcomes and life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It's disheartening to think that non-Indigenous Australians live 17 years longer on average than Indigenous people but hopefully campagins like Close the Gap will encourage us as a country to change this.

It looks like we are slowly heading in that direction. Just tonight "Kevin Rudd has announced he will report to parliament on the Government's efforts to improve the living conditions of Aboriginal people. The Opposition Leader has welcomed a Federal Government plan to annually discuss the progress being made on improving the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians. During a speech in London, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced he will report to parliament on the first sitting day of every year on the Government's efforts to improve the living conditions, health and education of Aboriginal people." [Source: ABC News]

The second half of the meeting was taken up with discussing nominations and voting for the new board. After nominations we were able to decide a new board via consensus however it won't be officially announced until next meeting. This was anyone who wasn't present at the meeting still has the opportunity to nominate themselves and those who were nominated but not present have the chance to turn down the nomination (or 'appointment').

Club Visits Update

During March different members went visiting local Rotary clubs - we defined local as South-East Brisbane, some Ipswich clubs and in District 9630 (so not north of the Brisbane River including Indooroopilly, St Lucia, etc even though we have members living in these areas).

While our primary purpose was to put the word out about Rotaract and our club specifically as part of a member drive. But as Laura reported in the bulletin, "Our partnership with Rotary is an important one and visiting theclubs was also an opportunity to make contact with local Rotaryclubs and hear what they have been up to."

Laura did a great job of contacting clubs and organising for us to speak, either in short five minute segments or as the meeting's official guest speaker. Thanks must also go to Emily for putting together a powerpoint slideshow in presentations, Sharyn and Emily for putting together the very professional looking flyer and to all the members who volunteered their time to visit clubs.

We had some great feedback from the clubs and everyone seems exciting to hear about us. The Rotary Club of Ipswich City has very generously donated a gong to our club after seeing Bec and Tim in awe of the power of the gong to maintain order.

Not to be outdone, Sharyn reported that "the Rotary Club of Goodna have offered us the use of their 4 burner BBQ on a trailer, equipped with eskies and gas bottles. They are very proud of their trailer and would be willing to lend it to us to conduct BBQ’s in the community to raise some money."

The Rotary Club of Archerfield will spread the word to their returning Youth Exchange students and will consider sponsoring the joining fee and membership dues for anyone who is interested in joining our club but faces financial difficulties.

While I am sure we would welcome at many Rotary Clubs, the Rotary Club of Rocklea has extended a standing invitation to our members to attend any of their dinners and listen to their guest speakers. They have had some exciting ones on the program including a young man who trekked hundreds of kilometres through northern Italy (I think). They passed on their congratulations and say that we should be proud of ourselves for accomplishing so much in such a short space of time - they reckon they'd like to borrow some of our enthusiasm!

If anyone is interested in attending these meetings as a visitor they should contact Laura who has details of venues, times and phone numbers.