Another good meeting was held last Tuesday with members continuing to socially distance and being very cautious about how we conduct ourselves in spite of the good news that it seems we have eliminated Covid 19 for now. We just hope it stays that way so we can enjoy our Christmas celebrations and the warm weather and holiday period to come.
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Before our meeting we were met by Sandi and James from the Warrandyte Diary who videod us wishing the community “Happy Christmas” to be shown in conjunction with other groups, in the online Christmas Carols this year. Amazingly they only had to do one take and since we wore our Rotary polos it should be a good look for Rotary.

On that note I urge members to visit the 2nd floor of Eastlands above Coles supermarket to see the Maroondah Club’s shop front and buy a ticket in their Chistmas trailer raffle. It looks fabulous and very eye catching as you step off the travelator – a wonderful advertisement for Rotary.

I was very happy to announce that the defibrillator donated by the Warrandyte Community Bank has arrived and has, at the time of writing, been installed outside the Op Shop so will be available to all and sundry in the vacinity. It will be our responibility to ensure everyone knows what to do with it if it is to be called into use and to advertise it’s existence and position so the local community is aware. Ads will be placed in the Warrandyte diary, and posts on various Facebook pages. We are very grateful to the Community Bank Warrandtye for funding this defibrillator and Liz Guiver for her great work preparing grant applications.

Strategic Plan: Now that a few weeks have elapsed it was time to ask the members to accept the strategic plan – we held a show of hands and it was accepted which is very gratifying. Many thanks again to the committee who put the plan together. We now need to work through all the initiatives that have been identified. Some of them have already been put into practice – such as the new Club Administration Committee headed up by Ian Thomlinson with Bob Fry. Next week the Plan will be ratified by the Board.
I reminded members about the Mental Health seminar that was held today (Friday). Both Kevin and I attended - four very good guest speaker who discussed various aspects of mental health from issues around ageing, supporting youth throught the SALT (sport and Life Training) program, how Covid 19 has affected people working from home, and the use of person centred approach in the clinical setting. It was recorded so the seminar will be on the District 9810 UTube channel which is easy to find so you can watch it yourselves if interested.

Youth: Steve Ennor reported that he is in the process of contacting the local schools to disburse our End of Year Awards to the six schools. This is always well appreciated by all the schools – especiall this year which has been so demanding for staff and students. A few awards will be well received.

Our guest speaker was Barry Minster OAM who opened our eyes to the issue of electric cars, and how they will be the future of transport in a near future. Barry said that European countries have established policies phasing out the manufacturing of petrol and diesel vehicles, so countries like Australia which do not manufacture cars will be forced into importing electric vehicles.

At present the main sticking point is the limited battery power but manufacturers are also on board with battery technology, which is the key to successful electric vehicle operation. Currently Australia is way behind the rest of the world in usage of electric cars and charging stations compared to other countries. Electric cars need very little mainteneance due to their simplicity. Cost is a prohibiting factor at present but as battery technology improves the cost will come down.

​This newly formed market is run by the Rotary Club of Doncaster. Entrance is by gold coin donation.