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Kevin Nolan
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Gavin Thoms
March 23
 
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Distict Cluster Meeting
  Last   Wednesday 7th of October, after enjoying our regular meeting the previous day as detailed below, nine of our members participated in an interesting District Cluster meeting with  some of the local Rotary Clubs. This in fact involved 10 Rotary Clubs .
 
Such a meeting showed yet  another change in our activity while in  lockdown . It appears that Zoom is increasing our ability to get involved in  more meetings including communicating with our neighbouring Rotary Clubs  .
This meeting  involved the 2 Gateway Clusters. Our Gateway West included our Keilor Club and the Keilor East Rotary, Brunswick Tullamarine and the Melbourne Passport Club
The list from the other Gateway group included Essendon Rotary, Essendon North Flemington/Kensington, Footscray, West Footscray and the the Gateway Rotaract Club
All were on the screen except for Essendon North as this was the evening of their regular meeting
Assistant Governor Michael Donnelly, member of the Keilor East Rotary Club chaired the meeting and District Governor Philip Archer was in attendance of course
There were 58 participants and our Rotary Club of Keilor proudly  had 9 members present.
Each Club gave a report which highlighted the performance of their  club while coping with lockdown condition.
Interestingly while everyone appeared on Zoom Some of the participants were located out of Melbourne while taking  part
Despite some of the Clubs having  small membership they surprised us with the great range of projects they manage to achieve – One Club achieved  7 projects with a small membership.
We were reminded that the Passport Club achieved its projects with overseas participation.
It was also a pleasure to see the president of Essendon Rotary Club David Abbey who is the son of our famous  Royce Abbey past RI president
We now realise that the benefit of having such cluster meetings is to learn about  other Clubs to share ideas, learn new ways and  create opportunities to do things differently
Extraordinary Adventures of an ABC Cameraman
 
 This was a wonderful presentation  at last week’s zoom meeting . The speaker was Julian Mather. He entertained us with a long detailed list of personal experiences .  He has written many books . The book “ The second best job in the world “  was the heading of his address. Many of us wondered which job was regarded as the best  job in the world . We agreed with his choice of  David Attenborough who surveys the  animal and plant life on Earth
Julian shared some adventures from his 25 years on the job. For as long as he could remember Julian Mather wanted to be a photojournalist, then he got side-tracked. Wry humour infused his engaging talk to us from Brisbane via Zoom.  Julian told us how he was blindfolded in a helicopter and taken to the secret location of the Woolemi Pine in Queensland, and the scary abseiling to reach the bottom of the gorge, how by chance he missed a flight that crashed, maiming and killing people he had recently met, and about people who had influenced his life.
He described three wrong assumptions that many make about their own lives:             
1.that being taught and learning are the same thing,                                                         
2.that you can win the new game by playing with the old rules,                                         
3. that you are "not good enough".      Julian told us how he overcame these assumptions. 
Julian  has seen the world through many lenses: 
  • Through a telescopic sight as an army sniper
  • Through the TV lens as a globe-trotting cameraman for ABCTV, National Geographic and  BBC Discovery
  • Through smoke and mirrors as a professional magician
Julian has earned his living and excelled in all three. But he didn’t do it alone. 
His ringside view of life had him literally falling into the arms of murderers and rapists, following base jumpers on their quest to launch off the world’s highest cliffs and hanging out with the world’s happiest man.
Julian spoke  to us from Brisbane where he lives and he joined us slightly late not having realised that Melbourne is now on daylight saving time
Julian Mather has seen the world through many lenses: 
  • Through a telescopic sight as an army sniper
  • Through the TV lens as a globe-trotting cameraman for ABCTV, National Geographic and  BBC Discovery
  • Through smoke and mirrors as a professional magician                      
  • Julian’s address could be summed up as follows :
  • Why it's important to adopt a learning mindset.
  • Why you are 100% responsible for your life.
  • How change is a process and not an event
Unfortunately Julian stopped addressing us having reached the end of our meeting. We could have listened to him for another hour
Membership Recommendations
The Board of the Rotary Club of Keilor held a special Board Meeting on
September 24thto discuss membership ideas and made the following
recommendations to commence when physical meetings are permitted
possibly in the New Year.
 
Recommendations
That the club meetings continue to be held on Tuesday evenings.
 
Meeting time to be changed to 7pm in lieu of 6.30pm.
 
Meetings to be held in the following sequence zoom meeting, physical meeting,
zoom meeting, physical meeting, the fourth meeting can be a social activity.
Zoom meetings will effectively reduce the cost of meetings for members.
 
The above sequence of meetings to apply only once Covid-19 lockdown has ended until that time all meeting to be held via zoom.
 
Meeting venue to be chosen a month int advance.
 
Meals served at physical meetings to be at 7.15pm.
 
In a Month with five Tuesday’s the fifth Tuesday can be a
Rotary Means Business meeting
 
Letter box 100 -150 homes with leaflets advertising Rotary and Guest Speakers
at future club meetings. Public members wishing to attend to respond via the
“Contact Tab” on the club website. another possibly  is use Try Booking,
either method will capture the person’s email address then we will
send out the link to the zoom meeting.
 
First letter box drop to be in Keilor Village.
 
Guest Speakers to be advertised on Facebook and the club website.
 
Board to develop an elevator statement to present to people when talking about Rotary, 
statement to be about 90 words which can be delivered in about one minute
Queensland Fruit Fly - Jeanette Lynch
Queensland Fruit Fly (Bactrocera tryoni), which is now making its pesky presence felt in the suburbs of Melbourne; 
 
WHAT: Queensland Fruit Fly (QFF) is native to coastal north-eastern Australia but has now spread inland to the NT and south to Victoria. It’s tiny - adults are only 7mm long - but it leaves tell-tale signs on fruit: dimpled skin and maggots infesting the fruits.
WHERE: The flies have spread because humans are providing them with host plants, which include: Pome fruits, stone fruits, figs, grapes, citrus, tomatoes, capsicums, flowering plums, ornamental pears, lily pillies and even clivia.
Ranger Stephanie Orive, Land Management Officer with the Shire of Nillumbik, explains that Victoria’s winters rarely get cold enough to kill off fruit flies, especially in urban areas. Residential gardens may just be the perfect place for female QFFs to overwinter “under eaves, in leaves and tree fissures”.
WHEN: As the weather warms in spring, the adults emerge and breed. As the eggs hatch, the maggots then feed upon the fruit flesh.
WHY: While QFF may be a pain for backyard fruit and vegie growers, it can be devastating for farmers, and mean more expensive fruit and vegetables for shoppers, so there are a lot of good reasons to try and control it.
HOW:
  1. Monitor and report: make a homemade QFF Trap (see below) and report any sightings to local or state authorities.
  2. Prune trees to a reachable height so you can harvest more easily.
  3. Exclude with netting, bags or sleeves to stop the female QFF from reaching and laying eggs inside fruit and vegetables. Use specific fruit fly netting, fine gauze or mosquito net - or even old lace curtains; the key to success is openings of just 1.6mm. Ensure the mesh is not touching the fruit. 
  4. Garden hygiene – collect all dropped fruit, and dispose of all unwanted fruit.
  5. Infested fruit should never be composted – instead bag it and either freeze or microwave to kill larvae
  6. Collaborate with community – Get to know your neighbours, and encourage whole community involvement and action to manage this pest.
To make a fruit fly trap
What you’ll need:
  • 1L to 2L clear plastic bottle with a lid
  • Yeast extract
  • Sugar
  • Fruit peel
  • Water
  • Knife
  • String
What you do:
  1. Put a spoon full of vegemite and a spoon full of sugar in the bottle, plus the peelings from an orange or lemon.
  2. Add enough water to fill the bottle to about a third, put on the lid, and shake until the yeast extract and sugar have dissolved.
  3. Using the knife, carefully cut an access hole further up the plastic bottle.
  4. The trap can be hung with the string near a fruit tree.
 
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PO Box 18 Niddrie Vic 3042 Australia
info@rotarykeilor.org.au