Wednesday Jan 19, 2011
Our Club Website Address is http://www.clubrunner.ca/albertpark

Please Note that this weeks meeting will be taking place at the -

Fleece Hotel ,
120 Montague Street (off City Road, cnr Buckhurst St)
Port Melbourne  
6 pm for 6-30 pm.
Cost $25.00
Drinks at Bar Prices 

Welcome to Opportunity International Australia. 
We exist to provide opportunities for people living in poverty to transform their lives. With over 35 years' experience in microfinance and support services, we use a business approach to solve poverty. Rather than a hand-out, we provide our clients with a loan as small as $100 (known as microcredit or a micro loan) to help grow their small business.This enables them to earn an income and afford food, water, shelter and an education for their children .

Your help DOES make a difference!

http://www.opportunity.org.au/

Please Note:

There will be no Meeting Wednesday 26th January

"Australia Day"

Rotary Club of Albert Park Charity Golf Day Supporting Windermere & Polio Plus Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Kooringal Golf Club, Wilga Avenue Altona An Invitation Is Extended To Individuals Or Groups To Compete In an Ambrose Golf Competition Cost - $100 Per Player  Incl. - BBQ Lunch, 18 Holes, 2 Course Dinner & Prizes  Time 11.30 am for a 12.30 pm tee off RSVP Ian Henry (w) 9521 0303 ianhenry@financialservices.net.au Click HERE to download flyer with detailed information re Key Sponsorship, Tee Sponsorship and Individual

Please find details of accomondation request below -
My name is Morgan Wiggers and I am from Jackson, Mississippi here in the United States. I have received a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to study abroad and plan on spending my time in Brisbane. However, I plan on coming down to Melbourne the week of the Australian Open (22-31 January) so that I can see Melbourne and see some great tennis! As of right now, I do not know anyone there or have a place to stay. Would you have any recommendations for me on housing. It also might be neat to come to a Rotary Club meeting in Melbourne. Anyway, just wanted to try you and see if you could help me out.
thanks, Morgan Wiggers  jmwigger@gmail.com

Rotary District 9800 Australian Flood Disaster Appeal

Rotarians in District 9800 from Melbourne and Country Victoria, along with fellow Rotarians all around Australia, have been shocked by the devastation of the floods occurring presently in significant parts of Queensland, as well as NSW, WA, the NT and now it would seem here in Victoria. Our thoughts are with all those affected and with those Australians doing an outstanding job of recovery and assistance at this time of emergency.

As the tragic consequences of the floods emerge, instinctively many Rotarians in District 9800 will want to offer help to those affected, just as soon as we possibly can. 

The District Board met this week to discuss, plan and initiate a coordinated response from our District, with ongoing coordination to be handled by an investigative Disaster Relief Committee.  The Committee, to be chaired by Past District Governor John Wigley, has been set up with the purpose of raising funds for the District 9800 Australian Floods Disaster and distributing those funds to Rotary Clubs, Districts and projects, as quickly as possible.

Ably supporting PDG John on the Disaster Relief Committee will be District Director of Community Service, Ross Butterworth and District Governor Elect Keith Ryall (who will be deputised by District Governor Nominee Dennis Shore for the coming 2 weeks while Keith is away).

Drawing upon our on-the-ground experience gained during the Victorian Bushfires, it is important for us to be reminded that we are not a first-line response agency - we can't fix the problem, but we are well placed to support the recovering community and provide required assistance when the time comes for us to play our hands-on role. This Rotary does best. It helps build communities into the future and restores community spirit and goodwill.

In the interim, the Disaster Relief Committee has established 2 Funds to direct financial support to Rotary projects and charities facilitating recovery from the floods:

Option A: Rotary District 9800 Australian Flood Disaster Appeal
(Direct Distribution Fund, Non-Tax Deductible Donations)

• This fund is the preferred option (please use this fund unless you require a tax deductible receipt)
• Non-tax deductible
• Rotary has full control over the distribution of the funds to projects

Please make donations through your bank or forward your cheque payable to:

Account Name: Rotary International District 9800 Inc. Australian Flood Disaster Appeal
Account BSB: 033181 (Westpac)
Account Number: 377982        
Bank Address:360 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3000
Swift Code: WPACAU2SMEL

Option B:     Lord Mayor's Charitable Fund Rotary District 9800 Flood Appeal
(LMCF Directed, Tax Deductible Donations)

• Fund in partnership with the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation and Rotary which will provide funds as determined by District 9800 to charities registered as Deductible Gift Recipients with the ATO.
• Tax Deductible - a receipt will be issued for all donations.

Please make donations through your bank or forward your cheque payable to:

Account Name: Lord Mayor's Charitable Fund Rotary D9800 Flood Appeal
Account BSB: 083 004 (NAB)
Account Number: 589 440 307        
Bank Address:330 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3000
Swift Code: NATAAU3303M

As the Disaster Relief Committee identifies more opportunities for District 9800 to become involved in lending a hand to the affected regions, we will communicate the opportunities in special email bulletins to Club Presidents and regularly in Networker. Please ensure this information is relayed in your own club bulletins. It is important that our Rotarians are fully informed.

Both the Committee and the District Board will be working in close liaison with Districts in the flooded areas to ascertain how we can assist them in their flood recovery projects. I ask that you lend your support wherever possible to the Committee and if you have suggestions on how we might be able to help, please contact Committee Chair PDG John Wigley via email jawigley@bigpond.com - if we are able to carefully coordinate our responses as a District, we are likely to be much more effective in offering the best help to those in need.

Due to the logistics involved, the D9800 Flood Disaster Relief Committee is not in a position to assist in areas of Donations In Kind, the transport of donated goods or the organisation of volunteers. For interest in Donations in Kind please contact our Donations in Kind Store and the Store Manager Laurie Fisher at laurencefisher@optusnet.com.au.

Should you have an interest in Volunteerism, direct contact with an affected District or Club would be the best approach. Our Committee Chair PDG John Wigley may be able to assist in supplying contact details.

There will soon be online links / graphics provided on the District 9800 Website which can be used in your own websites and emails to direct donations to our relief funds. Meanwhile, please encourage your members and supporters to direct their support via the Relief Funds. If you are making a donation, please let us know at jawigley@bigpond.com or butterworth@smartchat.net.au and leave your contact details so that we can update you on progress as a result of your kind donation.

Thank you for all the concern and interest you have shown for our fellow Rotary Districts and Australians in their time of need.

In Building Communities Bridging Continents,
DG Iven

District 9800 and District 5840

Club Partnership

The Rotary Club of Albert Park
as been paired with
The Rotary Club of Beorne Noon
What Happening At the Rotary Club of Beorne Noon this week.

Click on there web page and find out  http://www.boernerotary.org/

To find out what this partnership program is about click the following -http://www.rotarydistrict9800.org.au/community_partners_taxan_connection

Do you want to keep up to date with the latest information. We have a direct link to Networker set up on our home web page which goes directly to the latest issue.

Interested in keeping up with the latest news from Rotary Down Under we have a direct link on our home web page which goes directly to the latest edition.

Rotary D9800 and Harness Racing Victoria present

Flood Disaster Appeal Night

Thursday February 3 2011

Tab Corp Park

 Click HERE to download flyer 1. 

Click HERE  to download flyer 2.

Rotary Club of Albert Park Aids Eritrean Container -   Article in Age Newspaper - Friday 31 December. 2010

This is the group of Eritrean's that we are helping send the containers to Sudan. The Rotary Club of Flemington is now involved in this venture to assist with the expenses. The goods for the containers are stored at the Rotary DIK.

Refugees reach out from afar to aid their homeland

Farah Farouque
December 31, 2010

THEY met in a refugee school in Sudan, having been forced to leave their families and familiar things in their Eritrean homeland. Now more than two decades later, having forged new lives in Australia, Anwar Aalishek and Berhan Jaber are returning to Africa to help children stranded like they once were.

The friends, in an alliance with schools and Rotary groups, have been collecting books, schoolbags, stationery and soccer balls all year. Their bounty, which fills two containers and is awaiting shipment at the docks, will help equip four struggling refugee schools in eastern Sudan.

This aid mission, under the umbrella of the newly formed Eritrean Australian Humanitarian Aid group, has a personal dimension for the two men who initiated it.

They were resettled in Melbourne in the early 1990s but have never forgotten the hardship they faced as refugees during Eritrea's war of independence with Ethiopia.

Such were the vicissitudes of life back then, that Mr Aalishek recalls that ''one day a bomb came into the house''. His parents, who were inside the house, escaped but part of their home was destroyed. They eventually felt compelled to send him, with his older brother, to eastern Sudan for safety.

Mr Jaber's parents came to a similar decision. His grandmother took him over the border and left him in the care of relatives. He was 10. ''As a young kid, there was open war on my streets,'' he recalls.

They were each stranded in Sudan for years, until the opportunity to come to Australia afforded them a stable life that was elusive in both Eritrea and Sudan.

Although precise recollection of dates is not part of his broader cultural experience, one date is impressed in Mr Jaber's mind - October 16, 1991. It was the day he arrived in Melbourne.

''I remember the date because it's the first one from the new pages that open in my life,'' says this ebullient man, who co-ordinates the Eritrean community radio program on 3CR and works for Jesuit Social Services.

Mr Aalishek, a tradesman who does voluntary work mentoring Eritrean-Australian youth, is equally passionate. Australia, he says, has been welcoming to him. He runs his own handyman business, is a father and has acquired a mortgage. He is not a rich man, but sends money back to support family in Eritrea.

Both men, now in their early 40s, are active in local Eritrean affairs. ''The community here actually needs a lot of help,'' Mr Aalishek says.

But geopolitics also looms in their minds. The promise of an independent Eritrea, Africa's newest nation, has turned sour for its people. A recent International Crisis Group report describes conditions there under a militarised regime as ''a siege state, whose government is suspicious of its own population''.

Although an uneasy peace now prevails, in recent years Eritrea has engaged in conflict with several neighbours. The one-party state's policy of indefinite military conscription, droughts and poor economic conditions have created an exodus of refugees. About 1800 people cross into Sudan monthly, with more heading to Ethiopia.

The struggles of the new wave of refugees are something neither Mr Aalishek or Mr Jaber can put aside. ''All of us have had this hardship experience,'' Mr Jaber says.

When they considered what practical first steps they could take, they kept returning to the idea of helping schools educating Eritrean students who had fled to Sudan. It was an evocation of their own early struggles.

To this end, Mr Aalishek left on Boxing Day for a two-month personally funded trip. He plans to rebuild and patch up some of the facilities in four schools. Once the cargo of equipment is safely shipped, Mr Jaber will follow.

''This is something we have to do,'' he says.

Want community Meals Instructions. Please login, go to My ClubRunner Box, Click on View Club Documents, then click on Community Meals Instructions. 

Please Note that each server is responsible to ensure that any changes are advised to Paul on 0417 567 747 or email paul@flakus.com.au 

Roster    

That's all for this week,  please send through any items you may have for publishing.

Club Presidents