PDG David Cooke comes from a management background in sales and marketing. He has held middle and senior management positions with multinational companies as well as managing a regional radio station and large medical centre. David moved to Albury in June 2001 to start an Insurance Loss Adjusting business which quickly grew to cover Wagga and Shepparton areas as well as Albury Wodonga. A career move in November last year to Real Estate Sales after thirteen years in Insurance claims has been welcomed by David and he is enjoying the challenges and mixing with people in a different frame of mind from damaged property to buying and selling property. David was invited to join Rotary in 1991 in Grenfell D9700. He later moved to Young in his work also in D700 and was invited to join their Rotary club. He was elected president of their club in 1998 – 99 and the following year was appointed to the District youth exchange committee. In 2001 he moved to Albury and was invited to join Albury West RC. David has held most committee positions shared between the three clubs. In 2005 David was appointed AG where he served for three years. In 2009 – 2010 David was appointed District Governor. Since then he has served as Club Administration Chair for three years, Polio Plus coordination for four years, DG nominating committee, New Club Extension co chair 3 years, Co Chair District Foundation committee 2 years; most of these positions have been held in unison. In 2013 – 2014 David was appointed to the position of Assistant Regional Rotary Foundation Coordinator for Zone 7B & 8. The position was offered to him again for this year which he accepted. The position takes in three Districts. Sports: all codes of football but in particular Rugby Union. Family, films, cycling and walking and social outings. David enjoys Rotary, the fellowship and in particular the people sharing Rotary with him.

Guest Speaker Fr Peter MacLeod-Miller – Born in Australia as one of twins.  My father was a broadcaster with the ABC and a judge with the New Inventors and my mother comes from a ballet background, and her mother was a ballerina with Boravanski.  We grew up tripping over ballet shoes and costume fabrics at our various houses which looked like stage sets and we were on the centre stage.  From school to law school, running across the occasional concert platform dragging concert grand pianos, harp and thousands of books ended up in rural Suffolk in historic walled rectory garden and trotting around English villages with a donkey and trap.  Then after ten years back to glorious Albury and St Matthews.  We bought Adamshurst after it was passed in at auction after going shopping with Vicki Chick.  My mother has moved in and we have been using the historical memory of many local people in the continual adventure of restoring the house and garden.

GUEST SPEAKER PETER DRUMMOND Peter  is well known locally having been involved in community activities for many years. Peter took up running in February 2010 as the result of a desire to run Nail Can Hill – just once before it was too late. That led to the first marathon on the Gold Coast in July 2012 before turning 65. Have since completed marathons on the Sunshine Coast (Sept 2013) at Relay for Life (Oct 2013) and more recently Boston USA (April 2014) after undertaking a serious training progrmme in preparation including a 10 km walk daily. Peter gave us and interesting overview of the experience of running the Boston Marathon, including the hills, down and up, and the cramps (!).  36.000 people ran in staggered groups … Peter’s time was 4hrs 53mins

Guest Speaker … Frank Zaknich … Albury City Budget  Following on from his last address to our club, Frank updated us with details of the current Coucil budget, its progress and programmes, “Future-Proofing the City”. We were presented with an interesting and thorough breakdown of budgeted expenditure in our vibrant city. A total cash spend of $126.5 M … a $46.6M capital works programme … with a general rate rise of 2.3 %.The gas-fired waste management faciclty is proving successful and has been operating for a number of months … and on the subject of the “Cumberoona” … following considerable refurbishment this will now be sold.

Guest Speaker, Howard Jones has become the ultimate “insider” since joining The Border Mail 32 years ago, from Wales. He moved to Albury in 1982, having emigrated to Australia with his wife, Hazel, and their sons, Philip and Robin. Their third son, Brendan, was born here. He joined The Border Mail with a rich history of experience in Wales where he had worked on several newspapers since 1963. His love of history and writing about it was born in his home country, where he wrote a history of his home town, Aberystwyth and co-authored a book on St Donat’s Castle. Howard has gone on to write 30 non-fiction books, including documenting the paper’s own history to celebrate the centenary of The Border Mail. Only last month, Howard was bestowed with Rotary’s highest honour — a Paul Harris Fellowship for his services to journalism and the preservation of our history.During her introduction at the Rotary dinner, The Border Mail’s editor, Di Thomas, said Howard’s contribution to the newspaper, his colleagues and to the wider community had been immense. His aim years ago was to produce one book a year. He thinks he is on his 33rd book — there are two or three not published, but he has virtually finished the history of the City of Albury RSL sub branch, a branch which commenced in 1918.  He presented some interesting facts and photos of commemorations in Albury following the end of WW 1 … Anzac marches didn’t commence in Albury until 1927. He has written more books than Peter Fitzsimons and even is a mentioned in one of his. Howard mentioned he would like to tackle fiction one day. Among the books he has written are commercial and family histories, one of which is about the Haberfield dynasty, grocers the Arnolds and WAW Credit Union. There have been photographic histories of Albury and Wodonga, the latter helping to raise $20,000 for Wodonga hospital. And there are books on the histories of Thurgoona and Baranduda that have led to street names being adopted of pioneers.