Hi everyone, it is good that we now have some freedom to be out and about to be able to meet up with our friends and family. As a result, we have our busy time of year to contend with between now and Christmas. The Annual Celebration Dinner of Friday last week, the upcoming Bunnings Community event night this Thursday night, the Tree of Joy and the Christmas Carols evening. These will keep us all well occupied.

 

Let us all hope to be able to enjoy a merry ‘face to face’ Christmas with our loved ones.

 

As I mentioned in the last bulletin we have some Board positions for the Rotary year 2022-2023 that need to be filled at our AGM this Friday 10 December commencing 7.30am. These are President Elect, Secretary, Treasurer Directors and Avenues of Service Chairs for more information see here. Please give some serious thought to these, so our Club can continue to move forward as the loved and generous working force that we are in our community.

 

Our Annual Celebration dinner for 2020-21was on Friday evening last week, 3 December 2021, at Basil’s Seafood Restaurant. This was a fun night with around 60 people attending and it was great to meet up with our friends and supporters from our local area, in a relaxed and casual place.

 

Our congratulations go to our latest Paul Harris Award recipients, Mandy Van and Sandeep Rathi. Well done to the both of you in recognition of all the hard and continuous work you do for our Club. The Community Service Award to Phillip Ward OAM (One Tonner) and the Vocational Encouragement Award to  Paul Zammit were also greatly appreciated by the recipients and their friends.

 

The raffle on the night was a resounding success with about $890 raised with the prizes drawn by Assistant Governor Julie Thorp and Bernie. Thank you Garry Maloney for helping to  arrange this night. I very much appreciate the effort you put in to make it a successful night. Thank you to Pam Wood for all the behind the scenes help, even though you could not be there to join in the celebrations.

 

Our Christmas puddings have now been delivered. We had a very lovely man, Andre, home deliver them to our front door last Sunday morning and I am looking forward to opening and enjoying ours (with a nice brandy custard). As a result of everyone who supported us in this endeavour, we were able to raise around $3,000. I am also sure Moree East Public School and their literacy program are very thankful for the support  from the Rotary Clubs involved. Thanks for this to  our new club member Bob Selinger OAM for organising this fundraiser.

 

The Christmas community event at Gladesville Bunnings store for charitable and non-profit groups, such as our Rotary Club, will be on this Thursday evening, 9  December 2021 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. Bunnings will be supplying us with a spinning wheel and prizes, for a gold coin donation as a fund raiser for our Club. We do have some volunteers prepared to help at our stall, however some extras would be good to engage with the visitors and as a possible membership drive. We also have two Christmas puddings to win from our raffle!

 

Please all be reminded of the BBQ at Gladesville Bunnings is arranged for 15 January 2022. We need a good roll-up of volunteers to share the workload on this day and make it enjoyable for everyone involved. Put this in your diary and let Garry know of your availability for the day email: Garry.maloney@hotmail.com.

 

The Tree of Joy at Cox's Road Mall has been running for some weeks now, and is due to be closed on Saturday, 18 December. The response from the community has been very good and the donated gifts have started to be returned.Thanks for your work on this venture Community Service Chair,  Pam Wood.

 

The 21st anniversary of the Rotary Christmas Carols to be held on the 19^th December 2021, will be this year! This event has been a very good fund raiser for Macquarie Park and North Ryde Rotary Clubs. There was a progress meeting held Thursday last week, 2 December2021,  with another this Thursday, 9 December 2021,  at T.G. Milner football fields on Vimeria Road. The organization is proceeding at a great pace with the entertainers plus dancers and the providers now arranged. The great posters, flyers and banners have been produced and distributed. The banners are up in prominent positions.

 

Everyone involved is very keen for the Christmas Carols to proceed to help the local community to return to a sense of a normal life. All is progressing well for a fun evening. Please remember that Mandy, Bernie and I, are organizing the volunteers  for more info see here. We still need quite a few to help on the night with various tasks, so let us know if you can help at any time. Our volunteer numbers are to be counted in the final number of people present. This is a Covid safe event, so distancing etc needs to be strictly adhered to.

 

Our Rotary District 9685 advises nominations for District Governor for Rotary year 2024-2025 are now open. Do you have what it takes? Nominate now!

 

A reminder of some dates to note in your diaries are:

District Conference, 18/19 March 2022 (Cost $210 if paid by 31 December 2021 or $298 after this).

 

I am very grateful for all the hard work and commitment by everyone in our Club during these difficult times, thank you.