Thank you especially to PP Glenn Karutz for running the first meeting of the year on the 5th January, and to Pat Callaghan and PP Greg Patterson for ensuring that we had a good roll up of students and host families, and PE Colin West for organising the BBQ and catering. All of which lead to a great success,

It always makes for a good first gathering of the Year!

Hope you all had a good Christmas with your families. It’s certainly nice to be home after a very enjoyable break with our youngest daughter’s family. A long trip through NSW saw both the wet weather from the tail end of Cyclone Lawrence going there, as well as the extreme dry of the drought which still persists in the central and south west regions of NSW, west of the Great Dividing Ranges, way down to Wagga on our way home.

It was such a shock for us to hear the news about the fire in Port Lincoln during the last stage of our journey over.

Our thoughts were well occupied with what we saw that night of the news and views from the web and TV.

The feeling of the unknown when you are so far away from home is somewhat difficult to contend with, as we began to realise how many we knew were directly affected by the fire or were extremely lucky to have dodged it!

It was very nice to have the DG and his D9500 Disaster Committee show their immediate concern for our community and those affected by the fire, and the on-ground details and continued judgement of any requirements on their part, were ably responded to by PP Glenn.

Last week it was not only pleasing to have an attendance of 70% again, but it was great to have the company of three of the YTAP (Young Tradespeople and Professionals) Group comprising Alex Kay, Tim Curran, and Mike Sara  as guests of our Club. It was most opportune for them to share our dinner meeting and fellowship, whilst reinforcing their own awareness and understanding of what Rotary is all about.

Alex gave us a brief outline of what YTAP is all about; Young and career minded tradespeople and professionals, from 18-25 yrs old and presently they have 150 members!...a great source of future Rotarians.

We were able to focus on thanking them for volunteering to help our Club members clearing up at the Tsesmelis family property on Francis Road on Sunday 10th January in that 40 Deg heat!

A big thank you to all our members involved, not only then, but again on Thursday evening to do a final tidy up. It’s also good to get the public recognition in the Port Lincoln Times for this type of community activity, and to ensure that the ‘Rotary Sign’ is out, and publically visible as well; certainly has the right effect for the community as well as identifying the property for those volunteers involved!

Now we look forward to Tunarama.

Greg Honeychurch has been very busy organising our Club’s part of the event, ably assisted by Ian Ward and other members of his committee.

Member’s task rosters are out now and need confirming tonight. There are some blank spaces that need filling, but I’m sure we can handle that! We are back in our old location which is more appropriate for servicing our customers, and we can all help to make Tunarama better than ever!

We also look forward to hosting our D9500 District Governor, Alun Hughes and his wife Vicky, during the Tunarama weekend and appreciate their participation by helping on our stall on Saturday pm shift!

By the time we have our meeting on Tuesday 18th January I will be able to confirm if our normal meeting for Tuesday 26th will be cancelled. Our participation in the Tunarama weekend is worthy of being considered a ‘make-up’ for all, and it is a public holiday after all!

Invocation:

For food, faith and fellowship and every opportunity of service we give you thanks O’Lord.