Club News

Dear Teachers,

Once again this year, the Rotary Club of Ryde is hosting the 7th Annual Junior School Public Speaking Competition, the finals to be held on Tuesday, 27th March, 2012, 6pm for 6:30 at our Rotary meeting held at the Next Generation Club (next to the Ryde Aquatic Centre) Victoria Road, Ryde.  In the first instance, we are calling for your expression of interest and would appreciate you registering your intent by return email to Allen.Horrell@Bluescopesteel.com 

This competition gives Junior School students from the Ryde district the opportunity to demonstrate their speaking skills in a public forum and prizes are awarded to the winning competitors.

Each registered school may nominate two of their students from Grades 5 or 6 to enter the preliminary competition which will be held 6pm, Wednesday 14th March, at the Eastwood Heights Primary School Hall.  Three finalists will be chosen from the competing schools, progressing to the final.  Parents, friends and school staff are invited to attend.

Below are the five topics from which your nominated public speaking competitor may choose. The speech should be 3 minutes in length:

1. Our Country
2. Reach for the Stars
3. Living in my suburb
4. Turn off that TV!
5. Dear Madam Prime Minister...

The three finalists will be asked to repeat the speech given at the preliminaries to our Rotary meeting. They will then be allotted ten minutes to prepare and present a one minute impromptu speech to conclude the judging.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like any further information.
I look forward to hearing from you.


Regards,

Allen Horrell
Public Speaking Convener, 
The Rotary Club of Ryde, Inc.
M: 0406360204

Rotarians have significant reasons to celebrate Rotary’s 107th anniversary on 23 February.

Major gains have been made in the fight to eradicate polio, Rotary’s top priority. In January, India reached a historic milestone by marking a full year without recording a new case of polio. The country has been an epicenter of the crippling childhood disease.

Worldwide, fewer than 650 polio cases were confirmed for 2011, less than half the 1,352 infections reported in 2010. Overall, the annual number of polio cases has plummeted by more than 99 percent since the initiative was launched in 1988, when polio infected about 350,000 children a year. More than 2 billion children have been immunized in 122 countries, preventing 5 million cases of paralysis and 250,000 deaths.

Also in January, Rotary leaders announced that Rotary clubs raised more than US$200 million in response to a $355 million challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In recognition of Rotary’s commitment, the Gates Foundation contributed an additional $50 million. All of the resulting $605 million will be spent in support of immunization activities in polio-affected countries.  

 “We’ll celebrate this milestone, but it doesn’t mean that we’ll stop raising money or spreading the word about polio eradication,” Rotary Foundation Trustee John F. Germ told Rotary leaders at the International Assembly in San Diego, California, USA. “We can’t stop until our entire world is certified as polio-free.” 

End Polio Now lightings
In what has become a Rotary anniversary tradition, Rotary clubs around the world are illuminating iconic structures with the End Polio Now message.

This year, light displays center on Pakistan, where Rotary clubs will illuminate Frere Hall in Karachi and the WAPDA House in Lahore. Other lighting sites include the Tower of London; City Government Building in Taipei, Taiwan; Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, Tokyo’s fifth tallest building; Federation Square, one of southern Australia’s top tourist draws; and two famous landmarks in Brazil -- the historic Sitio Arqueológico de São Miguel das Missões in Rio Grande do Sul, and the Palácio Garibaldi, a neo-classical architectural treasure in Curitiba.

 The lightings “carry Rotary’s pledge to end polio,” says RI President Kalyan Banerjee, a native of India. “But we are not there yet. Rotary and our partners will continue to immunize children until our goal of a polio-free world is achieved. ”

Rotary clubs around the globe have many things in common, including a commitment to service. All year long, clubs are taking action to make a difference in their communities. Here’s a roundup of recent club activities worldwide:

Canada
Two Interactors and three Rotaractors were among 120 young Canadians who attended an invitation-only barbecue with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Ottawa in June.  David Johnston, Governor General of Canada and a former Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar, hosted the event with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to celebrate service and give the attendees an opportunity to tell the royal couple, government officials, and other dignitaries about their work. 

USA 
Rotarians in District 6960 (Florida) worked with high school students and other volunteers to package more than 1.3 million meals during a one-day event in May. Over 70 percent of children in the Rotary district receive free or reduced-price meals at school, but during the summer, many don’t have enough to eat. The packaged meals –rice and bean casserole and macaroni and cheese, fortified with vitamins and minerals – went to local food banks, which distributed them over the summer months.

Mexico  
A partnership between the Rotary Club of San Diego and nurses and doctors at Scripps Mercy Hospital has brought medical care to 9,000 people in remote Mexican villages since 1988. Rotarian volunteers include medical professionals, those providing logistical support, and members of clubs in Mexico. The Mercy Outreach Surgical Team has completed more than 40 weeklong missions, performing procedures to remove congenital tumours, correct cleft lips and palates and crossed eyes, and address other 
health problems.

Austria 
The Rotary Club of Mürzzuschlag-Semmering found a sweet way to support a community project: a 365-foot-long pastry created by a local bakery and displayed on a ― pastry coaster specially designed and built by club members Gerd Tomazic and Oswald Ebner. The club sold pieces of the pastry, raising €5,000 for medical equipment for a Red Cross ambulance, which now sports the club’s logo.

Lebanon  
The Rotary clubs of Beirut Centre and Tucson Sunrise, Ariz., USA, worked together in April to install a wastewater treatment system at Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut. The project, supported by a Rotary Foundation Matching Grant, will reduce the concentration of residual pharmaceuticals in the hospital’s wastewater, which helps irrigate gardens or travels through the sewer system into the Mediterranean Sea.

Kenya 
A five-day project brought Rotarians, Rotaractors, and Interactors to Nyumbani Village, home to more than 700 children who have lost family members to HIV/AIDS, to install two solar-powered irrigation wells. The Rotary Club of Greater Portage County (Stevens Point), Wis., USA, joined with the Rotary clubs of Karen-Nairobi and Machakos, Kenya, to carry out the effort, funded by a District Simplified Grant from District 6220 (parts of Michigan and Wisconsin). The group also helped with planting. The solar pumps will be the primary source of irrigation for the community, and will cost less to operate than the old diesel-powered pumps.

Korea
For the second year, District 3650 delivered 10,000 charcoal briquettes to low-income families in Seodaemun-gu, a subdivision of Seoul. Briquettes are a popular source of heat in Korea. Over 450 volunteers, including 120 Rotarians, 167 Interactors, and 142 Rotaractors, participated in the distribution, along with Seodaemun-gu President Suk Jin Moon and National Assembly member Sung Hun Lee.

Australia  
The Rotary Club of Wynyard (Tasmania) celebrated the 40th anniversary of its Music Hall show in 2011. Originally organized as a one-time event called the Old Time Music Hall, the production has been held every year, despite setbacks including a fire in the 1990s that destroyed a shed containing all the props and costumes. The performances have raised more than A$1 million in support of local and international projects – in particular, educational programs for rural medical students.

Once again this year, the Rotary Club of Ryde is hosting the 7th Annual Junior School Public Speaking Competition, the finals to be held on Tuesday, 27th March, 2012, 6pm for 6:30 at our Rotary meeting held at the Next Generation Club (next to the Ryde Aquatic Centre) Victoria Road, Ryde.  In the first instance, we are calling for your expression of interest and would appreciate you registering your intent by return email.
 
This competition gives Junior School students from the Ryde district the opportunity to demonstrate their speaking skills in a public forum and prizes are awarded to the winning competitors.
 
Each registered school may nominate two of their students from Grades 5 or 6 to enter the preliminary competition which will be held 6pm, Wednesday 14th March, at the Eastwood Heights Primary School Hall.  Three finalists will be chosen from the competing schools, progressing to the final.  Parents, friends and school staff are invited to attend.
 
Below are the five topics from which your nominated public speaking competitor may choose. The speech should be 3 minutes in length:
 
1.    Our Country
2.    Reach for the Stars
3.    Living in my suburb
4.    Turn off that TV!
5.    Dear Madam Prime Minister...
 
The three finalists will be asked to repeat the speech given at the preliminaries to our Rotary meeting.  They will then be allotted ten minutes to prepare and present a one minute impromptu speech to conclude the judging.
 
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like any further information.
 
I look forward to hearing from you.
 
 
Regards,
 
Allen Horrell
Public Speaking Convenor,
Rotary Club of Ryde, Inc.
E: Allen.Horrell@bluescopesteel.com