A New Idea
Elaine Barnard-Brown has come up with a new money making idea which I’ll let her explain in her own words.
“For all you pill pushers!
Unless you are one of those rare people that actually don’t have a daily dose of a pill or two. Just what are doing with those empty plastic/aluminium strips when you have consumed all the goodies they contain?
Do you put them in the normal rubbish bin where they will end up in land fill almost for ever?
But did you know they can be recycling and raise money for a worthy cause?
So just stick your lot in a plastic bag and Elaine will find a way to get them where they will earn some dollars, and protect the environment.
As you will all be aware one of Rotary International's current “Causes” is protecting the environment.
So here is a small contribution we can all make with little effort.”
Thanks Elaine, another great idea.
Happenings at the last meeting
Our Zoom meeting this week was back to our usual smooth operation, for which we are all grateful to Chris B. After a few conversational detours the meeting got underway with Greg introducing Chris Vanderstock (ably assisted by Jordie) who spoke to us about Disruptive Technologies, especially electric cars.
Over to Chris V
After noting the general lack of experience in the audience around electric vehicles Chris stated that our next vehicle was most likely to be electric.
Car fumes contribute around 20% of our current pollution and even with coal fired electricity an electric car will still produce a trip which is 40-90% cleaner than Internal Combustion Engines (ICE). It’s also estimated that car emissions cause $3B in health costs and 3000 deaths per year.
Electric vehicles (EV) are quieter, cheaper/simpler to maintain, cheaper to run with fully recyclable batteries. However, they are more expensive in Australia at the moment, due to import duties and other taxes, with a limited range of vehicles available. Overseas support for electric vehicles has seen greater take-up than we are currently seeing in Australia but things are changing and infrastructure is slowly being rolled out or planned. Chris spoke of Ultra-Rapid and Rapid chargers being deployed but, of course, the most common means of changing an EV is plugging in at home.
Incentives for buying an EV range from a $3000 subsidy from the Victorian Government for a sub-$60K car which follows overseas experience like in Norway. Other incentives are still to be implemented but “slowly” is better than “never”.
Misinformation is rife when it comes to EV and Chris answered some of the more glaring fallacies such as requiring 3 faze power or overloading the power grid if everyone plugged in. He recommended that everyone takes the time to become fully educated on EVs before accepting the naysayers.
Lastly, the area which both State and Federal governments lag behind the rest of the world is in the setting of policy. Other countries are setting targets whereby their car manufacturers will not be making ICE cars anymore. This means that Australia could become a dumping ground for these cars before we gain the benefits of the wider range of EVs. These policies also mean that Europe now has a choice of hundreds of EVs whereas Australia is looking at adding only 10’s more on offer in the next few years.
Chris and Jordie took questions on such topics and interchangeable batteries (already being done in China), long life batteries (Tesla), towing capacity (electric motors have high torque), employment (obvious transition phase for mechanics, greater need for auto-electric skills), auto-pilot (ten times safer, stories are primarily “click bait” with no real truth/facts), Outback travel (charging at caravan parks, NT/SA governments are looking at infrastructure, battery technology improving exponentially), Heavy Transport Industry (interstate range is available in Europe, hydrogen fuel depending on government policy, battery swaps), cradle to grave environmental effects (batteries were polluting but now improving to be greener), our ageing electricity grid (being improved all the time with solar farms and batteries being added by industry, but still lacking policy directives), EVs can act as home batteries (SA policy to incorporate home batteries to the grid), new housing developments incorporate community batteries.
Chris has a weekly You Tube offering that it is recommended as an introduction to the Disruptive Technologies. Greg thanked Chris and Jordie for their interesting and thought provoking talk.
And the Rest of the Meeting
Harry requested reports from the Directors.
Greg has received the latest burner unit for testing. Papers have been sent to the shire regarding the 100 year anniversary tables.
Harry raised the issue of helping out the Barnard-Browns as they do find it difficult to manage their health issues and maintain the house and grounds.
Secretary Chris had some correspondence to mention. The Village Green Respite at Capel Sound are advertising for those who may need a rest. The Rotary Zone 8 Conference was due on the weekend (11 and 12th) and was well worth a listen to to catch up on what is going on in other parts of the world. Another Membership Forum Zoom Seminar, with Linda Humphries, is coming up in the next week or so. Rotary are hopeful of a District Conference in February next year in Traralgon, watch this space.
Mark Long announced an anticipated District Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment (RYPEN) event on Phillip Island in 25th to 27th March next year.
The Shine On Awards are probably postponed again.
International
The food aid program in SriLanka has a Memorandum of Understanding completed and the funds are to be distributed. A local supplier has offered a discount to add more to the parcels.
A follow-up has been received from the Environment Sustainability Rotary Action Group (ESRAG) suggesting we join as there are other clubs around the world working on clean air cooking. Tyrel has joined on our behalf even though he is swamped with paperwork.
A few more conversational detours and the meeting came to an end.
