Monday, 28 January 2013

Ronnie Kasrils, the District Governor's Visit, Visitors from Poland, Important Seminars & Discon

Stop Press:  Ronnie Kasrils will be our Guest Speaker on Wednesday
President Amina has asked Ronnie to talk to us on Wednesday as he will be up in Johannesburg.  We'll very quickly talk through the DG's visit.  Anything important can be held over for further discussion next week.
Ronnie & Amina on their wedding day.
Ronnie Kasrils was born in 1938 and educated in Johannesburg at King Edward VII School. He started off as a script writer for a film studio in Johannesburg and then for Lever Brothers, as television and film director for their advertising division in Durban, until 1962.

Prompted by the Sharpeville massacre, Kasrils joined the ANC in 1960. He became a member of the armed wing of the ANC the following year, Umkhonto we Sizwe, and participated in many sabotage operations, some of which were with his wife Eleanor.

Pursued by the police, the couple fled into exile in 1963 after Eleanor’s brave escape from detention. Exiled for 27 years, Kasrils was based in London, Luanda, Maputo, and Lusaka. He worked underground for the ANC in South Africa during Operation Vula, a plan by the ANC to have a structure in place designed to overthrow the apartheid regime.

After the first democratic elections in South Africa, Kasrils was appointed Deputy Minister of Defence from 1994 to 1999. He then became Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry from 1999 to 2004, when he was appointed Minister of Intelligence Services until he submitted his resignation in September 2008.

Author of bestselling autobiography, Armed and Dangerous (1993), Kasrils emerged as the country’s Sunday Times Alan Paton Award winner in 2011, for The Unlikely Secret Agent, a memoir based on the life of his late wife, a leading figure in the apartheid struggle, who died in 2009 at the age of 73.

Of The Unlikely Secret Agent, Kasrils says, “[It] is a testament and tribute to Eleanor […] I wanted people to realise who she was and what she had done. I also wanted South Africans to realise what our people are like and how the ordinary, average person has within themselves the most amazing qualities.”

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Last Week
 John Vink gave us a very easy to understand talk about the world economy and also the South African situation.  It provoked much discussion and we felt there should be a Part 2.

We also hosted a visiting Rotarian, Dr Joel Apiyo and his cousin Danford Apiyo.  Joel is a member of the Rotary Club of Grudziadz in Poland.  Linda Vink discovered his Rotary membership as he was staying at Twickenham Guest House.  So here they are with Linda and President Amina Frense.



Marshalling on Sunday at the Henley Cycle Race
This is the only photograph I have of the event.  One of our Rotarians, whose name I will not reveal, working hard.  I take my hat off to all of you who got up at 4,00am to get down there!

The District Governor's Visit.
Your Executive met with him last Saturday morning to discuss the the Club's objectives and the way ahead.  The Club, in the persons of President Amina Frense and Julian Nagy, made a presentation in the afternoon.  Julian Nagy, Jean & Peter James-Smith and Don Lindsay attended the Dinner in the evening.

Julian in conversation with the DG


Don arrived late and sat in the DG's seat whilst he was speaking. 

Francis Callard thanks the DG.

Don's Food!





There will be a full report on these events this week and particularly the effect on the Club.








Next Weekend
There are two important meetings on the 2nd February....see the sidebar.  The most important one, from our point of view, is the Blanket Drive Meeting.  It is imperative that someone attends and hopefully is on that committee.

 Discon
I have also sent out the documentation for the District Conference in June.  Our President always goes and as many people as possible from the Club.  The special rates for accommodation apply for Rotarians from the Monday so you can go for an inexpensive holiday in Swaziland. 




District grant projects meet multiple needs in India

By Dan Nixon
Rotary News -- 24 January 2013
 


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More than 180 students at a primary school in District 3140 (part of Maharashtra, India) now have access to clean water through a district grant project sponsored by the Rotary Club of Dombivli Midtown. Photo courtesy of Rahul Timbadia
Rotarians in Maharashtra, India, used a 2011-12 district grant to meet a range of community needs, from providing families with clean water to equipping homes with solar energy. 
“District leaders considered projects that came under (Rotary’s) six areas of focus,” says Rahul Timbadia, past governor of District 3140. “Geographical areas were identified, for example, where there was no electricity or water, which could then be (addressed) by clubs and thus impact the community.” 
District grants aren’t required to fund projects in the areas of focus but can be used to sponsor a wide range of activities locally and abroad. 
In soliciting project proposals from its clubs, District 3140’s leaders gave priority to clubs that didn’t participate in 2010-11, the first year of the Future Vision pilot. 
“The overall impact of the district grant on the quality of life in the communities served can be described as very significant,” says Timbadia. “Since the district awarded grant funds to 45 clubs, the impact was certainly widespread.”  
Clean water projects, for example, benefited 15 villages in Maharashtra state, with small dams, rainwater harvesting, bore wells, and water purifiers. Among these efforts, the Rotary Club of Bombay West constructed dams to serve two villages highly prone to drought. 
“In an area of water scarcity and unpredictable monsoons leading to failure of crops, this (project) has impacted the community in a very meaningful way by harvesting (significant) quantities of water,” says Timbadia.  
District grant-funded projects brought solar-powered lighting to homes and streets in more than 15 villages. 
Other efforts included establishment of a human-milk bank at a hospital serving the poor, diagnosis and treatment of children suffering from malnutrition, provision of a kidney dialysis machine and other medical equipment, vocational training for youth and adults, construction of toilet blocks, and funding for a vocational exchange team to study in Austria. 
The grant also funded diagnostic aids for a school for hearing-impaired students near Mumbai. The facility, which provides education from preschool through high school, receives ongoing support from the Rotary Club of Mumbai Queen’s Necklace. 
The club’s support “has instilled renewed enthusiasm in the children, who are keen to learn new activities,” says school principal Lata Nayak. “We are very grateful for (the Rotarians’) generous and kind encouragement.”  
And Timbadia notes that “upgrade of the school through the grant has also generated great publicity for Rotary in the area.”

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Tuesday, 22 January 2013

John Vink and the DG's Visit......we must be there!

John Vink
Our Speaker this week is one of our members, John Vink.  John is currently a Consultant at Deloitte & Touche and was previously an Assistant Economist at the SA Reserve Bank.  He studied at the Universities of  Stellenbosch and Maastricht....maybe he wrote the treaty?  

His topic is "Around the World in 20 Minutes - an Economic Update".




No Pictures
I'm afraid there are no pictures of our first meeting of the year as our official photographer was absent and the unofficial one, me, turned on the camera only to be told to charge the batteries.  I'd just done it so it was a case of either throwing the camera away as it had lied to me or buying new batteries.  I decided to forgive it.

Northcliffe and Melville Clarion/World/Times/Advertiser
Here's the latest article Linda Vink has managed to get into the local rag:
Unfortunately it's not really readable on the blog..

Wednesday 30th January
We were scheduled to have an evening braai but it seems that it will suit people better to have a normal breakfast meeting on that day and we will make a decision on the date for the braai on Wednesday.  Sometime in February that doesn't clash with the cycle race.  
Don Lindsay has taken over the organisation of marshals for the race on Sunday 27th January.  Please contact him if you can help. 

DG's Visit

Please note that there is a function for all clubs at 15,00 with sessions including Presentations by Clubs including ourselves, Membership, and Rotary Health Day.  The Dinner is at 19,15.  Please register with Mike Vink.

Incoming district leaders learn about new grant model

 
Rotary News -- 18 January 2013 
 

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Top: Past RI President Luis Giay, chair of the Future Vision committee, highlights the advantages of The Rotary Foundation's new grant model during the International Assembly 18 January. Rotary International/Alyce Henson Bottom: RI General Secretary John Hewko talks about the need for continuity, strategic planning, and sustainability. Rotary International/Monika Lozinska
This year’s International Assembly is focusing considerable resources on training incoming Rotary leaders in The Rotary Foundation’s new grant model, to pave the way for the worldwide launch of Future Vision in July.
The effort is designed to benefit all Rotarians by sending the governors-elect and district Rotary Foundation chairs-elect back to their districts with a wealth of knowledge about the grant model.
“The Future Vision plan provides us with an opportunity to be a truly cutting-edge organization, on the same level as many other successful philanthropic organizations, like the [Bill & Melinda] Gates Foundation,” Past RI President and Future Vision Committee Chair Luis Vicente Giay told the incoming leaders. “To ensure the future of Rotary, we need a Foundation that is strong, vigorous, organized, agile, competent, international, and ready to meet the challenges and demands that society, Rotarians, and clubs present to us.”
Giay highlighted several advantages of the new grant model, including streamlining the system into three grant types that fund a variety of activities with fewer requirements. Placing district grants into the hands of a new district committee structure will give Rotary clubs and districts greater flexibility in meeting community needs both locally and internationally, he said.
And by linking global grants to Rotary’s six areas of focus, the Foundation will be able to ensure that projects have a greater impact, as well as sustainability – an impact on the benefiting community that continues long after grant funds are expended.
The Future Vision plan has benefited from Rotary’s leadership in the effort to eradicate polio, which has relied on a strategic partnership with other organizations. Reflecting that lesson, packaged grants allow Rotarians to take part in predesigned projects funded entirely by Rotary’s World Fund and its strategic partners.
“As Rotarians, we can use our new Foundation to do greater good in the world,” Giay said. “I am confident you all will succeed.”

Sharpening our brand

In another assembly speech, the incoming leaders heard Past RI President William B. Boyd talk about the initiative to strengthen Rotary’s brand. He said that extensive research conducted by Rotary’s consultants, Siegel+Gale, had found a perception gap between the way Rotarians and non-Rotarians view the organization, which the brand initiative is designed to address.
“For non-Rotarians, that communication is very important, because they need to know who we are and what we do, and what differentiates us from other organizations. Then we can ask them to join us,” Boyd said, noting that the initiative is not about reinventing or creating a new brand but about bringing the existing one into sharper focus. "What is a brand? It's simply and clearly who we are, what we do, and why it matters."
He asked the incoming leaders to spread the message about Rotary’s brand and to reach out to non-Rotarians to explain what the organization does both locally and globally.

Foundation goals

Rotary Foundation Chair-elect Dong Kurn Lee laid out the Foundation’s goals for 2013-14, including completing the job of eradicating polio, launching the Future Vision grant model, engaging Rotarians in innovative projects, creating partnerships, and building ownership and pride in the Rotary Foundation.
“In Rotary, every job is valuable, every job is important,” Lee said. “But in the year ahead, all of you here today will have a special role to play in determining Rotary’s success — and not just in 2013-14 but in all the years to follow. It is a tremendous responsibility, and I know that you will rise to this challenge.”

Support from RI

RI General Secretary John Hewko focused on the need for continuity, strategic planning, and sustainability in his address to the assembly 16 January.
“Every Rotarian, and every Rotary leader, is a link in a chain. Our success can’t ever be measured by our own strength,” Hewko said. “It will be measured by how well we link what was done before us to what can be done after us.”
He encouraged the district governors-elect to use Rotary Club Central, an online tool rolled out in July to help districts and clubs better understand and capture their past achievements and plan strategically for several years. Rotarians can find the tool by logging on to Member Access.
Hewko said sustainability, at its core, means that the work Rotarians do now will have a continued impact, without continued investment. “A helping hand that meets a need in the short term is never as efficient a use of our resources as an investment that will continue to meet that need over time,” he said. 
To help promote Rotary and ensure its future, he asked the governors-elect to make use of the Internet and social media. The Rotary Grants microsite was launched this month, and Hewko noted that a redesigned RI website is in the works.



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Monday, 14 January 2013

Happy New Year! Welcome Back!

It's our first meeting of the year and obviously a social one.  Always we ask people to talk about interesting things they may have done during the holidays.
We are also expecting some Danish visitors so not having a speaker is a great advantage.  Finance & Mining seem to be their interests.


District Governor's Visit
The District Governor and his wife, Martin and Christina Forsyth-Thompson, who are based in Swaziland, are visiting our part of the world from Thursday 24th January to Saturday 26th.  President Amina and some of the Board members will be meeting him on the Saturday morning but there is a dinner in the evening, 19,15 at the Randpark Golf Club for all Rotarians and partners at a cost of R150 per head.  Apparently Randpark Golf Club is actually near Cresta so it's not as far away as I thought!

If you would like to go please get in touch with Mike Vink at mike@aucklandlodge.co.za and he will submit the registration form plus the money.

 Appeal
We received this email today:


Hi Peter

I got your details from Zaida Harneker

We are raising money for a hip operation for the photographer John Liebenberg. Is this something which Rotary could potentially support?

If yes, how would we go about it?

Regards

Jonathon

Jonathon Rees
Proof Communication Africa
+27 (0) 76 185 1827

jonathon@proofcommunication.com
Skype: jonathonrees

PO BOX 85067, Emmarentia, 2029, RSA

John Liebenberg


John Liebenberg is one of the outstanding photographers of Southern Africa. Portraits and landscape photography are the main motifs of his work, but his a photograph of the happening, the present moment. While working as a press photographer for The Namibian and Reuters, he openly disregarded the sensorship regulations in South Africa and showed the horrible face of the Apartheid regime of South Africa, as well as the face of the Apartheid regime’s wars in the neighbouring countries: Namibia and Angola. The photos he took appeared on the front pages of big western newspapers.
Between 1990 and 1996, working for Reuters Television, he covered Angola civil war systematically and with passion, without any pretension. Like he says, “I was shooting for television… and during the shoot or after, I would take a snapshot or two…”
John is the keeper of a huge archive, with documental and aesthetics value. It’s time to present his great pcitrues as artwork, composing all these fragments of memory with the artistic perspective.

Publications (selection): Namibia: Revue Noire. Paris; December 1994; “Anthology of African and Indian ocean Photography”. Revue Noire, 1999; Regards Croisés, with Pierrot Men, Yves Pitchen and Ricardo Rangel. French Ministére de la Coopération. 1996.
Exhibitions (selection): 
The eye of the elephant. Namibian arts association.1990;
Independence exibition, India Department Arts and Culture, Namibia, 1990;
The Johannesburg Art Gallery. Vita Awards Finalist, 1990;
Namibia: The red factory, Zurich – The Eye – Geneva, 1991;
Democracy you cannot eat, The State Archive Bremen, 1993;
Namibia of Today, Bamako, Dec 1994;
John Liebenberg Photo Exhibition. Goethe institute /Iwalewa- Haus Nairobi, June 2008;
Aufblicke’ The Iwalewa House Bayreuth for Basler Afrika Bibliographien Basel. November 8th, 2006 until December 22nd

The Board decided that we concentrated on child orientated things and we couldn't give a donation for this.  We have enough journalists in the Club who might want to donate something.  The hip replacement operation will cost R170 000 and it will enable John to continue to work.  Those who are interested can make a donation via Mike Vink.
Rotary Volunteers participate in National Immunization Day to help fight Polio pro res
11-Jan-2013
12 Rotary volunteers from Taiwan made a trip to Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India, to participate in the National Immunization Day (NID) to help vaccinate children against polio on November 4-5, 2012. During the first day of the NID, called the 'booth day', the volunteers visited several booths set up at fixed sites around a community to give two drops of vaccine to children. On the next day, the volunteers traveled throughout the selected communities across Meerut to visit each house in efforts to immunize any further children who may not have been immunized during the booth day.



Outreach centers keep Honduran youth off the street

By Susie Ma
Rotary News -- 2 January 2013
 



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Students use the computer lab at one of the outreach centers near Tegucigalpa, Honduras, supported by Rotary clubs in the city and the Rotarian Action Group for Population Growth and Sustainable Development. Photo courtesy of the Rotary Club of Tegucigalpa
Rotarians from seven clubs in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa joined together to fund two outreach centers for young people in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city.
The centers are thriving because of startup funding from Rotary clubs and additional support from Regional Youth Alliance, a project of USAID, and the nonprofit Save the Children.
They opened in 2009 in Buenas Nuevas and Villafranca, which have a combined population of 22,000. Rotarians chose these locations because they are some of the poorest areas in the city.
“These two neighborhoods are high-risk, where gangs and drug organizations work,” says Rotarian Guillermo Enrique Valle, who coordinated the project for the Rotary clubs of Tegucigalpa and the Rotary Action Group for Population Growth and Sustainable Development. “For young people, instead of going to school or learning vocational training, they are recruited into gangs and drugs -- it’s a vicious cycle which is hard to leave.”
Save the Children operates the centers, which are open to children and young adults ages 10 to 29. They aim to prevent violence and provide a safe atmosphere for youth to do their homework, play sports, and learn a skill. Tutoring and vocational training range from carpentry to electrical services to computer maintenance.
“A lot of them are already out of school; they have been left behind,” says Valle, past president of the Rotary Club of Tegucigalpa. “The idea is to help them out with jobs before they become delinquents and give them a possibility of a future.”
Rotarians chose Save the Children to run the centers, which have been so successful that Save the Children has opened two additional centers on its own.
Valle says Honduran Rotarians plan to support more centers. “The idea is to have one per club, and we have 29 clubs in Honduras,” he says.
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