Foundation.
I have indicated to District that we will make our contribution to Foundation of $150 per member as well as make our contribution towards the PolioPlus Global Program- each club needs to contribute $1,000 per year for three years in order to match the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation contribution. This is a condition agreed to by Rotary International when accepting the $100 million contribution by Bill and Melinda Gates. This last drive to eliminate Polio is close to reaching its conclusion and it is important that Rotarians keep this program at the forefront to ensure that the job is finished. PolioPlus is one of the charities that our funds from GardenDesignFest will go towards. My aim is that we can make our $3,000 commitment in this year.
As a club, we made a donation to Foundation at the District Conference of $4,500. We have also paid our contribution for the next 3 years towards the Polio challenge thanks to the success of GDF08.
Culturally, we will become involved in the GSE program by hosting either a welcome or farewell dinner.
Whilst we did not host a welcome or farewell dinner, we did have the pleasure of hosting the Turkish GSE team on the last leg of their visit. This was a very rewarding opportunity for those members of our club that participated as hosts. Highlights of their visit were the visit to Sorrento, with lunch at Jill and John Forsyth’s followed by Dinner at Merv and Helen Williams. As a club we invited the team to attend the Moonee Valley races as our guests, this was a great success as none of them had attended races before. Three of the team members attended the football with Lucas and I, Barry was able to arrange for a tour of the scoreboard at half time. I must mention here that it was indeed an Essendon game!!