Our Last Meeting
Venue: Damien on Fisher
Guest Speaker: Grant Lock
Chairman: Trevor McGuirk
Visiting Rotarians: John Holds (Whyalla)
Guests: Sonya Anwar, Sorel Coward, Graham Ellender, Maria Galatsanos, Gerry Ganser,Thomas Scheuba
Apologies: Rhonda Hoare, Vera Holt, David Middleton, Mavis Martin, Bob Mills, David Payne, Marlene Small, Pam Trimmer
Attendance: 18 Members 8 Guests
President Heather's Announcements
1. Rhonda Hoare was admitted to hospital, is back home again but unlikely to be able to attend our meetings for some weeks.
2. Reno last week received his Paul Harris Fellow sapphire pin for his generous donation to RI.
3. Sonya Anwar has been invited to provide an update on our exchange student TJ.
4. Next week the President will be away.
Sonya Anwar reported that her daughter TJ who left for France on 21 January this year and who is due to return on 15 January next year had become homesick. After a number of 'ups and downs' including loss of passport, TJ was now enjoying life again. Her European tour was great. And her French is excellent.
Guest Speaker: Grant Lock - Life as a missionary in Afghanistan
Chairman Trevor McGuirk introduced Grant who spent many years as a missionary in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Grant was formerly responsible for one of the largest eye care projects in the region. Grant now suffers from central vision eye failure which is commonly known as juvenile macular degeneration. He counts himself fortunate that it was first diagnosed when he was 55............most others with this condition are afflicted by the age of 20.
The Lock family hails from Kimba where Grant and his brother were involved in broad acre farming and cattle stud breeding (award winning Kimbolton). He married Jan who persuaded him that there was more to life than spending his days on a tractor. With the aid of a power point presentation he displayed conditions experienced during their overseas missions.
In 1984 with their 3 children in tow they headed to south east Pakistan as part of a Church Missionary Society mission to run a family health and eye program. In this area of abject poverty there was limited water and no sanitary system. After 5 years he and Jan moved close to the Afghanistan border (a hot bed of activity) to run an education and hospital project where they spent a further 10 years. A school for girls was rebuilt during this time but again forced to close by the militants. They were then posted to Islamabad to run an English speaking program. During the 20 years in Pakistan under the most difficult of conditions (and where some missionaries lost their lives) Jan spent much of her time helping women. He was unable to renew his visa due to deteriorating eyesight.
Their next stop was Kabul in Afghanistan where the program provided a range of services including eye care, health and small business training and involved 150 expats and 500 locals. The Taliban were vicious and often conducted public executions and hand lopping. The circumstances were made more difficult by his failing eye sight. Grant told the story of Mina whose husband had left and who was being forced to sell off one of her daughters to pay rent. With the help of Jan she developed embroidery skills, saved her daughter and managed to become part of a UNHCR refugee program to Australia...... and now lives in Melbourne.
His 3 children are spread around the world and to date have produced 7 grandsons.
Grant brought with him books he had written (with Shoot Me First a steal at $25), CDs and embroidered materials. A highlight of the presentation was the conversation between he and Sonya in Urdu. A truly remarkable life!
Grant was thanked by acclamation
Spots....another measles outbreak
Wendy Andrews introduced Gerry Ellender from the Rosefield Community Shed (previously a Men's Shed) which operates from the Julia Farr premises. Gerry expressed his appreciation for the $1000 donated by our club to the Shed to buy computer equipment. The shed caters for a number of disabled people. One serious issue is longer term tenure. Photo of Gerry and Grant together.
Trevor McGuirk, operating his own Ubet system, announced the winners of the Melbourne Cup sweep constructed by he and Dennis Liddle. The winners were:
1st Rekindling with the winner of the $1 sweep being Dennis Liddle and $2 sweep Alex Jonson
2nd Johannes Vermeer $1 sweep Stephen Bone $2 sweep Vivienne Liddle
3rd Max Dynamite $1 sweep Vera Holt $2 sweep Trevor
mmmmmmm
Trevor is also seeking expressions of interest to accompany him to Peru in April for the villages project.
Jerry Casburn only had two announcements this week:
- In the South Australian Mainstreet community awards, Unley Road Association and Unley Rotary were runners-up
- Christmas cakes and puddings can be obtained from Seaford Rotary.....check out JC's email.
Patsy Beckett announced that the proceeds of the car trial were being donated to RAM (Rotarians Against Malaria) to buy mosquito nets.
Stephen Baker to hold a Vocational Committee meeting after this.
John Holds spoke in glowing terms of the humanitarian contributions of the Lock family and of the good deeds of visitor Gerry.
The Finale
Sorel Coward won the appalling squares..........that must be almost record time. Best two stories of the night were from Wendy who attended a Melbourne Cup event where the convenor drew the horses from the wrong race and from Jerry who reported that Briony had plowed through an innocent bystander who then provided Briony with a winning race tip........wow!
The meeting closed late. at 8.01pm
Rotary News
Rotary and the Gates Foundation host fifth annual World Polio Day to highlight progress in the fight to eradicate the disease By Ryan Hyland
Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the Gates Foundation’s chief executive officer, praised Rotary members for their dedication to eradicating polio. At the Rotary Convention earlier this year, the Gates Foundation and Rotary renewed their long-standing support for ending polio: Rotary committed to raising $50 million per year over the next three years, with every dollar to be matched by two dollars from the Gates Foundation. The agreement will yield to up to $450 million for eradication efforts.
Rotary has spent more than $1.7 billion on polio eradication since 1985. Earlier this month, Rotary gave $49.5 million in grants to support immunizations and surveillance activities led by the GPEI.
Rotary Vice President Dean Rohrs took the stage to highlight some Rotary members who are raising funds for polio eradication in creative ways. One example was the Rotary Club of Viljoenskroon, South Africa, which is putting End Polio Now piggy banks in local businesses. Members of the Rotaract Club of Curitiba Oeste, Paraná, Brazil, put on a rock concert and donated all ticket sales to End Polio Now.
Rohrs said that Rotarians are holding more than 2,700 events like these worldwide for World Polio Day.
"History is a tricky thing, and for many reasons, we latch onto the same narratives, the same household names over and over again,” Rohrs said. “However, beneath the surface lies complexity, and the unsung heroes — and the heroes that I know best are my fellow Rotary members.”
She added that members "bridge different cultures to reach every community. We persuade parents that two drops of vaccine are critical to each child’s health. We participate in national immunization days on a huge scale, like in Pakistan where we have protected more than 40 million children under the age of 5. And we also spread awareness and raise funds for the cause."
Dan Kopf, economics reporter for the news website Quartz, talked about the economic impact that eradicating polio could have. He noted that it’s much less expensive to prevent diseases than it is to treat them.
Immunizations are estimated to save low- and middle-income countries $20 billion each year, he said.
According to Kopf, the benefits of polio eradication spending will outweigh the costs by nearly $50 billion between 1985 and 2035. And in that time, 8 million lives will have been saved.
In a question-and-answer session, Jeffery Kluger, science editor at Time magazine, and Jay Wenger, an epidemiologist and director of the Gates Foundation’s polio eradication efforts, talked about the latest developments in the polio eradication fight. Wenger noted that strong surveillance and mass vaccination campaigns "have gotten us to a place where we've seen fewer areas of circulation of the virus than ever before."
"The bottom line here is we have to reach every kid with the vaccine. That's our target," Wenger said.
Polio partners have agreed that they won't say the world is polio-free until traces of the virus are no longer detected in the environment, even if cases of polio-related paralysis disappear before then. The event included a showing of the trailer for “Breathe,” a feature film that tells the story of British polio survivor Robin Cavendish, who contracted the disease in Kenya in 1958. Paralyzed from the neck down, Cavendish and his wife, Diana, spent the rest of his life advocating for people with disabilities.
The film’s stars, Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, and its director, Andy Serkis, encouraged the audience by video to keep up the fight to end the disease. Other celebrities who participated in the event included WWE Superstar John Cena, Nigerian pop star Tiwa Savage, and Paralympian and polio survivor Ade Adepitan.
In his video address to the audience, Adepitan said the day the world is declared polio-free could be “the greatest day of the human race so far.”
Entertainment included a video that featured celebrity adventurer Bear Grylls, who explained the cold chain needed for polio vaccinations. The audience also watched a video that showed how surveillance is playing a crucial role in finding where poliovirus is circulating. The event closed with a video of Rotary members saying what polio eradication means to them.
Claudete Sulzbacher, a member of the Rotary Club of Santa Cruz do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, who has organized more than 1,600 fundraising events, said “We don’t have barriers, we don’t have borders, we can promote peace, and we can change the lives of so many people.”
Upcoming Events
Days for Girls The last sewing session for 2017 will be held Thursday 9 November from 1.30pm - 4.30pm at our meeting room in the Living Choice Complex
Our Club's Christmas Celebration 28 November
Carols at the Rotunda Sunday 17 December
Group 6 Breakfast Wednesday 20 December
Our Upcoming Meetings
14 November 2017 at Damien on Fisher at 6 for 6.30pm
Annie Rogers - Flotilla for Kids
