Getting Down To Business

It's been a busy time for the Rotarians of New Dawn with the first club assembly of the new Rotary year followed by the first board meeting, which means the meeting tomorrow will be a business meeting, with some exciting new initiatives in the pipeline.

In between we also managed the first social gathering of the new year in the form of a pizza evening at the Parkview Golf Club.

                 Paul Kasango, Paul Chinn and Paul Channon at the pizza evening

                   Paul Kasango with Linda Vink, Amalie Webb, a friend from America, and Debbie Nagy

The pizza evening was by all accounts a very popular success and enjoyed by members and visitors alike. Ivone Vosloo has taken on the role of Fellowship Committee Chair and the committee will arrange future social events. The plan is to have a similar evening every month with other social gatherings when there is a fifth Wednesday in a month.

                Ronnie Kasrils and Jankees Sligcher raise an elbow to the club

Back to the club activities: there have been some amazing undertakings, not least of all at the National School of the Arts where Judy Symons, Judy Sligcher, Adele Dabbs, Wendy Challis and others have already redone and refurbished a third of the 35 music rooms, the staffroom, the foyer and kitchen.

Much work remains to be done and this is definitely an area where new members can look to roll up their sleeves and jump right in. Contact Judy Symons if you are prepared and able to give up some of your time and elbow grease.

Karlien Kruger with visitor and prospective member Mpho Mogotsi

Another project that seems to be gaining a life of its own is Babette Gallard and Paul Chinn's All Spruits Cleanup Day  2022 which aims to clean up about 30 km of Johannesburg 's Braamfontein Spruit network stretching from Parktown and Albert's Farm to Lonehill. This will be on World Cleanup Day on 17 September.

Some 1000 participants from residents' associations, a few (but not yet enough) Rotary clubs, recycling and other organisations have already pledged support and claimed stretches of river where they will do the clean-up.

                  President Julian Nagy, Judy Sligcher, Brenda Sakellarides, Amina Frense and Carol Stier

Babette and Paul have done an amazing amount of work and organising in a very short time. For those who don't know, Babette has been writing an environmental blog on the workspace for a while now and her passion for the subject is inspiring.

They announced at the board meeting on Monday that Delta Park had come on board with the project and that the City of Johannesburg has provided a truck to help with transporting rubbish that has been collected, both big breakthroughs.

                 Joan Sainsbury, Karlien Kruger and Ivone Vosloo

                 Immediate Past President Ian and Robyn Widdop with Jacinta Opany-Agbara
                                 

A note about the blog: I've been for a session with Gavin Atkins to learn how to add the blog to our new Google workspace rather than on a separate platform as we have been doing over the past years. I've been doing the blog here since 2015 and the blog itself has been going since the club was established in 2009, first by our second president, Peter-James Smith and then by Steve du Plessis.

The blog will migrate once I've built up the necessary confidence - it's technically a bit more difficult, but offers more creative flexibility once we've got the hang of it - and once we've worked out a way to notify members and other regular readers that it has been published seeing that not everyone is registered on the workspace yet. 

Once that has been achieved members will be able to find the blog on the workspace along with all the other amazing content that is slowly becoming available. Other readers will have to be notified in some way or another.

A Thought for the Week: All men should strive to learn before they die what they're running from, and to, and why. - James Thurber (1894 - 1961)