BULLETIN 30 MARCH 2020 (Mar 30, 2020)

Our sixteenth meeting of this Rotary year held on March 19 was this 42 year old Rotary Club’s first ever online meeting and I believe the first traditional meeting Club in District 9640 to do this.

Thanks to Member David Geelan we produced a Facebook Watch Party, a 26 minute presentation which included our Club’s story of growth within the past 2 years, the new look Gold Coast Ramble successfully staged by David Baguley and his team and the video that was shown at our February 28 Breakfast meeting on The School of St Jude, Gemma Sisia’s inspiring story of the school in Tanzania that is fighting poverty through education that we have invested in for many years.

If you have yet to watch this just click

https://youtu.be/_1aTeyEmpC4

You will need to check and slide the red progress bar on the bottom to the start.

We also inducted the newest member of Gold Coast Rotary, Lori Bradley (Vocation Business Coaching & Consulting). Last week I attended an online workshop conducted by Lori, who runs The Local Business Network. Lori shared that in times of adversity or uncertainty we can first look for the opportunity and then take the opportunity. We can lead the narrative. We can take positive action. We can take on the hurdles in front of us as a team.

We all have family and friends, work and retirement commitments and current challenges that are adversely affecting our lives and the available time we can offer to Rotary,

We are all in this together – everyone is being impacted – let’s look for support from club members and offer support to club members – that’s when our Rotary family are at its best.

For the first 15 meetings of this year, 44 members attended 50% or more dinner meetings (13 more than last year), averaging 32 members per meet (9 more last year).

This year’s Rotary International theme is Rotary Connects the World. My goal is that we connect all 68 members in this challenging world we are in.

In July we start the 2020/21 Rotary Year with its theme Rotary Open Opportunities. I see the opportunity to also collaborate with other like-minded clubs, within the Gold Coast, within Australia or within another country to make a bigger difference to the lives we touch.

New project and program opportunities, new events and meeting formats that engage more members, more community and corporate partners, more charities and influencers that helps build our image, our footprint, our impact.

I see this online meeting experience is not just an opportunity to keep meeting during this challenging period, rather than opportunity to experiment with change, with new ideas, new ways to meet new people and encourage new thinking to future challenges and opportunities.

So with that in mind, Gold Coast Rotary is moving to Zoom for its online meetings every first and third Thursday of each month until such time it is safe for us to meet for dinner. Our Club’s Board and Committees already use Zoom to meet. Our Club Admin team met last week via Zoom to develop this Thursday’s (April 2) meeting.

We will welcome members joining us online at 7.15pm (giving you time to have dinner before you join us) and our Chair will start the meeting at 7.30pm and finish by 8.30pm. The Join This Meeting link is on the EClub Next Gen website or on our Facebook event post https://www.rotaryeclubnextgen.org President Julian Field of EClub NextGen will be hosting this Zoom to ensure that this meeting runs smoothly.

We will toast Rotary and People of the World and an International Club, we will here and see a wrap up of Gold Coast Ramble, the success that is The Rotary Village, a Member Behind the Badge share their story, and an inspirational guest speaker.

Program Chairs have an opportunity to provide updates on club projects, programs and priorities. Members will have an opportunity to ask questions and opportunity to chat with fellow members 15 minutes before the meeting and 15 minutes after.

If you have not had a fellow member invite you to join them for this or if you are not sure how to, please call me on 0421 915 818 or email me at johnstonerowan@gmail.com and we will make sure that you have the opportunity to connect with us. Guests of members and other Club Rotarians are welcome to join us.

If there is anything that you need that I can help you with, please let me know.

I look forward to catching up

Rowan Johnstone

President 2019/20

Gold Coast Rotary

Mobile 0421 915 818

Email johnstonerowan@gmail.com

International Projects -Pentecost Island Update

Pentecost Island, Vanuatu Update – 31 March 2020

Following the presentation on our current international projects at our last dinner meeting, there has been progress on construction of the Pentecost Island Vanuatu X-Ray and Pathology Building that will be constructed in flat pack form and shipped to northern Vanuatu for re-assembly.

After the call to members of the Rotary Clubs of Broadbeach, Surfers Sunrise and or club for donations in kind for building materials for the facility, Premier Timber on Brisbane Road in Labrador have donated the roof trusses as you see in the photo below with Michael who constructed them.

Thanks goes to Rotarian Geoff Croad of Surfers Sunrise club who asked Premier Timber if they would donate them. As COVID-19 will restrict members of the joint clubs from constructing the building for the time being, the project is temporarily on hold unfortunately.

Gold Coast Ramble 2020

Despite the cancellation of many other events, Gold Coast Ramble was still able to proceed as scheduled on Sunday 22 March 2020. Due to CODIV-19 public health concerns, several teams did not compete and other teams lost some members but 13 teams collected their maps and had 2 hours fun completing the circuit. Check out the photo gallery.

To allow the event to proceed the event was modified to remove all activities requiring teams to interact with volunteers, other teams or the public. Once team captains had collected their map, the entire event was managed using the Goose Chase App. Missions or challenges went live at 10am and were listed on the App for teams to plan their routes. The challenges were in one of three formats:

Find a geographic location (confirmed by GPS)
Answer a question about a particular location (confirmed by correct answer)
Submit a photograph or video of the team at the required location.

During the event additional bonus challenges were sent out to the team that were not location based and tested the team’s observation and creativity. Finally, to make the event ‘socially distant’, there was no congregation of teams to announce winners and draw random prizes. This was done by email and announced on social media. The App itself had maintained a leader board visible to all teams but adjusted by bonus and penalty points based on photographic submissions.

Looking back at previous Rambles we had volunteers manning every checkpoint and managing the logistics of setting these up was a major exercise. In 2017 we had over 80 volunteers to run the event. This year it could be run on the day with only one! This is the power of technology and the functionality in a new App.

Almost $7,000 in prizes were made available by our generous sponsors:

Spicer Retreats
KDV Sport
Village Road Theme Parks
Lana Noir Photography
94.1 FM Radio
ISR Training
Southport Yacht Club
HopOn Brewery Tours
Granddad Jacks Craft Distillery

We were able to balance the costs of running the event due to a generous donation from Kevin and Lindy Campbell so if you are looking for storage, please talk to Campbell’s Self Storage at Hope Island.

This year we used a registration site that provided an single easy-to-navigate registration and donation platform for participants. Raisely.com was able to handle the seamless transfer and receipting of team donations directly to the nominated charity at minimum cost.

Total proceeds for the event was $6,644, which included $1,350 in registrations. Several teams campaigned hard to maximise their pre-event bonus points:

Niopotamus $1,045 raised for Bravehearts
Good Karma $913raised for Baby Give Back
Hinterland Heroes $870 raised for The Salvos

Disappointingly the 9 recipient charities only generated one or two teams with over 80% of team registrations coming from Rotarians or their connections. With an average team donation of $300, this was an opportunity missed with Rotary running a fun event for their network to support.

ANDRE'A AND HER BEST DRESSED TEAM FROM AAIC