I always enjoy seeing lots of guests at our meetings, and this week was exceptional. We had family and friends of our 4 Speakers, 4 members of Barwon Rotaract, a visiting Rotarian, Simone from Deakin Lakehouse, our Assistant Governor Judy and we also welcomed back to Rotary Malcolm who has been on leave since December, Robert who has been working in Melbourne for well over a year now, and Colin H returning for his first meeting since experiencing ill health late last year. It was a pleasure to welcome them all.
Assistant Governor Judy gave us a run down on what is happening around the District, and congratulated us on the projects and events we have been involved in so far this Rotary year.
Our meeting coincided with International Womens Day, and so it seemed appropriate to share a few statistics about Women in Rotary - here they are again for those who couldn't be at the meeting.
- there are over 200,000 women Rotarians worldwide - approximately 17% of the 1.2 million members of Rotary;
- in our District of 1749 Rotarians, 490 are women - 28%;
- our Club has 25% women members;
- of the 459 Rotarians in the 15 Geelong and District Clubs, 130 are women;
- the first female inducted into Rotary in D9780 was Mary Elliott (Torquay Rotary) in August 1989, one month after Council on Legislation enacted the decision that Rotary membership was open to both males and females;
- the first female Club President in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania was Cathy Roth who was the Charter President of Geelong Central Rotary;
- the first female District Governor for D9780 was Pat Robinson (Camperdown Rotary) in 2002 - 03 and the second was Cathy Roth in 2004-05.
There is no doubt that women are Making a Difference in Rotary around the world.
Our four speakers - Ros, Barb, Merridee and Pam - shared with us the pictures and stories of their recent trip to Cambodia. There were so many different aspects to their trip - visiting schools, providing books and reading to the children, visiting 2 womens crisis centres and providing Days for Girls packs, visiting the water project recipients and seeing the difference having clean water and sanitation has made to the lives of the villages and schools, but also reaching into their pockets and providing additional funds whenever a need was identified. The generosity of Rotarians is truly amazing.
Barb also organised to see where the soaps from Soap Aid goes. Where once used soaps from local hotels and guest accommodation is recycled into useable soap for countries like Cambodia to assist with personal hygiene and disease prevention by the simple act of washing hands.
One other need that was identified was the need for a toilet in a local school, and so planning is underway already to see if we can apply for a District Grant to help fund it.
Next week we meet in Committees, and I am looking forwarding to joining in with the Membership Committee.
Have a great week
Pauline