If you've driven along EastLink as often as I have, no doubt un - Christian thoughts have crossed your mind about trucks being in the outside lane [ignoring the signs]. Or motor cyclists, and cars that have seen better days or not, traveling at speeds that would curl your hair, if you still have any. Or tailgating. More often than not The Good Wife is on board, and a grandchild or two; my being the 'Treasurer' as one does for one's heirs. My Uncle, a Rotarian too, lives at Donvale and travels that freeway only when he has to.
Now, as you know [and if you do not, I'm going to warn you] I drive a Volvo XC70 and The Good Wife Evelyn a Volvo S80. Both are AWD. They will out - steer and out - brake most other vehicles, wet or dry, and [contrary to myth] go like the clappers. Volvos are also built to 'last'.The 'game' is to not have to utilize said features.
Not too long ago I undertook a Murcott's defensive driving course at Sandown. It came with my new car. Much of it is theory, as it should be. Knowing where to look 'before you need to'. That the most dangerous time at an intersection is the FOUR seconds before the lights change. I only got the 'basic' course......
The murdered Police Officers knew all these skills, and more. Yet it did not save them in time, because honest help arrived too late. We of Rotary say Service above Self, but we have all of us come safe home after work.
As Rotarians we are expected to assist our communities through a variety of opportunities, including supporting the community VicPol projects with the under - privileged. Now of all times we must not resile from our role of support.To do so is to ignore these greater Community sacrifices.
The ANZACS did not, neither our First Responders.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
William Shakespeare. Hamlet Henry V
ANZAC DAY Mt Eliza 2020
Wreath from our Club
Wreath from Shire of Mornington
Sincerely,
Ross
Da Prez
District Governor Elect Mark Humphries
As he prepares to become Governor 0f Rotary District 9820, Mark is extremely busy, especially in these difficult times of COVID-19.
In this regard, the Editor has suggested to Mark that he take a break from his RCME Bulletin column for several weeks.
We thank Mark and congratulate him on all of his efforts, especially in promoting the use of Zoom technology across District 9820 (Ed.)
This quiz question from President Ross appeared in the last Bulletin. No-one has yet provided the answer and won the wine prize offered by Ross. Can you work it out?
A person enters the gold soukh in Dubai. He is offered a stack of ten gold ingots at a bargain price. He is asked to select one stack from ten outwardly identical stacks. Stack 1, Stack 2, and so on.
The individual ingots in each stack of ten are reputed to weigh precisely 100 grams.
He secretly knows that one of these stacks of ten ingots is in fact comprised entirely of fake gold. These artificial gold ingots each weigh 98 grams.
The merchant says, in an attempt to beguile the buyer: ‘Why not weigh it? You choose which gold, but only weigh your choice once. I have a certified weighing scale. Its capacity is precisely 6 kg.
So the man has but one attempt to avoid taking the fake stack. He is otherwise not allowed to handle the product. Accepting the risk, he is successful.
The question is: How did he, in one attempt, determine which was the fake stack of ingots?
The Prize is a bottle of wine, compliments of Da Prez. First correct answer to the Editor wins.
Following two weeks where we have had a guest speaker at our weekly ZOOM meeting it is clear that we can now proceed almost as business as usual while we face COVID-19 restrictions.
As District Governor elect Mark said in his column in last week's Bulletin, our guest speaker at next week's meeting on 5 May is the Rotary International Zone 8 Director elect Jessie Harman.
Rotarian Linda Morris will chair next week's meeting.
All members, friends and partners are urged to make every effort to attend.
Our guest speaker at this week's meeting was Evelyn Sayers on the topic of Principles of Principals.
Evelyn has enjoyed a long career as an educator. She trained as a primary school teacher in the days when teachers were 'bonded' and if they didn't serve out their three year bond, women had to repay all monies especially when resigning to marry or have a baby.
Evelyn took on further study to gain a Bachelor of Education and a Graduate Diploma of Health Education. She wrote the Health curriculum for the State of Victoria [having taken leave to do so - no 'charity' in those days].
On two separate occasions Evelyn studied the Reggio Emilia philosophy in Italy. The educational rationale underpinning this philosophy is that children learn best through an opened experiential approach with emphasis on environmental interactions with other children and in which they have some direct control.
Evelyn spoke of her earlier career in the government school system, followed by 15 years teaching at Peninsula Grammar.
Later she was the Foundation Principal of two Independent Schools contemporaneously, at Casey and Balcombe Grammar Schools.
In preparation for Evelyn's talk, the Editor found that in 2001 she was awarded a Centenary Medal for her Services to Education and Children.
Evelyn is currently an Ambassador for Independent Schools Victoria (ISV) where she attends to the mentoring of new principals and related services.
ISV represents 223 independent schools in Victoria with some 13,000 plus teacher staff and over 145,000 students. Many of these schools have a religious affiliation with over 30 different religious groupings have faith based schools under their control.
Evelyn spoke about the very many challenges facing principals, especially younger persons newly appointed to the role. Principals have a multitude of challenges, including developing a vision for the school, determining the strategic direction of the institution, ensuring a structured curriculum, promoting a positive culture, oversight of the students' development, promoting teacher excellence, conducting teacher assessments and interacting with parents together with a plethora of personnel, administrative, budgetary and maintenance tasks.
Each year Evelyn organises four residential programs for principals and she assists individual principals on an 'as required' basis. She also works with Deloitte Consulting to provide a Courageous Leadership Program for Principals.
A principal must be a positive, courageous, dynamic person with outstanding listening skills who can engage with and develop strong relationships with students, teachers, parents and other stakeholders.
Evelyn addressed the questions as to what makes a good school and what makes a good teacher.
Evelyn's talk was extremely informative and interesting and she demonstrated how an excellent speaker can hold an audience even when people are not in the same room.
A series of questions from members of the Club was evidence as to how well Evelyn had been able to explain her topic and entertain everyone.
President Ross thanked Evelyn in person by walking into the next room and presenting her with a facsimile glass from the Rotary club of Mt Eliza.
A member of President elect Sue's team welcomed his new daughter, Chloe, into the world on Thursday 23 April.
The delighted parents sent Sue the following picture showing Chloe bundled up in a bed at Frankston Hospital. You will notice that the bed was donated by the Rotary Club of Mt Eliza.
Our three minute speaker this week was Rowan Miller who spoke on the topic of Muloorina Station in South Australia, visited by Margaret & Rowan during their flying holiday in August last year.
The text of Rowan's talk follows:
As most of you are aware.. I am a private Pilot who in later life gained my Pilots licence and overcame one of my greatest fears, that of flying!! Since then I have conducted a number of Angel flights and have also done some amazing trips or journeys around Australia.
It is interesting that through history some of our most noted or famous events that we all know about may have happened at places where we have never even heard about or noted in our minds even to this day.
Last year I was lucky enough to fly into Muloorina station ....where's that most of you will ask ?
Muloorina station is located to the south of Lake Eyre .. .and lets say 100 miles (or 160km) east of William Creek and 30 miles (50 km) north of Maree in South Australia
We were there last year, and there was an abundance of water in lake Eyre along with the amazing amount of wild life!~
We arranged to stay with Cindy Mitchell, the station owner, in the shearers accommodation which was more than satisfactory and we dined with the staff, workers & station owners.
Muloorina has been owned by the Mitchell family since 1936 and they are related to the the Price family who have had it since the 1880s.
What about Muloorina? The property is 1 million acres, and is licensed to carry 10000 sheep and 3000 cattle.. but one wonders how, as there is a limited amount of Spinifex and a Coolibah tree or two and thus appears there is nothing for the stock to live on.
It has a hot, natural thermal bore and one can relax in hot natural springs of mineral water, which is most refreshing... without paying an exorbitant price.. or even a cent!
This bore flows into the Frome Creek and then into the Muloorlina water hole, which is a kilometre west of the homestead & teems with a abundant bird life, along with a camping ground for visitors.
Recently accommodation for outsiders has been limited or nonexistent as they are building a pipeline from Muloorina to Olympic Dam (Roxby Downs) to supply water there for the mining. The crews have been taking all available accommodation, however we were lucky enough to sneak in.
Why do I say places we have never heard of are so important in history?
Most of you, being of my era will have heard of Donald Campbell!!
In 1963 he took his prized Bluebird Proteus CN7 gas turbine powered car and stationed himself along with a a crew and entourage of nearly 500 people, engineers, technicians, police, army personnel, along with reporters and others at Muloorina as their headquarters, with the Price / Mitchell family who aided and helped for the failed attempt on the land speed record on Lake Eyre.
Unprecedented torrential rains were seen at Lake Eyre for the first time in a number of years, forcing the 1963 attempt to be cancelled.
The car and all equipment were just left in the woolshed at Muloorina till the following year.
Only a small few of the team returned and on 17 July 1964 Campbell broke the land speed record with a speed of 403.10mph (648.73kph). Not even the Cessna will do that in a out of control dive.
The record stood for over 19 years and Sir Donald Campbell is still the only person in history who has held both the land speed record and the water speed record.
Now before tonight, most of you would have known about Donald Campbell, but I doubt if any of you would have been able to tell me about Muloorina station.
Thus, as I see it, often in history famous events will highlight little known places or even little known people, but we will not remember them!
Lake Eyre with water August 2019
Waterhole at Frome Creek Camp Grounds
Swimming in the Frome Creek Waterhole
Rowan & Margaret's Plane with the family home in the background
In the 1990s an Australian billionaire (whose initials may have been KFBP) was playing gold at Victoria Golf Club with several senior executives from Channel Nine.
After missing a short put on the eighteenth green, the billionaire clutched at his chest, fell over from a massive heart attack and died.
His fellow golfers panicked and started screaming out.
The Club Captain arrived to see with the commotion was about.
He quickly grabbed a defibrillator and administered several thousand volts.
The tycoon stirred. Opening his eyes he said, "You saved my life. What can I do for you?"
"Well sir", the Captain replied, "I'm just happy to have been on the spot to be able to save you."
"No", came the reply. "I insist! I must buy you something!"
"In that case" the Captain said, "I would like a couple of golf clubs."
So, the billionaire went out and bought him Royal Melbourne and Yarra Yarra.
A couple slipped into the movies just after all of the advertising and future promotions, just as the main feature was about to begin.
They were annoyed to find that a couple of rows in front of them there was someone moaning and groaning.
They called an usher to complain.
The usher went up to the fellow and tried talking to him.
The moaning and groaning became louder however there was no other reply.
"Do you need help? Would you like to me call a doctor?" The usher asked.
The groaning and moaning became even louder and the usher said, "Where are you from?"
"The balcony", came the agonised reply.
A chap went to see a psychiatrist.
"I have a real problem, Doc", he said. "When I go to bed at night I can't sleep because I have this feeling that there's somebody under the bed. So I get out of bed to check and there's nobody there. However, while I am peering under the bed, I have this strange feeling that someone's on the top of the bed. That goes on all night. On the bed. Underneath, On the bed. I think that I am having a breakdown it is causing me to be so worried."
"Well", the doctor replied, "phobias like this are not totally unusual. I believe that with a number of sessions I can cure you. See my receptionist on the way out and book for the next two months".
The fellow went out saw the receptionist and paid the bill which was for $200.
The bloke never returned to the psychiatrist.
However a year later the doctor saw him in the street.
"What didn't you come back?" he inquired.
"At $200 a pop!" came the reply. "Not when the carpenter next door cured me for $5."
The doctor asked, "How did he do that?"
"He told me to saw the legs off my bed!"
A pompous bureaucrat from the Queensland Department of Agriculture was addressing a meeting of farmers just out of Longreach on the subject of animal pest control.
"Due to new environment regulations, it is no longer permissible to kill dingoes", he said.
He then went on to say, "It is permissible to legally trap, castrate and release male dingoes."
An exasperated cattle farmer jumped to his feet and said, "Will somebody tell this drongo that the dingoes are eating my calves, not having sex with them."
We have now been self-isolating for five weeks and this seems like a very long time.
Spare a thought for the citizens of the city of Candia, which is modern day Heraklion, on the island of Crete.
The siege of Candia lasted over twenty-one years from 1648 until 1669.
Candia was an outpost of the Venetian empire with Venice having ruled the land since the Fourth Crusade (1202-04).
The Ottoman-Venetian Wars started in 1645 and lasted some 25 years. The key strategic position of Candia made it important in the battle for supremacy of the Mediterranean.
In 1644 the Ottomans landed on Crete and quickly gained control of all of the island except for Candia.
Over the long period of this siege countless lives were lost by both the Ottomans and the Venetians as numerous and expensive the battles for Candia occurred.
During the final battle for Candia, over 70,000 Ottoman soldiers perished. An additional 38,000 siege works were estimated to have died. The besieged city lost over 29000 lives as they continuously repelled the never ending attacks of the Ottomans.
In 1668 the Ottomans offered a peace treaty that was refused by the Venetians.
The French had been supporting Venice in this battle, however they withdrew and with no more than 3,600 men left to fight, the Venetian General Francesco Morosini surrendered and the siege ended on 5 September 1669.
There are times when we seem to be living during the most difficult period of human history. However throughout the ages there have often been periods of great difficulty and challenge.
The good news is that eventually these times all pass.
People are victims of their own beliefs in how ‘things should be; or are’. You see on the news every day how ‘journalists’ have watched a presentation by [say] the Federal Minister for Health, then subsequently mis - report his remarks. I believe that this is primarily because ‘they’ are focused on a question they have been told to ask.
They then hear neither what went before, neither the response. I can prove it.
The astute among us will see the same game played at every CORONA press conference held by ScoMo, The Federal Health Minister and The Chief Medical Officer. These three know who will report accurately and question accurately; Ms Michelle Grattan. The doyen of the press gallery. She is older than Methuselah and [although her politics are possibly somewhere to the left of Joe Stalin, brutally bi - partisan].
Michelle Grattan always always sits ‘front, speakers’ right’ [God help any poor devil who even thinks of sitting there]. She always gets the first question; because of trust. Other ‘reporters’ will button hole Michelle afterwards to check FACTS. People who listen to what is said or written, not just ‘hear’ it, will always have the jump on the rest of us.
Ms Grattan always writes her questions and the answers down. She does not solely rely on her memory; let alone that of anybody else.
The best humour is often drawn from contemporary Life.
For those of us who are amazed by ideas for cures, remediesandante diluvian alchemy, I offer you a choice of two narratives.
Both are true; it may be difficult for many to select the 150 Year - old one, from the one that is barely one week old. Presumably, some people will believe anything.
Sometimes Humanity provides us all with introspection about those who hold themselves as Pillars of the Community, but are unwittingly, victims of their own folly. At least we, the Great Unwashed, draw amusement.
Remedy 1.
I offer for your consideration expert advice about dealing with near - drowning. The infrastructure required is a locker (several, actually, spaced equally at at 100 yards (note). Withineach cabinet ensure the following items are always available: one brass funnel, hemp, flints and strikers, or wax matches, a cup of lard, a police - issue whistle. Instructions in waterproof grease pencil. Procedure: In the event of a drowning person being retrieved from the river. 1. Turn him face down and pull his breeches down below his buttocks. 2. Prepare a smouldering fire from the hemp, lubricate the narrow end of the brass funnel with the lard and insert it into the victim’s anus. 3. Capture the smoke in the broad end of the funnel and puff the smoke into the orifice of the patient. 4. Blow the whistle .....
Remedy 2.
This is recommended by a ‘doctor’ to avoid the spread of a virus he previously said would take greater than eight thousand Australian lives.
(modified description) Do not break wind whilst not wearing clothes. And... close all the bottle shops.
Just a quick reminder for all Members requesting that anyone who has not yet done so, please make payment for the chocolates distributed by our Fund-raising Director Carolyn earlier this year.
As well, on 1 May the first of our one monthly payments of $20 is due. This covers fines, heads & tails and other activities with the money going to the end of year hampers organised by Sergeant Trish.
Payments for both the chocolates and monthly contribution should be made into the Rotary Club of Mt Eliza General Account, BSB 633 000 Account Number 152 498 093.
The answers to last week's Five Question Quiz were:
1. Who famously said (before COVID-19) "I don't have dinner parties - I eat my dinner in bed"? A Zsa Zsa Gabor B Miss Piggy C Hugh Hefner D Donald Trump
2.How many squares are there in a single row of a Scrabble Board? A 15 B 20 C 12 D 18
3. Who said "hear no evil, speak no evil ... and you'll never be invited to a party"? A Neil Simon B Patrick White C Oscar Wilde D Alan Bennett
4. How many tines does a fondue fork usually have? A 1 B 3 C 4 D 2
5. In which country did the after dinner game of charades first evolve? A England B Scotland C France D Spain
This weeks five questions are:
1. In traditional Scottish Highland dress, what are trews? A Under garments B Long socks C Longer than normal kilts D Tartan trousers
2. Who wrote "Of Mice and Men"? A Stephen King B John Steinbeck C Mark Twain D Ernest Hemingway
3. What is the name of the tasting cup used by wine tasters and wine producers? A Vinchallace B Vinsup C Vincup D Tastevin
4. Which luxury car manufacturer produces the Ghibli? A Bugatti B Maserati C Lamborghini D Ferrari
5. Which English department store opened on London's Regent Street in 1875? A Harvey Nichols B Liberty C Harrods D Dickins and Jones
