Ross Kilborn, from the Mornington Club, was our guest speaker last week and spoke about the District’s effort to recognise Rotary’s Centenary in Australia.  The date for the Centenary is April this year and, importantly, the District’s clubs are working together on a lasting project to highlight Rotary’s contributions over the last 100 years. 

 

The project chosen was the Bay Trail which was promoted by Ross Kilborn with Steve Daly and Peter Rawlins.  The Bay Trail runs form Melbourne to Western Port of the eastern side and from Melbourne to Sorento on the bay side.  It has a lot of political support but it does not have funding to be completed.  The photograph shows a number of supporting politicians and community leaders.

 

 

 

The efforts of the peninsula Cluster are in four areas 

We are working with the council in these areas to see how the Rotary clubs can support the development of the trail.  We are very reliant on the efforts on the council.  

 

The cost to complete the trial is about $20M, but it is likely that economics benefits would return the costs in a year or two.  The Trail is seen to become a major attraction to the Peninsula, just like the wine industry. The Trail would be able to be used all the year round, bring tourists and their money to the Peninsula.  The project is likely to be a 10-year project. 

 

The Bay trial was selected as a Cluster Centenary Project because

 

Rotarians are not going to build the trial, but there are a number of traditional Rotary activities that we can do to enhance the Trail.  These include:

 

 

 

 

We could also work together to create maps and guides to put it on the web.  Members spoke about the Rotary branding and we should be “blowing our trumpets” more.  Greg spoke about using QR codes to provide the means to direct people to the Club’s website and to tell of the importance of the Trail through our area. This was generally supported by Ross. 

 

We need a sign which says that this a project is being supported by Rotary.  Greg considered that we should collectively look at advertising our involvement in the Bay Trail and seek to raise the profile of Rotary and the clubs at the same time.  We could use this advertising to encourage a ground swell in the community to promote the construction of the missing links in the Trail.  We need all levels of government to get onboard to promote Rotary’s Centenary. 

 

President Rick spoke about the change of venue for club meetings

 

Secretary Bob indicated that he has received correspondence from Rotary Health and Shelterbox.   A note from Mark Humphries reads that the “fire side chats” are to continue on the first Monday in the month.

 

Terry spoke about a letter from Jarod Haughton who we sponsored to NYSF, within the “new generations” program.  Jarod was delighted to be able to attend the NYSF program and felt it was “life changing”.

 

Tony indicated that we have 22 applications for the next market.

 

Harry spoke about the painting the Community House.  We are unable to paint the container at the present time and we will postpone the project to the holidays or later.