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Today's guest speaker was our club member David Post who took us on a tour of the outback. His purpose was to get members to think outside the box when thinking of projects for our club. At Alice Springs there was a big sign on the outskirts advertising the Fink River race. The sign had the Rotary Wheel on it. In the Todd River (which is mostly dry sand) David's partner Karen sat and painted with a group of indigenous women. After a joyful time together they exchanged paintings. In Katherine NT they discovered a Rotary fun park. In Kununurra there was a tree painted blue by Rotary. The blue tree is to get people to have a conversation about depression. (Incidentally I saw one in the grounds of CSU recently). |
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| In Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges in SouthAustralia, David and Karen bushwalked to Mt Olsen Bagge and observed a number of bird boxes in the trees. The boxes were stamped with the Rotary Symbol. They discovered that Rotary is involved with a nature preservation effort. The aim is to help stop the extinction of native species. Rotary Clubs from two districts are involved in the effort which encompasses an extensive area across inland Australia. Eighty five percent of the workers on the project are Indigenous. |
David told us about the HMAS Sydney memorial in Geraldton W.A. This is a magnificent memorial to the 645 Australian sailors who were lost when the German raider Kormoran engaged in a mutually destructive battle on 19th November 1941. The project to build the memorial was initiated by the Rotary Club of Geraldton. The Rotary Club steering committee started working on the project on July 1 1998. In 2009 The Australian Government recognised the memorial as a National Memorial. The dome is made of 645 joined sea gulls to represent each of the sailors who died. The widow statue looks out to sea in the direction of where the battle took place and where the ship's remains were recently discovered.
David wanted to tell us about these very interesting and worthwhile projects to get us thinking about what sort of projects we might pursue in the future. Projects that might be beneficial to a wider community than just Wagga.
Once again, one of our own proved to be a very interesting speaker. David was applauded by members and presented with a bottle of oil as a thank you.