Rotary is a pretty high impact organisation in some parts of the world and it would be nice to see our club build on a diversity of interests and skills and be at the forefront of change. At the recent District 9820 Conference, there was a young passionate presenter/Rotaractor talking about plastic, mangroves and our out of control environment.
Today, as the Rotary Conference communicator, I get this email and I realise that we have high impact Rotarians right here in our District.:
"What a great Conference with the theme “Protecting the Environment” Rotary’s “Seventh Area of Focus”.
It started off with a ‘bang’ our own Rotary International President 2017/18 Ian Riseley delivering a passionate speech at the Leadership breakfast on the 4 million trees that Rotarians had planted around the world (green carbon) and what we could do ourselves. Ian (as well as most others) soon found out what “blue carbon” was when Vic Grosjean took to the stage with his passion for mangroves, my eyes were well open then for as a Director of Western Port Seagrass Partnership (WPSP) I have been involved in mangroves, seagrass and saltmarsh in Western Port for the last 12years.
I would encourage you to look at Vic’s bio https://ludovicgrosjean.com/about-vic-grosjean/ and his presentation at Conference https://oceaninnovators.org/district-9820/ and to join ESRAG (don’t we love acronyms!) Environmental Sustainability Rotarian Action Group to get help and advertise your own projects."
The email gets even better, but only the people who went to the conference will really understand the content.
"Getting back to one of my passions, mangroves etc. in Western Port, we, WPSP, have organised a working bee at Grantville on Thursday 24th March at 10 am we have students from RMIT assisting our scientific team to clean up and monitor and explain what we are doing, what we have been experimenting with and progress to date. I would greatly appreciate it if we could get a Rotary team together to do the same at Lang Lang the following day Friday 25th March 10 am.
Unfortunately, Vic Grosjean is unable to join us as he has speaking engagements (which does not surprise me at all) but hopefully, he will be able to join us on a boat trip in the northern part of Western Port on Saturday 30 April which I am in the process of organising. The boat (Tidemaster) takes only 40 people and preference will be given to attendees at the March working bees.
Working on the mudflats requires a reasonable amount of fitness and wearing clothes and especially footwear that you will not mind throwing away, footwear is best to be old sneakers (or wet suit footwear) NOT gum boots there have been too many sucked off and left in the mud.
We will be recording all these events so that you will be able to put them on your websites (especially when someone does a face plant in the mud!) a point made by the best RIPPR Jenny Scott in her summing up at the Conference, she had looked at ALL our websites in 9820, that we do not put our present and future projects online enough.
Please email me at rjwcox@bigpond.net.au if you can attend at any of the above and I will forward further details of these events.
Regards
Dick
Captain Dick Cox OAM
President Elect/Community Director
Rotary Club of Somerville Tyabb"
Just by our diverse membership in Rotary, we have the ability to delve into areas that are interesting and are needing help with experts by our sides to help us make a differences without fumbling around. It is opportunities like these that can bring younger people into Rotary but also stimulate our own minds into what we can do to repair the world that we will be leaving behind.
All food for thought, but Rotary needs People of Action.