Welcome to a new year! I trust you all have had a great start to the year. I wish you 366 days of never-ending joy in 2024. I know that there were some horrible storms over the break and I hope that none of you suffered injury or major property damage.
January is Vocational Service Month. This highlights the importance of the business and professional life of a Rotarian.
Don’t forget that there is another Bunnings sausage sizzle next Sunday, 14th January. Ross has a full list of volunteers - find out if you have committed to a time and don’t let the team down.
Great social meeting last Wednesday so I encourage all to attend to our first formal meeting for the year. Only six months to go and there is still a lot to be achieved before the year's end.
Thought for the week: Don’t watch the clock, do what it does
Thomas Robinson, who joined our club a few months ago, will give us an insight into his background, his family, his work, his hobbies and passions...
This is our first "formal" meeting of 2024. Looking forward to greeting you all at the Surfers Paradise Surf Life Saving Club, upstairs venue. Usual time: 07:00 am for 07:30 sharp start. Order your breakfast at the downstairs bistro and take it upstairs to enjoy some fellowship prior to the meeting.
“The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world” so wrote the renowned English novelist George Eliot in 1876… So, what has changed? Today, 148 years later, her statement is still true. [No, Henrietta, George Eliot definitely was a lady… ☺]
The international monthly Rotary theme for January is what in the “good ol' days” used to be one of Rotary’s major Avenues of Service: Vocational Service. Since Eliot’s time, lots of changes relating to vocations have happened, and lots of prognoses have been made. 40 years ago it was the demise of the Industrial Age, which was replaced by the “Information Revolution”. Indeed, this has largely happened; in case you haven’t noticed: We are right in it. Today’s plain vanilla mobile phone, with a measly 64 Gigabytes of memory, is roughly 250 times as powerful as the Commonwealth Bank’s mainframe computer of the mid-1970’s (it had 256 Megabytes of RAM). On top of this, it has access to unlimited information of the Internet. And now, the next major disruptor is the combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Biotechnology, which will have a far greater impact. AI has been around for decades - refer to the spell checker (ca 1984) through to Google Maps (ca 2005) and now Chat GPT and a whole swag of others, not so well published (2023).
Yet, whilst the method by which we do things may change, the ethical principles as depicted in theObjects of Rotary have not changed. Click on this link for the complete set of Rotary’s Guiding Principles. For this article, it's the second object that is relevant:
“High ethical standards in business and professions; the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and the dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity to serve society.”
Our social convenor Graeme Isaacson (with the possible assistance from Anne ☺) organised a Christmas breakfast with a difference: at the restaurant on the 77th floor of Q1! Great buffet, everyone enjoyed themselves. Check out the Photo Album on the right!
You may have heard that we are currently a bit short of volunteer personnel at our project shed. Here are two men who recently answered the call to action: Bob Heffernan (left) and Damian Lockett (right). Damian was the first one to reply to our advertisement on Seek Volunteering, shortly after the ad was placed. Welcome to Surfers Sunrise, fellows!
Do you know anyone who would like to join our group of men to re-purpose discarded bicycles to make "rough terrain" wheelchairs to be sent to developing countries? Over 11,000 (yes! Eleven Thousand!) have so far been despatched, giving the gift of mobility. There is an ongoing need - many of the disabled (mostly children) in those places have no mobility at all.
Duty Roster - note: subject to change - please check every week. Note: Fellowship duty also is expected to be at the Project Shed on the Saturday following the meeting
Positively the last one of the festive season jokes...
New year's resolutions: Most of them go in one year and out the other.
Most people wouldn’t even notice the shift toward a totalitarian regime. We associate totalitarianism mainly with labour, concentration and extermination camps, but those are merely the final, bewildering stage of a long process. Yuval Noah Harari.
How much better would it be if a liar's pants really did catch on fire?
Thomas Robinson, who joined our club a few months ago, will give us an insight into his background, his family, his work, his hobbies and passions... 
“The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world” so wrote the renowned English novelist George Eliot in 1876… So, what has changed? Today, 148 years later, her statement is still true. 
Our social convenor Graeme Isaacson (with the possible assistance from Anne ☺) organised a Christmas breakfast with a difference: at the restaurant on the 77th floor of Q1! Great buffet, everyone enjoyed themselves. Check out the Photo Album on the right!
You may have heard that we are currently a bit short of volunteer personnel at our project shed. Here are two men who recently answered the call to action: Bob Heffernan (left) and Damian Lockett (right). Damian was the first one to reply to our advertisement on Seek Volunteering, shortly after the ad was placed. Welcome to Surfers Sunrise, fellows!
