Dr Isabel Do Vale, Our Homeless Project and a Rose by any other name!

Here's what Isabel Do Vale has to say about climbing Kilimanjaro & why!

As Crazy as it sounds, I am Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro- The roof of Africa and one of the highest free-standing mountains in the world! But I'm not doing it for nothing..

Years back when we were still in school, my good friend Olga asked if I would climb Mount Kilimanjaro with her. My eyebrows shot up in shock and I said "why?". Olga shrugged, laughed and said "..just because." And so we settled on "Ok, one day..." . More than ten years on it was my turn to call her up and say "Olgz, Still want to climb Kili?". The best part is now we know why....- we're doing it for a great cause! Please help us raise money for the Liver Transplant Fund! Every little bit helps!

As you may know, I am currently working in Johannesburg's public hospitals and specialising in surgery. In the past few months I have become involved in the Liver Transplant Access Project.

This is a joint project between Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital and Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre. The main aims of the project are to improve access to Liver Transplantation for all patients in Gauteng and surrounding regions, and increase awareness around liver transplantation and organ donation.

We will take up our Kili Challenge from the 4 to 12 September 2009! Please back us up this mountain by giving from your heart to give someone a liver!

Nhlanhla Thwala's talk last week provoked much discussion. It was quite alarming that even big corporates don't generally have a language policy. The response to language problems in the work place maybe common sense, as he said but there seems to be a lack of it.

The language issue with "international" people like himself was quite fascinating. We are all looking forward to his next talk.

Linda Vink took some pictures at the shelter for the homeless in Rosebank when Paul Kasango and the Projects

team visited to clarify our involvement. It really looks a well run set up.

A Rose! This is the New Dawn Rose. I first heard of it when my son told me that he had bought one in Denmark so I looked it up. Apparently it is a "Heritage Rose" first registered in 1930 and is an ancestor of most modern climbing roses. I bought one at Ludwigs this weekend. It's just rather nice to have.

Mike Thiel, Soccer, Spring Walk & the Wine Evening

Here's Mike Thiel addressing the club last week. A very interesting talk on what The Dominican Convent School in Belgravia is seeking to achieve plus other comments on eduction in South Africa. As Principal of the School Mike turned out to be neither a nun nor a Catholic! We were delighted that he is interested in Interact.

A source of disappointment to some was that the soccer team we are sponsoring at Christ Church Shelter in Hillbrow needs strip rather like that of the Magpies. Newcastle United have few supporters!

Congratulations to Ian Widdop in moving ahead with the soccer team and Jankees Sligcher in instantly finding R8 000 funding to pay for the strip.

The Saturday Wine Evening was great fun. Everyone enjoyed themselves and we may have gained a couple of potential members as a result. Unfortunately we didn't make much money.

Don't forget to register for the Rotary Spring Charity Walk on Sunday 6th September. The link for the entry form is on last week's post. Then, after you have registered link up with Back-a-Buddy. This is what Allan Beuthin has to say:

Dear New Dawners, Please find below a suggested description of the New Dawn fundraising campaign to be inserted in your Rotary Spring Walk appeal page when you register as Charity Champions on BackaBuddy.

If you would like to participate, simply visit, www.backabuddy.co.za and click on ‘I Want to be a Charity Champion’, then follow the registration process. You may wish to insert a photo, your fundraising target and the suggested narrative onto your free fundraising page. Simply cut and paste the paragraphs highlighted below, then e-mail the appeal by clicking on; ‘Share this site’..

The Rotary Club of Johannesburg New Dawn has selected homelessness as one of the causes which they would like to support as it encompasses a range of social and developmental challenges where we believe our members can make a difference. Food Security, primary healthcare, adult literacy, skills development for employment and job creation all form part of the homeless solution.

The Sisters of Mercy started the shelter concept in 1993 and now have shelters in Rosebank, Soweto, Berea, and Kerk Street, accommodating 230 people nightly, all desperately in need of our help.

Feel free to invite family and friends to join us on the 6^th September at the Modderfontein venue.

Please let me know if you would like any further information,

With kind regards

Allan

If you are not walking please sponsor one of our members who is.

Rotary Spring Charity Walk, the Saturday Wine Event & Mike Thiel

At the last meeting we decided to enter the Rotary Spring Charity Walk to raise funds for the Club through Back-a-Buddy. Allan Beuthin will explain what you have to do. He has already set everything up for you to register and go ahead selling yourself to your friends all over the world! Click here to get an entry form.

We have scaled down next Saturday's Wine Event and

moved it to Le Soufflet at Pineslopes in Fourways. At the last count there are some 22 people going.

Our speaker this week, Mike Thiel, is Principal of The

Dominican Convent School in Belgravia. We

sent 3 of his pupils?....oops not pupils...students?...no....learners...off to RYLA. (See the post below)

Maybe they would like to have an Interact Club?

Founded in 1908, the Dominican Convent School has a long-standing tradition of excellence in Catholic education. Dominican has 680 boys and girls enrolled from Grade R – 12. This small student body allows educators at

Dominican to provide students with a high level in individual attention, ensuring excellent academic results. Dominican learners have achieved a 100% Matric pass rate since the high school opened.

Dominican does not just focus on developing young minds. The school’s unique afternoon programme, from 14:30 – 15:50 allows students to develop their creative and physical talents in a variety of extra-mural and sport activities. Dominican also strives to develop strong moral values and self-discipline within its learners, emphasizing their role as future leaders within South African society.

With space for 150 learners in its hostel facility Dominican truly becomes a home away from home. Weekly boarders live at school from Sunday evening to Friday afternoon, while Term boarders remain on campus until major school holidays.

An Interesting Talk and RYLA.

Chris Jennings really made us think about training for emerging builders and we all wondered what we can do to help make this a possibility. I hope he appears at meetings as this will give us all the chance to chat to him more about it. Thanks for the valuable input from the Club.

Thank you Allan & Sue for repositioning the flags. They look as if they mean something in their new position.

We sponsored 5 students to RYLA from The Dominican Convent School and Sekolo Sa Berokga. Ian Widdop and Joan Donet were very successful in arranging this and following up afterwards. Here are some of the comments!

Kgomotso Sefume

Dear Rotary

At camp I learned how to work with other learners, how to combine ideas and most importantly, I learned to make friends. I’m a very shy person by nature and interacting with other people is never easy for me. I honestly hate group work because I prefer doing thing my own way. But at the camp that changed, I enjoyed working with other learners, combining ideas with them and eventually making them my friends.

It improved my thinking skills, fitness (Treasure Hunt), and it changed the way I see things in general. I’m more positive about things and what I want to achieve, also how to go about getting it. It also helped me trust people a lot more because I’m not that trusting and I don’t open up easily (the night snake activity).

Thank you for giving us this opportunity. A lot of good come out of it and it was so much fun. I really that other children my age will want to attend the RYLA camps, they are the best!

Brian Shabangu

1. What was the most outstanding issue/topic?

It was the topic about communication. This stood out for me because I had to listen to other people’s idea and go along with them. I’m not used to that, I usually come up with ideas. This leads me to my second favourite topic which was teamwork. I got teamed up with people who share same qualities like I have. At first we struggled everyone had idea, suggestion, opinions and no one was willing to listen to the other. But as hours pasted by and we did more activities together we started to understand each other and this made up work more comfortable and effective with each other.

2. What did I learn at the camp?

Learn how to make people listen to me and how to effectively listen to them. Basically I learn who to work in a team. I learnt that we are different and have different talents. And being a leader actually means bringing all these different qualities together and using them to complete a certain challenge. I learnt that you shouldn’t be afraid of change. Instead don’t change along with time, rather stay trye to yourself. I learnt so much these pages aren’t enough.

3. Would I recommend the camp to others?

Definitely, for sure!! I got challenged at this camp in more ways than one. It has made me look at life in a more positive way. It has encouraged me to become the best leader I can be. For me it has done a lot and to the other learners we were with. It has shown me how much we can achieve if we work together.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you again for infinity for this opportunity. Thank you again!!

A Successful Business Meeting

I wondered how to illustrate our Business Meeting. These are the New England Patriot Cheerleaders at a Rotary Business Meeting!

Thank you everyone for such excellent and thoughtful input at the business meeting. I really feel that we have moved forward considerably. Every committee has established itself and it is very impressive to see the progress we are making in Projects and New Generations. The Admin Committee have taken over with great aplomb and it is good to see that new potential members are still arriving at meetings. Fundraising now has a target so we are on our way.

It was a moving talk by Falone Minga from McAuley House on her experience as a refugee and we wish her well as she leaves for United States to take up her scholarship at university there.

Red Chamber & Meet the Cousins

Our Red Chamber Evening Meeting was great fun

and the food was wonderful. 25 of us sat down to eat

and everyone enjoyed themselves. Unfortunately Emma Chen

was unable to join us as her 80 year-old father is very ill and she had to

fly to Taiwan to be at his bedside. Our good wishes to her and her family.

A pity that she was unable to see the success or otherwise of her chopstick talk!

Meet the Cousins was held in Midrand on Freezing Saturday!

Fortunately the venue was warm. Graham and I attended but

practically separately as we both had other things on with

a brief overlap. The importance of these functions is really networking.

I came away feeling that we will all be enriched by the merged district

as our current distict is really just Clubs around the Reef.

Now we will have Swaziland, Mozambique and lots of Clubs in between.

That can only be more fun!