Rotary Club of Toorak - ebulletin

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1 Rotary Club of Toorak ebulletin Service Above Self Editor: Gordon Cheyne If you have any comments or questions, the editor. Future Speakers Mar Ann Tonks Thursday, March 24, 2011 Club Web Site This Monday The meeting was a Joint fellowship meeting with Brighton Beach to brief the Club on arrangements for the District Conference. 23 Toorak members were joined with 13 members from Brighton Beach together with 1 Conference Committee member from Altona and 1 from Docklands "The Melbourne Theatre Company DG Iven opened the discussion recalling that it was now three years since he had asked Brighton Beach to assist in the arrangements for the conference. He thanked them for their " News outstanding contribution. He also noted that this is the first time the organising committee had been made up of members of a number of clubs through the District. PP Alan Freedman advised that the Conference will opened on Friday by the Governor of SA, His Excellency Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce Bertrand Russell He also gave us an insight as to the quality of the Speakers which included the Mayor of Quote of the Week - Who Said It? Adelaide Mark Your Calendars! This ebulletin has been generated by ClubRunner club communication software. Visit clubrunner.ca for details Doxess. All Rights Reserved. ClubRunner Sponsors Members attending the Conference were briefed on the Marshal Roster by BB Rotarian Keiran Cromie. President Svetlana closed the discussion by thanking the Rotary Club of Brighton Beach for all the hard work they had done in assisting in the arrangements for the Conference President Svetlana quotation for the week: "The question isn't who is going to let me its who is going to stop me" - Aym Rand Duty Roster March Welcome: Cyril Lee Attendance: David Lindeman Cashier: Lalanah Brujah If unable to attend, please arrange a substitute. Please visit our Sponsors. To place your ad click here. Members unable to attend, please ring Lalanah Brujah Rotary Foundation Annual Report by Ian Kirk The Rotary Foundation Annual Report has been received. Rotary International Received US$95.6M Rotary International Spent US$82.5M Rotary Foundation Contributions Received US$268.5M Rotary Foundation Awards & Expenses US$226.6M 1 of 5 24/03/11 8:49 PM

2 Funds raised for the US$200M challenge for polio eradication reached $141.2M passing the halfway point of the three year challenge ahead of schedule. Polio cases have plummeted from 89 to 22 (75.3%) in Nigeria and from 321 to 3 (99.1%) in India. Long term projects in maternal health and child care, basic education and literacy, peace and conflict prevention/resolution, water and sanitation, disease prevention and treatment and economic and community development continue. Rotarian contributions to the Annual Programs Fund totalled US$100.4M, the third highest in the Foundation's history. A real letter from Samantha by Iven Mackay The Royal Wedding CNN alone will have a team of roughly 400 reporters, cameramen and crew assigned to the wedding. But the network has only 50 people on the ground working on the breaking news in Japan, plus others scattered in Bahrain, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Ten cameras will be stationed around Buckingham Palace to capture the day's money shot the royal family assembling on the balcony as Prince William and his bride share a kiss. One-liners by John McLaren Why are there so many songs for Christmas but barely any for all the other holidays? Why are they called apartments when they are together? Why are wise men and wise guys the exact opposites? 2 of 5 24/03/11 8:49 PM

3 Why call it a building if it's already been built? Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii? Earth Hour At 8.30 PM, 26 March 2011, lights go off for Earth Hour, The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that. Instead, I celebrate electricity and all that it has provided for humanity. Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it becomes an hour devoted to anti-humanism. It encourages the sanctimonious gesture of turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time, in deference to some ill-defined abstraction called "the Earth," all the while hypocritically retaining the real benefits of continuous, reliable electricity. People who see virtue in doing without electricity should shut off their fridge, stove, microwave, computer, water heater, lights, TV and all other appliances for a month, not an hour. Would they pop down to the cardiac unit at the hospital and shut the power off there too? Position Vacant As our Bulletin Editor will be overseas from 21 April to 17 May, we require a relieving Editor for four issues. This would be an ideal opportunity for next year's editor to get in some practice. Tuition available free of charge. ;-) Ring Gordon Cheyne or Dick Reeves In Praise of Carbon The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. - H. L. Mencken Children are having nightmares about their carbon footprint. What a pretty pass modern man has brought himself to! Frightening children with scary stories about hell fire is the way our ancestors drilled society into conformity. It might have been hoped that the age of science would bring all that to an end, but now we have entered the post-scientific age, in which a new class of high priest returns to the traditional methods of enforcement. In order to establish the essential fear-provoking scenario they have nominated in the role of original sin one particular element, one atom out of the whole gamut. It is a choice that is bizarre to the rational mind, yet one that conforms to the long established principles of the founding of authoritarian religions. Why is it bizarre? If you are of a mind to seek out magic and miracles look no further than the sixth member of the periodic table of elements. Even as a pure chemical, carbon exhibits a multiple personality that is quite exceptional in its variety. The soft powder that is lamp black, the amorphous stick of charcoal with which Leonardo first sketched the outline of a mysterious woman, the hardest of sparkling crystals nestling between the soft breasts of other women who changed history, yet which has been crucial to high technology, the smooth flaky centre of the draughtsman's pencil that also lubricated the workings of his mechanical designs and the new nanostructures of unimaginable possibilities are all chemically identical. 3 of 5 24/03/11 8:49 PM

4 Almost every structure and process within the human body owes its existence to carbon. The protein collagen provides skeletal strength, chemical messengers control operations, muscles enable motion etc., all bountifully endowed by the chemistry of carbon. Nature grants each of us the loan of a stock of carbon to house that mysterious entity we call consciousness and, when the time comes, calls for its return to the eternal cycle. Each of us enjoys our term at the top of the food chain, to which we are destined to return. More detail: Clarice Says: Dear Toorak Rotarians, Like everyone on St Patrick's Day, I was feeling a little bit Irish, so I popped into Bridie O'Reilley's for quick pint of Guinness. As I was talking to the Irish bartender, he asked me if I knew who St Patrick was. "He chased all the snakes from Ireland and became the Patron Saint of the Ireland" I replied. "Oh you're good..." said the bartender, "...but do you want to hear the most Irish thing of all about him?" Intrigued I asked him what that was. "The most Irish thing about him was that he wasn't Irish at all! He was born in England!" he laughed. To be sure, to be sure, you have to love the Irish sense of humour. It did get me thinking though about the absurd things in our everyday lives that we just take for granted. Why are "dyslexia" and "illiteracy" such difficult words? Why is inflammable not the opposite of flammable? Why does Bugs bunny walk around the cartoon naked, but puts a bathing suit on when he goes swimming? And finally...why have I been spending twice as long making two different versions of Networker when I could spend the extra time making one version of Networker even better instead? So I'm doing something about it. From now on you will see Networker released just in pdf format so I can spend more time making it great. For those that like to be able to search through articles in html format - don't worry, they'll still arrive in archived form in the following week. You guys deserve the best possible publication possible and the new changes should make it easier to get Networker out on time every time and shining beautifully like...well, Irish eyes. Clarice You can download the current District 9800 Newsletter at: 4 of 5 24/03/11 8:49 PM

5 Commitment Dates for your Diary by Cheyne, Dr. Gordon Lots of events coming up - and some nice little earners.... South Yarra Library Book Sales Ross Garrett advises that the book sales will be on: 16 April 25 June 20 August 15 October 10 December Prahran Market Sausage Sizzles We have booked the event for the following dates: APRIL 30TH 2011 JUNE 18TH 2011 Bound for Fun - Bound for South Australia! District 9800 Conference - Adelaide 2011 Mark in the dates - 31st March to April 2nd 2011 Toorak Rotary Club will be in top gear managing this Conference at The Adelaide Conference Centre. You can easily arrange your holiday around this event. RDU Merchandise There is lots of lovely Rotary Stuff available from Rotary Down Under. The RDU Website is at The Catalogue of Rotary Merchandise can be seen at You can download the catalogue as a.pdf and print a copy. Clothing, Giftware, Theme Items, Badges and Pins, Decals and Signs, Banners and Flags - it's all there for you. 5 of 5 24/03/11 8:49 PM