Guest Speaker

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Our speaker Xavier Mardling, Editor of the Border Mail. The BM is 115 years old and has a rich history in the landscape of Australian print media. An interesting quote from Xavier was “if you receive a call asking you to put something in the paper, then that’s advertising. If you are asked to keep something out of the paper, then it’s news”. Xavier made the point that in the early 20th century, newspapers were rocked by the invention of the telegraph, which was widely believed would spell doom for the print media as news would become immediately available. Just as this didn’t occur, Xavier believes that the rise of online platforms is actually an opportunity for media and in particular, local media organisations such as the BM. This is because people always want to know what’s going on in their local community and more importantly, deserve to be able to find out. In the end, Xavier was adamant that journalists should report the facts and nothing more. “If a person calls up to say it’s raining and another calls up to say it’s sunny, then look out the window and find out for yourself”.

President’s Message

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Our speaker last week was Jill Ramsey, President of the Rotary Club of Eltham. Her subject was the Aquabox project. The first time I became aware of this great project was at the Yarrawonga Conference last year. Basically, it’s a first response service that aims to help people source drinking water in times of disaster such as flood, fire or earthquake.

Victims of natural disasters are given a box that contains a hammer, nails, bucket, sieve (to strain water), carbon filter, tap and chlorine tablets. The box itself is converted into a receptacle for water, which enables people to produce up to 2,000 litres of fresh water. When no longer needed for water, the box can then be used for other things such as storage or even as a table or chair. Worldwide, there are three clubs that participate in this project. So far, the Rotary Club of Eltham has delivered $925,000 worth of Aquaboxes to people in need. What a great project this is!

Guest Speakers

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Guest speakers were from the Rotary Club of Albury North, with the topic being “The Drought”. Roger Paterson, Bill MacDonald and Andrew Hore all made passionate speeches which were personal and factual accounts of the effects that drought is having on their lives. Despite the fact that we have had good rain over the past few weeks, we are a long way from things being ok. Roger told us that his farm has been in the family for 97 years and that this is the worst drought ever. A telling sign of the drought is the fact that their main dam is 12 metres deep when full. At the moment, it is down to 1/2 metre deep.

He spoke of hidden costs associated with the drought, which include cartage and pumping of water. For example, the strain on Rotary Club of Albury Hume

District 9790      pumps is immense, so the family needs to have multiple pumps to prepare for the almost certain scenario that one will fail at an inopportune time. Overall, the drought has cost over $180,000 in lost income in the past year. Adding to this is the fact that costs have risen in excess of $300,000 over the same period of time. Roger told us that planning for drought is an important part of running a farm. However, this drought is off the charts and no amount of planning could take into consideration the severity of this particular event.

Bill went on to tell us that his family originally took possession of the property in 1863. There is a spring on their farm that feeds Sweetwater Creek, which is currently dry. The only other time that this has happened was in 1916. He also told us that there is an old farm saying that if the rabbits are breeding, then there’s a good year ahead. The rabbits aren’t breeding this year, which is a strong indicator that things aren’t looking good for the upcoming season. Andrew made the point that mental fatigue is an everyday reality of dealing with drought. Just like humans need more than one feed a day, animals need proper feeding routines. This means that Andrew and his family need to be out and about feeding stock seven days a week. There are no days off to rest and recuperate. This can lead on to mental health issues as farmers struggle with the realities of the worst drought on record. Let’s do all we can to look after our farmers, because without them, we wouldn’t hav

Guest Speaker

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Dr Gus Kigotho was our guest speaker. Gus is Director of Emergency Services for Albury Hospital. He took time out of his very busy day to speak to our club. Gus was very complimentary about how Rotarians give their time for service to the community. He was born in Kenya a few years before independence and started primary school in 1964. He walked 10kms to and from school every day and was one of only a few students lucky enough to own shoes. After 7 years, he was accepted into an excellent high school, which was a great opportunity for him to get on in life. Early on, Gus was appointed school timekeeper and this helped him to develop superior time management skills. He was always a highly competitive person and sport was something he was naturally drawn to. It was here that he learnt the importance of being well prepared, although he also learnt that even the most well prepared person can be beaten by a better person and that there is no shame in this. Eventually, Gus was made Captain of the School Athletics team, leading to him recognising the importance of leadership. Practice, more practice and endurance are important elements of competition and if you want something, you have to search for it and be prepared to take risks

After 6th form, he was accepted into Medical School. This was the start of the journey which ultimately led to him moving to Australia. After completing Medical School, he worked in a regional hospital for 2 years before starting his own general practice, which he continued in for 7 years. He decided to apply for a job in Australia, for which there were over 1,600 applicants. He got the job, although needed to do more training, which took a total of 9 years. His underlying mantra is never complain – never explain – just do. As part of his leadership journey, Gus realised that failure is a form of feedback, which needs to be embraced in order to experience self-improvement.

President’s Message

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Our speaker last week was Lauriston Muirhead. His talk was about climate change caused by humans. He told us that there is no doubt that there has been natural climate change over the history of the earth. However, this has accelerated since the industrial revolution and in particular since 1900. Fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas are formed from plants etc that die and decompose. As part of this process, CO2 is stored. When we take these resources out of the ground and use them, the CO2 is released into the atmosphere. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, meaning that the net result is that temperatures rise. There is no doubt that this can also occur due to natural reasons. The issue is that they CO2 is currently being released at such a fast rate that the earth is no longer coping. We know that CO2 levels are increasing because we can take ice core samples that contain bubbles. We can then measure the amount of CO2 in these bubbles and map them against the era in which they were formed. Increasing amounts of CO2 result in:

  1. Melting snow and ice with the attendant increase of sea levels
  2. Longer droughts
  3. More intense bushfires
  4. More intense rainfall events that occur less frequently
  5. More energy from CO2 results in weather systems becoming more powerful i.e stronger winds, hotter sun, different rainfall patterns etc

To help fix this, we need to:

  1. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
  2. Increase non-carbon energy alternatives
  3. Contain population growth
  4. Extract carbon from the atmosphere by planting more trees and similar activities
  5. Climate engineering.

There are moral and risk management issues with dealing with this problem. Lauriston was adamant that it’s time to act!