Please send Bulletin contributions to Althea Barr until further notice.
Mike's Message
Hello all,
This has been a big week for the Club. On top of all our usual projects and activities, we had the Trivia event last night. You'll get a full accounting from the organisers soon, with attendance figures and funds raised. What I can tell you is that we had a room full of people enjoying themselves for three hours. There were some fantastic silent auction items and prizes provided by generous donors. Our MC for the event, Stuart Williams, appropriately praised the donors; it's never easy to run a business, but we're currently living in particularly challenging times, so it's worth noting that there are still owners and managers who are willing to help the Club. That's why our visibility, sharing the service work we do, is so important. We want even more people to know, when they hear us say 'Rotary' or even mention our own Cub by name, who we are and what we're trying to do. I hope everybody involved in making the event a success is suitably proud of what you did.
Equally if not more importantly, we updated our Club Rules -- otherwise known as our Constitution -- and bylaws. Our incoming president, Shia Smart, has some great plans and ideas for the next year, and the changes to the board and committee structure are going to remove some of the barriers that have built up over time.
There aren't very many of these messages left for me to write, so I'm going to thank our incoming Treasurer, John Lynch, for the excellent job he's done with the Bulletin and the website, among other things, as he prepares to hand some of that work over to others.
Our Immediate Past President Rob Jackson, will be in the driver's seat for the meeting on Wednesday, ably supported by Sue Warmington as Sergeant. I'll see you in two weeks' time.
Leela (front row, second left) with members of the Rotary Club of Port Vila
In August 2025, I attended a 10-day medical camp with a team of doctors from USA, NZ and Canada in Saralana Park, Port Vila, VANUATU.
We managed to see 1000 patients over 10 days. Communication was easy as the people speak English. I had tremendous support and encouragement from the ROTARY CLUB of Port Vila. I attended their luncheon meeting. They took care of local transport and accommodation for me. I was introduced to a doctor who was a Port Vila Rotarian and that helped immensely to have the patients whom we saw, have their follow up at the Vanuatu base hospital.
Additionally, I conducted educational health talks for the women. Kawa is their national beverage and is the root cause of many aches and pains we found in the youngsters. With the support of the Health Minister of Vanuatu, we organised “Kawa workshops” and also had the privilege of having the scripts issued by us honoured by the local pharmacies.
The Australian Volunteers Program assisted us with services of nurses, dentists, chefs, physiotherapists and drivers. The nurses from the local military hospital also helped out with instruments and diagnostic kits and doing pre-clinical assessment.
It was indeed gratifying and a great learning to be a part of a MULTIDISCIPLINARY, MULTICULTURAL team even though we went through experience of earthquake tremors, tsunami warning sirens and sleeping under mosquito nets as a prophylaxis from contracting malaria.
The Dementia Cafe was well attended once again and kind contributions from Judy - transported by Bob, me and Shia were well received. Not only do the guests enjoy social time and delicious food they participate in activities especially formulated to promote cognitive function.
Next cafe is Wednesday 10th June and Shia will be away for all of June so drop off will be from my house - 12 The Avenue, Blackburn. Since Shia will be away, we will also be down a volunteer, so help will be greatly appreciated.
Please add your volunteer commitments to the Sign-Up List.
We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the following donors for the Trivia Night. We truly appreciate you supporting the work of Rotary. We realise times are tough and that giving product and services away is a sacrifice. Please support these businesses. Thank you.
Blackburn Lake Sanctuary
