Young round Australia flyer breakfast speaker - Postponed
Siena round Australia solo flyer has had to cancel our speaking arrangement for tomorrow. Laim send his sincere apologies.
The Year 11 student from Siena Catholic College, Sippy Downs, became the youngest person to circumnavigate Australia solo by plane in September.
The record in Australia had been held by a 17 year old, but Liam completed his journey at 16 years and nine months.
What an achievement for a Sunshine Coast lad.
Liam began his 16,000km journey from the Sunshine Coast flying in the direction of Cape York peninsula, down through the Gulf of Carpentaria, over Darwin before heading down the Kimberley coast and across Perth, then tackle the underside of Australia crossing to Adelaide and Melbourne, dipping to Tasmania before heading back home via Canberra, Sydney and Coffs Harbour.
It will be the first time Liam has visited all of Australia’s major capital cities, having only travelled “once or twice” to Sydney and Melbourne.
“I haven’t had the privilege of being well travelled so I’ll get to know a lot of our country and see really cool sights,” Liam said.
The idea to break the world record initially came from one of Liam’s friends whom he mentors in Sydney but has never met.
Why don't you set aside some time on Friday to hear from and meet this extraordinary young man?
We are joined by the local scout leaders, schools, "ten little pieces", and other interested citizens on Sunday morning to clean up Alex Beach and its surrounds. Our Wallis was commander in chief, ably served by assistant Gail and chief chef Bill Bradley and the team.
Many thanks to Alex SLSC for the bacon and egg sandwiches, and very well done everyone who participated.
The red bins are full (some overfull)....job done for another year.
Well done everyone involved.
We were also joined by the sight of a cruise ship in the morning, which rapidly headed southwards in the heavy seas.
We welcomed Renee Ricketts from IFYS on Friday morning, and spoke on the work that IFYS does, in particular with the foster kids transitioning to independent living. Most of us assume (wrongly) that kids pick up basic life skills as they pass through adolescence into their late teens and independent living. Unfortunately for many kids this doesn't happen and so a transition program is really important to help them gradually adopt the basic living skills from mentors and their peers. So IFYS has been looking at ways to do this, including semi-independent living as well as direct mentorship.
Renee was also full of praise on the work that t he Rotary cluster and IFYS have been working together to provide a care garden at the Landsborough house. The basketball court has been a great success in encouraging outdoor activity, both for the residents and carers. So we have high hopes for the new deck and cubby house to go in next month.
We're also working on a visit to Landsborough to see the work that has been done by the volunteers on the 4th Friday in March. Stay tuned for more details.
Here's a pic of the early stages, before paths and pergola's and planting and basketball court.
If you watched Australian Story in February you heard of a "Purple Bus"..., that is...a mobile dialysis machine that is helping great Australian actor Jack Thompson recover from renal failure.
What you may not know is that Rotary has played such a huge part in getting the Purple House Project off the ground. This particular project was one that Rotary embraced, and I recall it also being a passion of Bo Morse from Brisbane. Here's snippet of information.
Kintore
Kintore or Walungurru is 550kms west of Alice and is where it all started.
Concerned by the alarming number of their people and families having to dislocate from community to Alice Springs for dialysis treatment, Pintupi people from the Western Desert region of Central Australia started the Western Desert Dialysis Appeal to raise money for on country dialysis services.
Their passion and perseverance paid off – from the funds raised they purchased a dialysis machine which was installed in the Kintore Health Clinic. The first dialysis in Kintore took place on the 25th of September 2004.
In 2010, due to the amazing support and hard work of the Woden Rotary Club, we opened the Kintore Purple House, increasing our capacity to two chairs and providing much needed accommodation for our nurses. This amazing team of compassionate and industrious people took on the overwhelming job of transforming the ‘blue house’, an abandoned building, into the ‘Purple House’ dialysis unit. This was a huge job and many Rotary teams travelled to Kintore from the Eastern states to work on the project.
These days we are able to have significant community elders Hilary Japaljari and Maurice Gibson at home in Kintore full time and provide other patients from Kintore time at home on country.
What would you think if you lent your BBQ to a neighbour and they returned it to you after they had thoroughly cleaned it?
Pretty nice neighbour eh?
But what if they returned it and had also given you a new gas bottle?
Well, thats very nice.
But what if they had also maintained the trailer the BBQ was sitting on and fixed up the lights and the wheel bearings?
I'd say that was exceptional.
So HAT'S OFF to Geoff Hopkins and the Mooloolaba Rotary team for taking such great care of our BBQ trailer...and the best news of all...the funds that they raised all went to the Rotary (RAWCS) flood relief program.
Unbeknown to many of us, Senior Citizen of the Year, David Woodrow, reminded the breakfast meeting that because Rotary is Non Political, politicians are invited to speak only where they meet several criteria. (i) They can only talk during an non-election year. No electioneering (ii) Their speech must be positive not bringing someone else down to promote themselves (iii) Non argumentative and respectful of differing views.
What great rules. Wouldn't it be great if this applied to the whole of Australian Media?
Brent Mickelberg certainly ticked all the boxes.
Brent is passionate about the community (especially education support) aspect of State politics and tells us he is still getting used to the public speaking he gave the club an insight into his family and how public service played a large part in his development through a career involving some unusual jobs overseas and in Australia before a distinguished career in the armed forces before settling on state politics and community support.
Thank you for your story and for the great interest that you show in the education and school system in the Buderim area. Who knew that there are over over 17,000 students in the Brent's Buderim area?
The TRI is back on again on the 17th March, and Colleen is again organising the club volunteers. So if you are able to spend a few hours on Sunday 17th March please let Colleen or the club know.
We are delighted to welcome Wendy as our new club treasurer, taking over from Bob Lane, who has been our "money man" for the past 2+ years. Bob's done a fantastic job over that time in keeping our club accounts up to date, with great support and help from Georgina D, and Steve P (over in the middle kingdom) .in his oversight of the annual accounts.
The club treasurers role is one of those jobs that requires constant effort and diligence, in keeping up to date with our club's fund raising, event expenses, grants and donations. We thank Bob for his work over the past while, in introducing new systems, and streamlining a lot of old systems.
The club is seeking to increase its membership base and has initiated Corporate Membership status. This allows a local business to become a corporate member and to nominate up to 2 employees as members of the club for one year.
We are delighted to welcome IFYS as our first corporate member. We already have a strong relationship with IFYS through Rotary projects, care Garden, Christmas hampers, WorklIfe so we look forward to exploring ways how we can help each other with "making a difference to the community".
Alex Rotary has a long history of helping the community and especially those organisations who are looking for a "helping hand and not a hand out" as they say.
If you know of a business who have a community cause that might be looking for some help with their plans or projects and it aligns with the Rotary credo of "making a difference" to the community, let Mike or the Board know.
If anyone has any old (but good condition) kids footy boots would they please email the secretary (RCAHsecreatary@gmail.com) as our Honorary member Ashley Robinson, will put them to good use, and make a youngsters day.
A few folks who shall be nameless, had some difficulty remembering the club calendar of the Christmas period. If anyone wants instructions on how to put the club app onto their phone, please contact John Malloy on 0447300753.The club on your phone
Siena round Australia solo flyer has had to cancel our speaking arrangement for tomorrow. Laim send his sincere apologies. 
If you watched Australian Story in February you heard of a "Purple Bus"..., that is...a mobile dialysis machine that is helping great Australian actor Jack Thompson recover from renal failure.
The TRI is back on again on the 17th March, and Colleen is again organising the club volunteers. So if you are able to spend a few hours on Sunday 17th March please let Colleen or the club know. 
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