Trauma means many different things to different people in different situations, our speaker this week, the clinical psychologist Claire Rudd, told the club.
Claire spoke on the theme of Trauma and Heart Centred Leadership. She is Zimbabwean by birth and said she does a lot of counselling work in Africa. She's currently contracted to a mining group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
She said the brain doesn't distinguish between physical and emotional pain. Whether the pain actually happened or is imagined, as in many Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Acute Stress Disorder cases, it has the same effect.
The more we try to control everything around us, the less control we have, she said. Happiness can only exist in acceptance. Physical, mental and spiritual health lead to a healthy heart.
The trick, she said, is to surround yourself with positive people. Don't just stick with the familiar, because sometimes the people who are the hardest to get on with, are the ones we learn the most from.
There were positive people aplenty at the meeting, attended by 6 new recruits to New Dawn. Joan Sainsbury, membership chair, arranged that they attend at the Parkview Golf Club in person.
She presided over a flurry of activity after the meeting by arranging that two members and one recruit broke away in groups for fireside chats.
The new recruits will definitely correct the imbalance of the ratio of women to men in the club and bring in much needed diversity.
Wendy Challis and I spoke with Tshepo Ramutumbu, director of the Umbiyiso School of Arts and Culture in Orlando West, Soweto, who told us about the experience of growing up in the sprawling township.
Also amongst the six were Mbali Zulu, who is actively involved in community youth development programs in Soweto and Shaun Khoza, Olivia Schoombie's husband. Mbali, Tshepo and Shaun have all done the first three of the four Rotary Leadership Institute modules and therefore come to Rotary and New Dawn very well prepared.
The others are Paul Chinn, a publisher by trade and husband of Babette Gallard, Ntombikayise Maselwa, CEO of an entrepreneurship academy and Lawrence Ruele, the right-hand man of the Alexandra township leader Linda Twala.
Lawrence and Linda will be the speakers next week, on the topic of Philanthropy with not much.
No doubt all six will soon get an opportunity to tell the club a bit more about themselves, and we look forward to that and the inductions.
Our intrepid roaming Rotarians Jankees and Judy Sligcher, visited the Rotary Club of Mechelen in Belgium this week and report that the club is a potential partner with New Dawn. Jankees and Judy are in Belgium to visit Judy's brother Harmon, who is very ill, but took time out to network like true Rotarians.
There were also a number of visitors at the meeting, including honorary member Rev Nick Bell, Ivone Vosloo and Cuthbert Gumbochuma's brother Tafadzwa, visiting from Zimbabwe.
Bursaries: Judy Symons kicked off the meeting while IT problems were being sorted out by announcing that the two girls from the 5 Cees that New Dawn sponsored with school fees for their Grades 10, 11 and 12 years, had both passed Matric last year, one of them with university exemption.
This is a remarkable feat because, like many others at the 5 Cees, both come from truly dysfunctional families. New Dawn paid their school fees for the three years at the private United Christian School in Yeoville.
A Thought for the Week: Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. - Gustav Flaubert (1821 - 1880)
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