Congratulations Allan & Sue!

The Event of the Week!  Why did Cap Classique suddenly appear on our tables at last week's meeting?
Allan Beuthin & Sue Peiser announced that they are getting married!  Congratulations from all of us!

Maybe we could persuade some other member to celebrate something...bubbly goes down well with Breakfast on a Wednesday morning.

Mike Vink's talk on tabloid journalism was great fun though I am sure he took it a lot more seriously when he was editing a tabloid!

I included this picture of his favourite headline just to remind us that the  event was fictitious and the accompanying article was written by the editor of The Sun, Max Clifford.  As Mike worked with him in London it certainly means that we will view him in a new light!  My favourite headline from the ones Mike showed was the photo of Eric Cantona kicking the Crystal Palace fan Matthew Simmonds, "The Sh-t hits the Fan".  Simmonds turned out to be the real sh-t!

Our speaker this week is Cameron Upchurch of St John's College where he is the full-time organist.  He is also Director of Music at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Braamfontein.  Here he is coming to grips with an organ in Taipei during the St John's College Choir's Tour of Taiwan.
He is currently completing a PhD in Liturgical Music and he will be talking on "A Career in Church Music" something I would have thought was not possible in South Africa!



My thanks to Mark Cresswell for photographing this lavatory-shaped Spiralling Collecting Box at Melbourne Airport.  A clever way of collecting all those Australian coins you don't want to take home.

 RYLA friends put their skills to good use

Two students who met at a district Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) event used their friendship and talents to help travelers stranded by the volcanic eruption in Iceland in April.

Måns Gårdfeldt and Jonas Larsson became friends at the District 2340 (Sweden) RYLA in 2008. After ash from the volcano grounded more than 100,000 flights and disrupted travel for millions of passengers, the two alumni collaborated to create a website that offered volcano-related news, car shares, and housing.

"The biggest problem seemed to be the lack of organization from airlines, governments, and transportation companies," says Gårdfeldt, explaining that he and Larsson were moved by stories of distraught travelers. "People were paying extremely expensive taxi trips, and some had no way to get home at all."

The website featured discussion threads for people looking to share rides to destinations across Europe, with ride offers at a variety of prices, says Gårdfeldt.

Word spread quickly. Their website drew 1,500 visitors an hour the first day. After five days, the site registered more than 40,000 visitors and received about 170,000 page views, according to Larsson, a computer programming student.

"We knew it could be something very big if we did it right," says Larsson. "We used Facebook and Twitter to market the website. It was an overnight success."

Their site was mentioned in several newspapers and received radio and TV exposure.

"We had reporters call at every hour of the night, which of course was thrilling," says Gårdfeldt. "It felt really good to succeed and see people use our site."

"Knowing that there were thousands of desperate people out there needing help, it was a wonderful feeling to see them come to our website," says Larsson. "Seeing the connections made by visitors fueled Måns and me to work day in and day out that week."

Because site visitors mainly posted their e-mail or telephone numbers to connect, Gårdfeldt and Larsson don't know exactly how many people they helped, Gårdfeldt says. However, they received confirmation from several people that the site helped them get home.

"We had about 1,000 posts, so we know there were a lot of people who came to the site and organized their travels together," Gårdfeldt says.

Rotarians in their district also noticed their success and brought the two RYLArians to Montréal, Québec, Canada, to share their story with participants at the 2010 International RYLA in June.