The Maths Did Add Up

Viv Spooner proved to be a popular speaker last week, especially when she got the members presen to swallow their fears and do a bit of practical maths. Fortunately it wasn't a skills test, rather an illustration of how problems involving numbers can be solved in different ways by different people.

     Viv is a retired high school maths teacher and coach for kids who sought extra help to pass important exams and told the club that the real problem lies in teaching kids at primary school level where many don't learn the basics.

Viv Spooner making maths fun

          Viv has become involved with teaching maths to children at the Salvazione school in Brixton through The Link Literacy (and Numeracy) Programme, which is of course also aligned with our Johannesburg New Dawn club.
     She had met the well-known maths educator Dr Aarnout Brombacher around the time both were leaving the teaching profession and both realised the great need in primary schools.
     Dr Brombacher developed the NumberSense programme for Grades R to 7 where the emphasis is on discovery rather than traditional teaching methods where children learn that there is only one way to solve a problem, learn that off by heart but then seldom understand it.
     Sounds familiar? To most non-maths people it probably does.

President-elect Dr Jan Christoff Heidenfeldt of the Northcliff club and Prof Koop Lammertsma of the Netherlands at the meeting

     Viv wasn't the only academic at the meeting, as we were joined by the incoming Northcliff president, Dr Jan Christoff Heidenfeldt, a maths teacher and Professor Emeritus Koop Lammertsma, who addressed the club on the subject on the world-wide depletion of mineral resources a few months ago. Prof Lammertsma has retired from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and now teaches at the University of Johannesburg four times a year.
     He was happy to confirm the discovery of a very large new deposit of minerals off Japan.

Past president (of Johannesburg New Dawn and Rosebank) Peter James Smith and
 DG Jankees Sligcher

     There was a fourth visitor last week in the person of Peter James Smith, a founder member and second president of New Dawn and more recently president of the Rosebank club, who is our incoming AG.
     There seems to be a symbiotic relationship between the two clubs, as our last four AG's have come  from Rosebank. It may be time for somebody from New Dawn to be AG for Rosebank.

Now listen up! Sam Devercueil and Mom Joan Donet at the meeting

Paul Kasango and Frayne Mathijs paying attention

     DG Jankees and DGA Judy Sligcher reported that they'd had a wonderful trip to the District 9350 Discon in Luderitz on the Namibian coast. District 9350 is made up of clubs in the Western Cape, stretching up the West Coast into Namibia and further into Angola.
     Jankees quoted a speaker who used a toothpick to illustrate why it is so important that clubs and districts work together: it is easy to break one toothpick, but not that easy to break 400 at once.

The banner of the Rotary Club of Luderitz

     The speaker this coming week promises to end on a high note. She's an opera singer, journalist and founder of Umcolo, an organisation dedicated to social change through music in South Africa.
     Shirley Apthorp was born in Cape Town, grew up in Australia and lives in Berlin, where she is the German-based opera critic for the Financial Times.
     Umcolo is staging Passion, A Stage Version of Bach's St John's Passion from 25 to 27 May at the Meadowlands Seventh-day Adventist Church and she'll be telling us more about it on Wednesday.
     A Date to Remember: Linda Vink's induction as president of the club has been confirmed for Friday, 29th June at the Parkview Golf Club. The cost will be R350, unfortunately a bit more than at Twickenham Guest House, as Parkview is charging R300 per head for the catering.
     A big advantage is that there is not such a limit on numbers as we've had in recent years, so once the invitations have been sent out, feel free to pass it on to anybody you believe will want to join us (or better still, join Rotary).
     A Thought for the Week: Not all those who wander are lost. - JRR Tolkien (1892-1973)