Last week’s meeting we had a lovely presentation from Kellie’s daughter Tess Kadoui who is our outbound Rotary Youth Exchange Student for the next year. Tess heads out to Denmark in January – remember to pack your winter woollies Tess. Kellie’s son Jack was our outbound a couple of years ago and I’m sure that Tess will enjoy her experience as much as Jack did. We also had a visitor at the meeting – Rotary Youth Exchange student from France, Kilian Vele, who also joined Rod and the Paying it Forward team on their recent excursion to the Yasawa Islands to help with the painting of some community buildings. Rod tells me that they all had a great time and the interaction with the local village was better than last year.
Guest Speaker
Noel Jackling was born in Albury, and lived next to Ian Harrison (!) but was only there until the age of three. War-time meant family removal to Melbourne when his father Stan Jackling joined the RAAF. The family unit never returned to Albury, leaving Stan with a law business in Albury and a family in Melbourne, a disjunction that he resolved by becoming a weekly commuter between the two cities. For Noel, with grandparents in Albury and Wodonga, Albury-Wodonga became a wonderful holiday venue in his younger years. Following the death of his father in 1994 he donated his father’s Albury Choral Society and ABC International Celebrity Concert programs to the Albury LibraryMuseum and wrote a book to interpret them. In 1998 Noel became executor of the deceased estate of a former Albury Choral Society chorister Ruth Whyte, whose residuary estate of $1.2m was equally divided between the Albury Wodonga Regional Art Foundation and the Charles Sturt University Murray Conservatorium of Music, a bequest that remains the largest cash donation to the Arts in Albury. In the late 1960s, Noel became the lawyer for Arthur Newnham, the ABC radio 2CO announcer who called on cars to go to the Albury Racecourse to illuminate a landing strip for the Uiver. As a result of this connection, Noel has in recent years developed a keen interest in the Uiver, an interest that has led to him securing major donations of Uiver-related objects for the Albury LibraryMuseum, and with others, to ensure that Albury’s memorial DC-2 Uiver remained in Albury for restoration here. Noel successfully advocated for the Uiver collection at the LibraryMuseum to be nominated for heritage listing and in August 2017 it was added to the Hetitage Register of the State of New South Wales.
Noel is a retired lawyer who has also worked as a University-based instructional designer.
President’s Message
If you go onto the Club’s facebook page you will see that there have been several posts from Club Members Rod & Kellie with this year’s “Paying it Forward” team. It looks like they have all settled in well with their Fijian Village on one of the Yasawa Islands where they are helping with the re-painting of some of the community buildings.
Last week I talked about the meeting with Stuart Gordon Landscaping and Albury City to discuss the plans for a memorial area at Brown’s Lagoon. This week I will be talking about the fact that it is done. PP Dennis has been keeping a close eye on the proceeding this week sending us a photo of the completed project on Friday. We are planning to have our last meeting of the year at the site so we can all get a good look at it and early in the new year we will arrange the placing of a plaque. A big thank you to all those involved but especially PP Dennis for his drive on this project, Peter Lee for arranging the funds from Foundation and Albury City for their grant of $6,500.
President’s Message
This week myself, Roger Lescun and Dennis Martin met with representatives of Albury City Council and Stuart Gordon Landscaping at Brown’s Lagoon to discuss the Rotary Memorial area to be developed there. With the passing of Rob Burns and Derek Beveridge this year I can’t think of a better year for this project to be completed. The Club received a lovely note this week from Derek’s wife thanking us for our contribution to Derek’s service. I’m hoping that the plague will be placed early in the New Year. This project commenced back under the Presidency of Dennis and has been funded by way of a grant from Albury City Council, lots of sausages sold by you guys and a grant from Foundation. Talking of Foundation (as it is still Foundation month for another week) .. this week Alice Glachin came to the Club meeting with a $100 to be donated to Foundation. Alice and Nick keep a tin at the counter of Beacon Lighting and the $100 has come from loose change being contributed to the tin. Simple idea and one that benefits all. Remember that 50% of all funds donated to Foundation come back as grants to our Club. Recently we have benefitted with a contribution to the Brown’s Lagoon Memorial Area and funds for our River of Stories project.
Guest Speaker
Guest speakers will be Julie Amos (General Manager and Co CEO) and Lyn Wallis (Artistic Director and Co CEO) of Hothouse Theatre spoke to us about what is coming up in the 2018 season. Hothouse Theatre has recently celebrated their 20th year of bringing original Australian works here to the Border for our enjoyment and they have eight shows booked in for 2018 including 2 shows suitable for the kids (in my case the grand kids). We are lucky to have such a theatre company in our area and I’m proud to say that I have been a regular subscriber since moving to the area in 2001.