Woman Speaking About Women

A good speaker program helps to keep meetings lively and interesting, attracts members who may otherwise have decided to sleep in on a Wednesday morning, especially in winter and is one of the measures whether a club is going down the right path.
     Good speakers also attract guests who get to know the club and Rotary and could be enticed into becoming members.

Shireen Hassim with our latest member, Frank Odenthal

     Shireen Hassim, the speaker last week, turned out to be one of the best we've ever had. Shireen was invited to speak on the theme of Women's Day and why it is necessary to celebrate such a day.
     She did this with the life and struggles of Fatima Meer and Winnie Madikizela Mandela as a focus point, both women on which much of her research has focused in recent years.
     Shireen is a professor in politics at the University of the Witwatersrand, has gender politics as her main focus and has recently returned from a year as a research fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard in America. She has also studied at Oxford and got her doctorate in Canada.

Shireen Hassim addressing the club members and guests

     She described her year at Harvard as one of the greatest experiences of her life and described how, when she got there, she and her classmates were told they had free access to everything and anything at the university including any seminars you wish to attend.
     She described Winnie Mandela as "a kind of wound in our society that needs to be dealt with."
     She was one of a group of women in the apartheid years of the 40s and 50s who revived the role of women to advance justice. Although Winnie was too young to be a leader during the Women's March on August 9th 1956, she was very much involved.

Listening attentively ... Carin Holmes, Debbie Smith and Julian Nagy

     She later married Nelson Mandela in the early 60s before the Rivonia Trial and the beginning of his 27 years in jail.
     She spent two years in jail in 1969-1971, of which 491 days were in solitary confinement where she was tortured and and suffered a nervous breakdown. This radicalised her and taught her to fight violence with violence.
     After her involvement in the 1976 Soweto riots she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Free State. In the subsequent years she became more radicalised and was involved with the Mandela United Football Club, which went out of control and was an embarrassment to the ANC, which by then had chosen the path of a peaceful transition.

Shireen chatting to Tina Stucke, Linda's sister

     It is fair to say that Shireen did enough to whet the appetite of those of us who were able to make it to the meeting and that there was general agreement that she should be asked to speak to the club again in future.

Frayne Mathijs with Judy Sanderson, an ex-journalist from the SABC and good friend of the club

     We had a good turnout of members as well as a whole handful of (obviously mostly women) guests. Linda railroaded her sister, Tina Stucke and daughters Rudi Kruger and Greta Schuler into attending. Also there was Judy Sandison, a retired SABC editor, up from KZN for a Sanef meeting.

Paul Kasango played nanny when Lizette of the DRC pitched up at the meeting with her baby. Greta Schuler looks on

Speakers
     There is no speaker this week, so the meeting will be used to discuss club business, especially the arrangement for the Golf Day on Friday, 9 November.
     Last year the income from the golf day was almost R90 000 and we've set ourselves the challenge to top R100 000 this year, not an impossible task if everone contributes where and with what the can.
     PDG Jankees Sligcher has also asked that the club discuss the PBO application as to when it will be done (the sooner the better) and why it is so urgent.
     We must also decide on what we're going to do on 29 August in place of a 5th Wednesday meeting.

Jannie du Toit will be speaking and singing next week

     The speaker next week (22 August) will be the singer Jannie du Toit, a fixture on the Melville scene for many years now. Jannie is also a guest house owner and had a recent narrow escape when he was attacked and stabbed during a robbery in Newtown.
     He has promised to bring his accompanist with to the meeting and will sing a few songs!

Dates to Diarise
     Remember the club assembly on Saturday 25 August at Twickenham Guest House at 9.00 am.
     The Jozi Book Fair takes place from 30 August to 2 September at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown and Frayne Mathijs has called on all members to pay a visit as New Dawn has a stall there with the Books in Homes organisation.
     The Rotary Family Health Days are from Wednesday, 3 October to Friday, 5 October this year. Please talk to Paul about when you can help out on those days.
     On 6 October, also a Saturday, the club plans to visit the Vulture Feeding Scheme of the Brits-Hartbeespoort club in the Magaliesberg.
     Winex, another joint effort with other Rotary clubs, is on 24-27 October this year.
     A Thought for the Week: Some cause happiness wherever the go; others whenever they go. - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)