Through a Glass Darkly.

Our Mystery Speaker was Stephanie Fassler, an artist in glass.  Thank you, Stephanie, for leaping into the breach with a fascinating talk on stained glass and other aspects of glass as art.  Amazing that Stephanie became a glass artist almost by accident.  Here are two of her windows.

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This week it's quite a different topic.  Wheels4Life and we'll also be inducting Bert Ettekoven as a member of our club.

Congratulations, Claudine!

Dear Claudine:

Congratulations! You have been elected to the board of directors of Rotarians for Hearing Regeneration. We all look forward to serving with you and learning more from you. In a few weeks I will send you some of our DVDs and brochures.  We will be updating our present brochure later this year and when we do I'll send some to you.

A suggestion was made at our board meeting tonight that we change our name to Rotarians for Hearing…..dropping Regeneration. That may not be exactly what you were thinking but it is perhaps half way. We did not act on it and will let the membership know and see the reaction or more suggestions may come.

I think eventually we may be able to help you with your project in some ways. We talked about it tonight and agreed to discuss again.

So, congratulations again and thanks for joining with us to help those with hearing loss in the best ways we can.


Gene

Thank you, Lucille, for what you've done here.

From: Gail Scher [mailto:Gail.Scher@wits.ac.za]
Sent: 20 May 2009 10:06 AM
To: Lucille blumberg
Subject: Wheelchairs

 

On behalf of the Paediatric Neurology Clinic of Chris Hani Baragwanath and Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospitals, I would like to thank you for the generous donation of 3 wheelchairs for our patients.

The 3 patients who will receive these wheelchairs are:

                Edward, age 9 years, who has Duchenne’s   Muscular Dystrophy. He is still ambulatory but falls often and is unable to walk long distances so his mother often has to carry him on her back.

                Sindiswa, age 11 years, also has Duchenne’s   Muscular Dystrophy, and is struggling to cope at school  getting from class to class and getting up once seated at his desk. As ths conditionis progressive,we are aware he is going to get worse.

                Sizakele, aged 17 years, has myotubular myopathy and is small for age. His mother has always carried him and now that she is getting older has developed back problems.

 

You would realize what a generous gift  these wheelchairs are if you would have seen the delight from these 3 families when I told them we could get them wheelchairs and on their behalf, I would like to express our gratitude to Rotary.

 

Kind regards

Dr Gail Scher

Paediatric Neurologist

CM Johannesburg Hospital and the University of the Witwatersrand.

A Letter from Sarah Schwartz

Dear Peter and New Dawn,

First, thank you for putting me on the mailing list.  It's great to keep up with the blog. 

Secondly, and more importantly, I'd really like to thank you and the club for inviting me to speak and for having me at your meeting the other week.  I was challenged by the questions and excited to meet all of your members.  As I said to your president Don on the way back to Wits, your club has a really inspiring and invigorating approach to Rotary of which I greatly appreciated being a part (if briefly).

Take care and I hope to see you all soon.

Best Regards,

Sarah

Amabassadorial Scholar

2008-2009

District Assembly - Sat 23rd June, Midrand High School

The District Assembly was, like the proverbial Curate's Egg, good in parts.  Don Lindsay, Allan Beuthin, Ken Malmqvist, Claudine Storbeck, Ian Widdop and Paul Kasango kept me company there.  The important thing is what we gained and everyone got something out of it ....and we came away with something as well, a Nike Soccer Ball!

DG Elect Beth Thomas introduced a parnership with the Gauteng Alliance for Street Children and Nike  called "Score Against Child Mortality" .  A skills development programme in soccer, Life Skills and Values Training.  There were 10 soccer balls on offer for Rotary Clubs who would adopt a team for the next year.  What an easy thing and fun thing to do.  We own a soccer team!  Ian Widdop is currently holding the ball and we'll let him explain it on Wednesday.

I thought we would be lucky to have a team because of the demand but only five balls were taken.

Here is Beth Thomas talking to Presidents Elect and a ra ra talk from Rotary International Vice President Monty Audenart from Canada.  He must have felt at home given the temperature in the classroom!

The Video in the Video Column this week is Freddy Mercury...Queen Rules!

See below for last week's meeting.

The Marja & Bert Double Act

What an interesting talk by Bert & Marja and it was great that they added a personal touch by showing us their home in Delft and other parts of the town.  Marja is a member of the Rotary Club of Delft and we are hoping to establish a link with her club.  Thank you both for an insight into the problems of getting the Social Housing message across.As you can see the club was engrossed.

Don't forget that Bert is being inducted into our club on the 3rd June.

Annual General Meeting

Please note that our AGM date will now be Wednesday 10th June as we have managed to get Tendai Kumalo to speak to us on 3rd June.  Thank you Allan for arranging this. 

I have sent out an invitation today for the Induction Dinner on the 20th June.  Please reply asap.

The video is Danny Boy...and is especially for Don/Dan/Donny..who-ever.

Sarah Schwartz - Ambassadorial Scholar

Here's Sarah in full flight at last week's meeting.  Her dedication to a practical idealism involving theatre, education and an ability to get her hands dirty was fascinating.  Not many people would dash off to Sri Lanka and physically build houses after the tsunami or even investigate the realities of refugees in the Central Methodist Church.  Thanks for coming, Sarah, we hope to hear from all your fellow ambassadorial scholars in the future.

Welcome Joan & Tracey!

Joan Donet & Tracey Matube were inducted as Rotarians last week.  President Don handled his first Induction as President with great aplomb! 

It shows that Business Meetings can also be fun!  We now have 50% women members, or is it 50% men, one or the other. 

There are now 21 members with another couple in the pipeline.  We may make our target of 25 members by the end of June.

Induction Dinner - Saturday 20th June

After our successful dinner at Adega Do Monge, Kensington I went to investigate the "Upper Room" to see if it would be a suitable venue for the Induction Dinner.

It is perfect, carpeted, separate loos, lots of space and an outside balcony to accomodate smokers. The Portuguese Cultural Organisation, Academia do Bacalhau, hold there weekly meetings there and it would be great for a new Breakfast Rotary Club....Don, are you listening?

More details later but please put Saturday 20th June in your diaries.

Here's something a little more light hearted but scary as well!  Thanx, Allan!