Member change of details
Harrie Farnaby’s mobile number is now 04568 33328.
New Club shirts
Gary is poised to place an order so if you want to look your best and look at the others you look their best you had best get your size to Gary and pay direct into the Club’s account as per Gary’s earlier emails.
Samaritan House
Peter Cook reported that the recent working bee was a great start and work will continue. More details to follow of further working bees.
Zooming Around Rotary – the District and the world
We are in a time when we have more opportunities than ever before to participate in and learn of the world-wide work of Rotary. Warren Norton, for instance, recently took part in a Rotary Peace Fellows Association with other Rotarians across the globe.
Shahnaz Rind, our very own 2020 Indigenous Health Scholar
Club Secretary Jenny reported that as the result of our Club contributing $2,500 to the Indigenous Scholarship program of Australian Rotary Health this year, Ms Shahnaz Rind has been named as our very own Indigenous Health Scholar. Our financial contribution has been matched by the Federal Government which means Shahnaz will receive $5,000 to support her Optometry studies at Deakin University in 2020.
Shahnaz is a remarkable young woman who already has a Nursing degree from Deakin University, supported by an Indigenous Health scholarship. She enjoyed placements at University Hospital Geelong, Mackellar Centre and St Vincent’s Hospital, and discovered her favourite areas of nursing are mental health and cardiology.
After graduating in 2018 Shahnaz worked for an Indigenous Community Nursing organisation in Fitzroy and more recently as a mentor in an Aboriginal Mentoring program with the Youth Affairs Council.
Shahnaz was encouraged to apply for the Optometry course at Deakin University as there is a critical need for Indigenous optometrists. She found that older Indigenous Australians are three times more likely to suffer from vison impairment or blindness than older non-Indigenous Australians. We wish her well in her studies and her dream of becoming an optometrist. Australian Rotary Health will continue to support Shahnaz throughout the four years of her course.
Shahnaz has kindly agreed to be a guest speaker at one of our meeting and so we can look forward to hearing about her passionate commitment to helping her community and the role the Indigenous Health Scholarship program has played.
A letter to my Rotary friends
I know many of you have been concerned recently about my mental health so I thought I would pen a few lines to let you know the current situation and put your minds at rest.
It is true that for the last 6 or 7 months I have been walking around the house talking to myself. It is an affliction which came on suddenly and I have made an appointment with the psychiatrist in November (date to be confirmed due to Covid 19)
A dear friend of mine, Leticia-Maria and her mother Maria del Carmen Chihuahua who visit me regularly have noticed a difference in me and it has been decided she (Teesha) should stay with me permanently to help me through these difficult, but we hope only temporary, times. I am grateful as they have often arrived when I have been in the middle of an erudite and complicated discussion between me and myself on recent developments in quantum physics and they have interrupted my train of thought.
My young friend is, as I hoped, good company and an ever cheerful presence around the house. Although not very domesticated she loves helping me in the garden. She digs holes for me and waters and sometimes even fertilises them for me, after she has taken out the existing plants.
She is not fond of cooking but will relish any of my delectable dishes I prepare for us; haute cuisine is still one of my favourite pastimes... We make forays into the surrounding countryside each day and especially enjoy a long walk along the seafront, usually terminating with a visit to one of the hostelries for un verre de vin rouge and a nice, cold bowl of water.
I look forward to introducing her to you soon; thank you again for your concern for me.'
As they say, if all else fails read the instructions. Having written to you all I checked Teesha's birth certificate and I find she is actually a Pomeranian. But never let the truth interfere with a good story... So instead of being a lady who lunches with her lapdog I shall simply be
The POHM with the Pom...