President elect Sue has arranged for Rotarian Phil Dressing from the Rotary Club of Phillip Island & San Remo to attend our meeting on Tuesday 17 March to undertake a Club Visioning activity.

 

This session will allow us to speak some quality time brainstorming, thinking about our Club, envisioning the future and determining follow-up actions. 

 

As a consequence of Phil's attendance the Three Minute Speaker session from Rowan Miller will be held over.

Rotarian Caryl Coulthard has advised Secretary Pauline that her computer has been hacked. Caryl asks that people DO NOT OPEN any emails that you believe have come from Caryl

A large crowd attended the International Women's Day Breakfast 2020 held at the Mornington Racecourse on Wednesday 4 March.

 

This was the sixth year of the annual breakfast presented by the Rotary clubs of Mt Eliza, Mt Martha, Frankston & Frankston North.

 

A large number of Mt Eliza Rotarians & Friends were in attendance and we all thank Linda Morris for her great work as part of the Committee that runs the breakfast each year.

 

There were two keynote speakers this year. The first was Lauren Burns, OAM, who created history by winning the first ever Olympic Gold Medal for Taekwondo at the Sydney 200 Olympic Games.

 

Lauren brought along her Gold Medal and sent it around the room so that a number of people in attendance could touch it.

 

An impressive speaker Lauren engaged the audience with her humour, anecdotes and interactive activities.

 

An author, environmentalist, naturopath, nutritionist and mother of two children, Lauren is currently undertaking PhD at RMIT University.

 

She is the daughter of 1960s rock singer Ronnie Burns (both a soloist and lead singer of Ronnie Burns & The Flies).

 

Our second guest speaker was Dr Alice Hall, an economist, researcher, board chair and advocate for children living in vulnerability.

 

Alice is also the global President of the Harvard Alumni Association.

 

Born in Canada and having worked extensively across the globe, Alice has been a resident of the Mornington Peninsula since 1997.

 

Alice encouraged women in attendance to take a greater role in community activities and, in particular, to be involved possibly as candidates in local, state and federal politics.

 

This annual breakfast is part of the celebration of International Women's Day which has been in place since early in the 20th Century.

 

The breakfast also offered an opportunity to showcase Rotary and those in attendance were encouraged to consider becoming Rotarians.

 

Anita Hill speaking with DG elect Mark and Linda listening 

 

Friend of our Club Tia Worrell from White Lady Funerals one of the major sponsors of the breakfast

 

President elect Sue and other guests

 

Chair of the Organising committee Rotarian Judy McKee, Dr Alice Hill, President elect Sue and Lauren Burns

 

Part of the large crowd in attendance including Annie, Di and George-Ann

As part of our Vocational activity we were delighted to have two local business people speak at our dinner meeting on Tuesday 3 March.

 

Our Vocational Director, Brynton Fennell, was the Chair for the evening.

 

Our guests were Chris Bradley from the Mt Eliza Pharmacy and Marcus Tacon from Mt Eliza Fine Wine Merchants.

 

Originally from Deniliquin in NSW Chris Bradley studied at Sydney University before moving to Victoria. After a spell in Maryborough, Chris has spend the last 30 years working and living in Mt Eliza.

 

Chris spoke about the expanding role of community pharmacies and how patients now visit pharmacies for advice, diagnosis of common ailment, vaccinations and treatments. Local or community pharmacists work closely with local GPs to ensure quality health care.

 

There are over 5000 community pharmacies in Victoria.

 

In Mt Eliza Chris runs two local pharmacies in conjunction with several other younger pharmacists with interesting and diverse backgrounds.

 

Marcus spoke about Fine Wine Mercahant which is a specialist fine wine retail business that provides collectors and consumers access to great wines from Australia and around the world.

 

While there are a number of wine shops in Mt Eliza, the Fine Wine Merchant offers wines that are generally not available in local bottle shops.

 

About 20% of the wine on offer is common to other outlets, however the vast majority of the wines on offer are not available elsewhere in the district.

 

The Fine Wine Merchant does have a number of less expensive wines with the lowest price being around $9 per bottle. Their most expensive wine sells for $5000 per bottle.

 

Their most popular wine is Pinot Noir.

 

The business has a broad range of Australian and International quality wines.

 

A number of celebrities, politicians and other well known personalities are customers of the business.

 

Marcus and his partners have a close relationship with Ritchies IGA and they often refer customers to each other. 

 

Members enjoyed the presentations of both Chris and Marcus and President Ross suggested that they would both make great Rotarians.

 

A very fit looking Brynton, Chris Bradley & Marcus Tacon

Wine is produced in every region in modern day Italy. 

 

Italy is the world's largest producer of wine with approximately 710,000 hectares of vineyard cultivation.

 

Italians rank fifth in the world's wine consumption drinking an average of 42 litres per capita per year.

 

There are dozens of grape varieties that are made into Italian wine.

 

While Pinot Grigio, Moscato, Friulano, Barbera, Dolcetto and Nebbiolo are among the many Italy wines grown both in that country (and in other places including Australia) there are many more varieties and some of these are gaining greater popularity with Australian wine-drinkers.

 

One Italian wine finding more support from white wine drinkers across the globe is Soave (named after the region in which it is grown).

 

Soave is a dry white wine from the Veneto region in northeast Italy, just near the city of Verona.

 

The main grape used in the production of Soave is Garganega, although Trebbiano and Chardonnay are also used to produce this wine.

 

Soave Classico was first delineated by authorities in Veneto in 1927, encompassing 1100 hectares of hillside vineyards.

 

As with many wine-making regions, the area producing Soave has increased as it has become more popular.

 

The best Soave is called Superiore and it comes at a significant price. However the Soave Classico is also considered a fine white wine which goes well with food such as seafood, risotto, prosciutto, hard cheese and salads.

 

A new secret message open to all Members & Friends of the Rotary Club of Mt Eliza - everyone who sends an email to jimyoung3@icloud.com by Monday 9 March will go into a draw to win a bottle of Soave Classico.

 

Just head the email "Soave Draw"

 

The draw will take place at our dinner meeting on Tuesday, 10 March.  

 

One of our Vocational guest speakers at our 3 March meeting was Marcus Tacon from Mt Eliza Fine Wine Merchant. From time to time Soave may be purchased at that store.

An innocent young man from the city went to the country and visited a farm for the first time in his life.

 

He wandered around the property and was amazed at how big the cows were.

 

After walking about for a while he saw the farmer walk by and he called him over.

 

"Sir", he inquired, "why doesn't this cow have horns?"

 

The farmer cocked his head for a moment and then began in a patient tone, "Well, my boy, cattle can do a powerful lot of damage with horns. Sometimes I keep the horns on cattle trimmed down with a hacksaw. Other times when young calves are born I put a couple of drops of acid where the horns would grow and that stops them cold. As well, there are some breeds of cattle that never grow horns."

 

The farmer then finished by saying, "However the reason that this cow doesn't have horns is because it is a horse!"

Rotarian David Rew and his organising committee are working hard on planning the details of the Annual Rotary Club of Mt Eliza Golf Day, which is being held at the "Little Frankston" Golf Club (Golf Links Road Frankston) on Friday, 17 April 2020.

 

Sponsored by White Lady Funerals and with one of the beneficiaries being the charity Shine for Kids the format of the day will be both 18 or 9 holes Ambrose.

 

Registration and coffee will commence at 7.45 am and the 18 hole event will commence with a shotgun start at 8.30 am. The 9 hole event will have a 10.30 am shotgun start.

 

 

The entry fee remains at $135 per player ($540 for a team of four).

 

Entry forms will shortly be available for distribution.

 

 

 

Reminding all Rotarians and Friends that our Club's wonderful dog show, Bark In The Park, is to be held on Sunday 29 March 2020.

 

If you haven't done so already please diarise this date now as we will need as many hands on deck as possible to ensure that we build upon the great successes of previous Bark In The Park events.