100 Remembrance Days Ross Jackson

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Bulletin Volume 90 No 21 Monday November 12 2018 Rotary Club

org.au Last Meeting: Chairman: Keith Miller Sergeant: Mike

Remembrance Days Ross Jackson Sergeant Mike, Chairman Keith

1 Bulletin Volume 90 No 21 Monday November Rotary Club of Sale Rotary District 9820 Incorporated Last Meeting: Chairman: Keith Miller Sergeant: Mike Smith Guest Speakers: Ross Jackson Monday November Remembrance Days Ross Jackson Sergeant Mike, Chairman Keith Guest Speaker Ross Jackson, President Jeanette and RSL President Marty Tanzer

2 President s (and others) Announcements: Welcome to all our members and guest speakers Ross Jackson and Marty Tanzer. Tonight we will hear briefly from our Board members on what has been happening and what is planned in the Club over the coming months. Phil Club Admin AGM & amalgamation meeting planned for 17 th Nov. Laurie Secretarial & final tally for Movie night 77 tickets sold for profit $793. Treasurer s report as at 31 Oct 2018 The 31 October financials show a surplus of $4,423 including $725 BBQ fundraising and SC $1500 half payment for Clocktower Mall Xmas tree. Four (4) centurions to date. The Bunnings End Polio BBQ made $ after selling nearly 30 kg sausages, 17 loaves of bread & 7 kg onions thanks to the onion slicers on the day Waiting on the final Tally from last week s Movie night 77 tickets sold on the night. A big thank-you to Laurie for bookings and Adrian for organizing the delicious supper. Hope you all enjoyed the movie & music as much as I did. Lyndon International projects report District AGM a second round of district grants has become available due to not enough club project grants submissions. Centurion tubes have been ordered with Charlie Speirs and should arrive soon. Rachel Community projects Aust Day 2019, Race the Rubeena 24 th Feb 2019 planning underway for both events. Carmel Vocational planning $1000 sponsorship of disadvantaged youth discussion with Jenni Thomas to identify a recipient continuing. Rotary Day - maybe open day at Centenary house? Rod Exton awaiting Feedback from RYLA student Amy Gotts, and checking on students for NYSF? Presidents notes: 90 th Birthday celebration: Our 90 th Birthday celebration was well attended by nearly 60 people and I hope that you all enjoyed the time together with our fellow Rotarians from near and far. Thank-you very much to everyone who assisted with the organizing prior to and on the day. Special mentions to : Leo as our MC for bringing a great sense of camaraderie and humour to the day, Rachel for organizing the beautiful table centres & raffles, Jenni for the brain-teaser Rotary trivia on the tables, Laurie for ticket sales and the historical records display, Keith & Noel for manning the doors, Alan for the power-point presentation showing how our club looked in earlier days if I have missed anyone out, please accept my thanks. Merger meetings update: The amalgamation working committee met again on the 9 th November regarding the upcoming Special meeting and AGM to be held on Sat 17 th November at 1.00pm at the Wellington Hub Carang Carang room. Once again I would request all members to please attend this meeting to discuss important club decisions along with completing a merger proposal ballot. If you are unable to attend please let me know and I will organize to send you out a proxy form.

3 NOTE: Peter Synan will be Returning Officer for our Poll. I would like members also to have an idea of what the future of Rotary in Sale will look like if the general consensus is to proceed to amalgamate both clubs. I am not opening a Q & A session here as that will be covered at Saturday s meeting, but just want our members to be fully up to date following the latest joint working group discussions. In the event that the Rotary Clubs of Sale agree to merge, the joint Working Group recommends that:- Name: Rotary Club of Sale Initial Meeting Night: Tuesday (Subject to future review.) Initial Meeting Venue: Winning Post function room at Sale Greyhound Racing Club (Subject to future review.) Determined by availability. Inaugural Office Bearers:- (yet to be determined). President: Raj Mani (Sale Central) Secretary: Jeanette Henwood (Sale) Treasurer: John Cartledge (Sale Central) Vice President/President Elect: Philip Davis (Sale) Immediate Past President: Andrew Bradley (Sale Central) Board of Directors: TBA subsequent to the merger AGM All current members of joint clubs are encouraged to join. All current projects of joint clubs to continue subject to a strategic review in first year. Proposed that the joint clubs commence meeting jointly as soon as practicable while the joint Working Group progresses the machinery issues required to give effect to the joint Clubs decision. Other: Happy birthday Alan and Adrian. Second Round of District Grants open. Alan will get a quote for trail story board refurbishment as a submission and liaise with Shire re further support. Draft Code of Conduct development proceeding. Keith thanked everyone for a fine effort on the Show gates and thanked Ross and Marty for their outstanding contributions to the Remembrance Day celebrations. Alan won the raffle. Resident joker David told a cracking yarn! Don reported that he is part of a Committee planning a bid for the 2023 Rotary International Convention.

Treasurer s Report: Jeanette. Profit & Loss Report October 2018. The Club finished this month s period as per the Club Profit and Loss report with a surplus of $4,423.27.

4 Treasurer s Report: Jeanette. Profit & Loss Report October The Club finished this month s period as per the Club Profit and Loss report with a surplus of $4, This includes the End Polio BBQ money of $725 and a $1500 deposit from Sale Central for co-sponsorship of Community Xmas tree. Centurions & Memberships One Member left to pay this year s dues and so far, we have four centurions received for the year. I would encourage everyone to contribute the $100 either in a centurion tube or other payment, sometime over this year up to May, to keep our Full Centurion Club record alive for the third year running. Fundraising & dates Over the next few weeks a couple of social and fundraising events are planned as already detailed in the president s report earlier. Nov 17 th AGM & Special Meeting with Sale Central re: merger discussions & ballot. Donations a $1,500 deposit from Sale Central for co-sponsorship of Community Xmas tree scheduled in the Clocktower mall. Lighting of the tree ceremony is proposed to be on 30 th November around 7.00pm. President Jeanette chats with special guest RSL President Marty Tanzer.

7 GUEST SPEAKER Chair: Keith Miller Speaker: Ross Jackson. 100 YEARS ON Ross Jackson. We as families of those killed are still breathing, but the lives we had also came to a close the day we heard of your death. We are not the same people we were before. The world we live in is darker and less hopeful. We struggle to maintain faith in humanity. It may be that some of us will find some sense of purpose and happiness again, but we will always be marked by the sad and the brutal unknown. So, the big war is over, those who have survived will sail on home to us. We will embrace them, and love them, as we have done throughout this ordeal, and as we did before. The happiness and joy is immense now, we are happy but still anxious and fearful should something take them from us in the final chapter. Many emotions crowd our being, the future is uncertain with a thousand questions unanswered. The big ones being, has this war changed them? Will they look at life in a different way? Could it be possible for someone to go through what they have been through without change? Will the scars and hurt that do not show make them suffer? Will they feel guilt because of their survival? I think they would have changed. I know I have. What of the poor souls who have lost all in this sad treacherous game? They have no one to greet, to hold and cherish, just the raw sadness of a memory shattered by a bloody war. Their grieving will be for the rest of their lives. So the big war is over, for many of us, the war will never be over, every day will be a Remembrance Day until our time comes. Who of us would ever know /of the emotional turmoil experienced by a loved one at the knowledge of violent death be it sudden, or be it a lingering obscene, spectacle. Who of us in our family will ever visit the resting place of our loved one? Who will ever understand a mother's anguish and sorrow at the loss of her child. Who will feel a fathers' stoic pride and emotions and extreme sadness at the death of his boy. Who of us would know what an artillery barrage was like, the thunderous roar of the explosions, the maniacal screams of the shells as they approached, the night sky angry and deadly in its darkness and bruised, brutal beauty. The terror of those beneath the rain of steel and whizzing death, none of us will ever know. The huddle in the trenches knowing that at any second your life may be gone, the drone of -the whistle heralding the thrust into the melee - that could very well spell your end. Could any of us live with that and remain normal. Would it be possible for any of us, who have not experienced the terror of a gas attack be able to fathom the hideous panic of a drowning man robbed of the very air that he breaths. How would we react to the deadly spit of the machine gun sweeping an arc our way as we ran headlong into the hail of hissing missiles that have no mercy on flesh and bone? So, the big war is over and once again they will smell the wattle and the gum of a bush morning, the wood fire smoke of a Gippsland winter. They will hear the noise of the hustle and bustle of their Melbourne. Could we expect them to flick a switch and erase from their memories the experiences of the last four years? As they sleep and at their toil, will they be tortured by the ghosts of terror and doom, they probably will, but they will carry on, they will not complain. Will a chance meeting with an old comrade rekindle the memories of the good times, always the good times, not the bad?

8 A sound, a smell or an image will wake the senses once again and traffic them back to the very moment they-wished to Christ they could forget forever. Will they withdraw; will they escape into the quaint sounding state of melancholy. Will they isolate themselves and escape, will they take solace in the drink, will they withdraw from normality because of their past experiences? Nothing they ever experience again will be normal. Some of them will do all of this at some stage, but they will carry on. Those who witnessed this, the ones who supported them, the artillery, the gallant airmen in the Royal Flying Corps, the men on the Ships of the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Naval Bridging Brigade who landed on Gallipoli who have largely been forgotten because of the brutal and the heavy loss of the AIF, which has over shadowed the participation of any other. So the Big War is over, hooray to you all, I am still here alone with my memories of a son, a sweetheart or a husband who left to fight and has never returned. Our lives and our children's lives have changed forever since we received the news, we now must somehow carry on and look to our loved ones and families to heal and start again. There is the promise that there will never be another world conflict. Let us record the events and cloister the participants. We know we will never forget, but let us not speak of this, in this house again. The damage is done. Let us forget the ordeal, each of us must seek our own resolution and fathom the cause, the real cause. Nations must rebuild, our freedom was at stake, we must recognise the dead. Let us build monuments with the names of those who were killed or lost, let us revere the price they paid for their hideous needless passing. We must honour them for their supreme sacrifice. Surely there is someone out there who can give us some answers. Never let this happen again, let us call it the war to end all wars, the war for civilisation. That will make us all feel better, or will it? As the disfigured and mentally deranged moved through the cycle of their life the best they could, their presence was acknowledged with tolerance because of their comrades who remained intact. They did not speak of war, only to each other and only on occasion. They formed Returned Soldiers and Sailors Leagues for this purpose. They looked after themselves their mates and families who understood what they had been through. The strong looked after the weak and feeble-minded victims of a lost generation of fit and healthy young men and women. They watched and said nothing as the rest of Australia groped and struggled with the enormous needless loss and the grief that came with that loss. The world immortalised the dead, the glorious dead they called them. Heroes all, the brave fallen, who died for us, for Australia and the freedom of the World. There was no other way to cope, surely it was not all in vain. Was it?? Those young men and women, we have read about who marched away to fight in the Great War of still in many ways define who we are. We will never see their likes again, the generation of steel and thunder of lightening and death. We will not know the sacrifice, the stress and worry of those who remained. The many mothers, fathers, siblings, wives, loved ones and children-who lived through - this - ordeal and came out the other side changed forever. For them the big war was never over. Some still clinging to the hope their missing boy would return right up until their own death many years later. Today, one hundred years ago it was official. The killing ceased, the big guns silenced. Sanity had returned to the minds of the waging opponents in charge of this calamity. A cease fire was called, an Armistice, a truce. So the big war was over. Those who remained from Australia, New Zealand, The British Isles and the other Allied Nations, whose sons and daughters weathered and survived this noble cause - and yes, our enemies who

9 had paid the same price, we do not embrace you but we do not dismiss you either, in this time of our mutual sorrow. It depends on which book you read about the Great War as to which number of our fellow Australians perished in this Nation s four years of conflict. It seems the figures range from 58,000 to 62,000. Perhaps we will never know the correct number, which in itself is a tragic testimony to the confusion which gripped the World at that time. On the Sale Cenotaph is the names of 90 men who died in the Great War, amongst them is the name Tillett. L. On the Sale and District Roll of Enlistments is the name Tippett. L with the signifying mark of one who paid the supreme sacrifice. Tillett L. does not appear on the list. In the Sale Museum there is the name Les Tippett with the same mark of the dead. When the cenotaph was dedicated in Sale in 1924 an extensive article in the Gippsland Times reported the names on the memorial. It listed Tiffett L. This name is marked by the sad unknown, only to me it seems, the researcher trying to seek out his identity. I may never find him. I have continued my search for him since I think of him or her often. One of the sad and brutal unknown. This is Australia 2018, one hundred years on. We are surrounded by the ghosts of war, like the mysterious Tillet L. We have learnt to live with them. Let our noble words be followed by our noble actions Let Us Not Forget Them. Ross Jackson s original and moving recollections are published here with his kind permission. RSL President Marty Tanzer recites the Ode.

10 Les Jackson, past member Sale Central and Sale Bowls Club member invites our Club to enter as teams or individuals to support this very worthy cause. See Mike Smith for further details.

11 Next Meetings: THE ROAD AHEAD 19 November Lance Mitchell on Cave Diving 30 November Annual all abilities sports day BBQ volunteers needed Guest Speaker: Lance Mitchell Chair: Rod Exton Sergeant: Leo O Brien Next Dinner Meeting Monday November 19 Cave Diving Lance Mitchell 6.00 pm for 6.30 Lakeside Club Apologies to Jeanette It is very important to ring Jeanette before 12 noon on the day of the meeting with apologies and/or guests. Upcoming Programs Date Program Chair Sergeant Venue 17 November (Saturday) Joint AGM with Sale Central Community Hub. 19 November Lance Mitchell Cave Diving Leo O Brien

Member First Name Partner Davis PE Philip Elizabeth Dyer PP PHF Graeme Alida Exton PHF PP Rod Gillian Henwood PRESIDENT Jeanette Jeremiah Laurie Helen Langley PP PHF Noel Betty Lewis PP PHF Alan

12 Member First Name Partner Davis PE Philip Elizabeth Dyer PP PHF Graeme Alida Exton PHF PP Rod Gillian Henwood PRESIDENT Jeanette Jeremiah Laurie Helen Langley PP PHF Noel Betty Lewis PP PHF Alan Miller PHF Keith Gwen O Brien Danny Vicki O Brien PP PHF Leo Debbie Rijs PP PHF Adrian Louise Ripper PP PHF IPDG Don Jude Ross PHF Neil Maree Smith PHF Mike Smolenaars PP PHF Daniel Norrisa Wheal Smyth PP PHF Laurie Jill Strauss IPP Rachel David Strauss PP David Rachel Thomas Jenni Tulloch PP PHF David Judy Webb Carmel Lyndon Webb PP PHF Lyndon Carmel

13 Leo, Don, Adrian and Danny enjoy the evening. Great turn out to hear our special guest speakers

August: Gratitude. To be thankful for opportunities received or for something that makes one happier.

August: Gratitude. To be thankful for opportunities received or for something that makes one happier. Bulletin Volume 85 No 52 August 18 2014 Rotary Club of Sale www.rotaryclubofsale.org.au Rotary District 9820 Incorporated Each month for the next year our Club will be publishing in the weekly bulletin