🎄✨ As we celebrate this festive season, Southern Mitchell Rotary extends warm wishes of joy, peace, and togetherness to our incredible community. Thank you for your ongoing support, which empowers us to make a positive impact locally and globally. May your holiday season be filled with love and laughter, and may the New Year bring exciting opportunities and continued success. Let’s work together to create an even brighter future in 2025!
Please go to www.rcsm.org.au/invitation and seek an invitation to visit us at Trackside. We would be delighted to have your company.
President Elizabeth of Southern Mitchell Rotary welcomes you to our online information centre.
DECEMBER IS ROTARY DISEASE PREVENTION & TREATMENT FOCUS MONTH
This month, Rotary highlights our mission to reduce suffering and improve health worldwide. Through partnerships, medical support, and community education, we’re committed to combating preventable diseases and providing access to quality healthcare. From vaccine distribution to supporting healthcare workers, Rotary members are working to build a healthier, more resilient world. Join us in the fight for health and wellness for all!
🌟 WELCOME TO OUR ROTARY FAMILY, JANET BELL! 🌟
We are thrilled to welcome Janet Bell as the newest member of Southern Mitchell Rotary!
Janet brings a wealth of experience, a passion for service, and a heart for making a difference in our community. We can't wait to see the incredible contributions she'll make as we work together to create positive change. Please join us in giving Janet a warm Rotary welcome! 💙
11-12-2024
YOU WILL NEVER BE BORED AT ROTARY!
Looking for excitement, purpose, and new friendships? Rotary has it all! From hands-on service projects and inspiring guest speakers to fun events and global travel opportunities, every day brings something new. 🌍✨
Rotary members are people of action, making an impact in their communities and around the world. When you join, you’re not just signing up for meetings—you’re diving into a world of meaningful experiences, lifelong learning, and joy. 💪💙 Ready to never be bored again? Join us and see for yourself!
RESPONSIBILITY: All of us!
Southern Mitchell Rotary is actively working to promote
peace and prevent conflicts, including addressing domestic
violence. By supporting local organisations and raising awareness, we can create a safer society. Join forces with Rotary to combat domestic violence and stand up against it in all forms. Together, we can make a difference and ensure everyone has the right to live free from fear and harm.
RESPONSIBILITY: Southern Mitchell Rotary Board
Through the Indigenous Health Scholarships, Australian
Rotary Health is supporting the next generation of
Indigenous health care providers to achieve an education that
will help them assist their communities. Each student enrolled in the program is provided with a $5,000 scholarship. The Indigenous Health Scholarship program is a collaborative project between Australian Rotary Health, participating Rotary Clubs, and State and Commonwealth Governments.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Peter Appleton
This Rotary project to create an Arboretum on 10 acres near Kilmore with an Analemmatic Sundial has been ticking away in the background since 2020.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Andrea Willis
Southern Mitchell Rotary has been involved with presenting the Kilmore Art Expo along with the Kilmore Art Society for some 17 years. This activity provides a means for local artists to display their creations and our local community to enjoy the event and purchase those creations.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Ian Dempsey
Bees are facing serious challenges due to environmental pressures, which threaten not only their survival but also the health of ecosystems and agriculture. Bees are crucial to pollination, which supports food crops and biodiversity. Protecting them means more than saving individual species. It’s about maintaining the balance of entire ecosystems. Efforts like reducing pesticide, supporting local pollinator-friendly planting, and practising sustainable farming can help bees recover/thrive.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Rose King
A small team of high achievers from Rotary source grants and donations to make this annual event virtually free, plan and co-ordinate all the activity and put in the hard yards on the day.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Ian Dempsey
This Beuhne Memorial is located near the roundabout
just north of Kilmore on the Northern Highway.
Frederick Beuhne (pronounced Boyner) was a very early pioneer of the Victorian/Australian beekeeping industry.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Rose King
Busking in Kilmore has developed a life of its own and
continues to grow. It is a wonderful street event that brings
a lot of colour and energy. It is always held on the Saturday of
the Art Expo and apart from providing entertainment, it provides opportunities for budding entertainers.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Lisa Kyllo
We collect clean small plastic lids and take them to
Victorian recycling plants. Any funds raised are returned
to the Shire in community projects. Please drop off your
clean small plastic lids, metal pull tabs and beer bottle tops at the Rotary Recycle Shop in Kilmore or at the stall at the Wallan Market. Medicine blister packs can be dropped off at all Chemist Warehouse stores. Anything smaller than a credit card automatically goes straight to landfill!
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Angelina Cirelli-Salomone
Rotary Youth Exchange RYE is a program that was
created to connect youth from all different countries,
cultures and backgrounds. The program offers students, an
opportunity to spend up to one year studying abroad and living with a host family. By participating in the RYE program, young people are able to learn and experience another culture, language and way of life.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Peter Lee
We are advised there are a number of people in our
community waiting for a Guide Dog. We want to share the
call for volunteers to care for puppies for their first 12 months,
with all expenses covered by Guide Dogs, Vic.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Angelina Cirelli-Salomone
Established in memory of a former club member, the
bursary reflects the club's commitment to helping those in
need and empowering the next generation of leaders. The
bursary offers significant financial assistance, helping to cover the costs of books, tuition & other educational expenses. This assistance enables the students to focus on their studies and achieve their goals, no matter their financial circumstances.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Rose King
If things are a bit tough for you at the moment,
Rotary is here to help. Rotary Free Laundry at:
Wallan Wash laundry
3/69 High St Wallan Service by phone Friday 10am-1pm.
Laundry Lounge
41 High St, Wallan. Volunteers on hand - Wed 9am-12 noon.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Rose King
This program is now underway. Nexus are very
pleased with outcomes to date and will be conducting
an evaluation early 2025.
Being funded by proceeds from the Rotary Recycle Op Shop.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Kit Holland/Ian Dempsey
We are committed to supporting disadvantaged people in
our community, as well as promoting environmentally
sustainable principles of recycling and reuse of materials.
Our “Rotary Recycling Op Shop” volunteers are a key ingredient to our success, and we thank every one of them for their total commitment and dedication.
84 Sydney Street, Kilmore.
Open 9.30-3.00 Mon to Fri and 9.30-12.30 Sat.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Paul Lloyd
This project is designed to support 1,100 Primary School
children and their teachers at St. Vincent’s Primary School
in Southern Madagascar. The area has suffered six years of
successive drought in addition to Covid-19 which is forcing families in rural communities to resort to desperate measures to survive. Donations will be used to provide food, clean drinking water, medicine and school equipment to help parents keep their children fed and to stay at school.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Roger Morgan
It is only 50-60 years ago when Iron Lungs were widely
used to help Polio victims stay alive. Rotary has been
working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years. Our goal
of ridding the world of this disease is closer than ever. As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we've reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Kit Holland
We are always on the watch for playgrounds that are to
about to be dismantled in readiness for new equipment
to be installed. If you become aware of this happening,
please let us know so we can save the equipment from landfill.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Angelina Cirelli-Salomone
RYLA is a program that provides an opportunity for
young people to develop their leadership and
communication kills. It focuses on teaching how
to use teamwork, problem-solving, communication and critical thinking to become better leaders. This is designed to help young people become more aware of the impact their actions can have on the world around them.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Kit Holland/Ian Dempsey
Southern Mitchell Rotary is assisting with the funding
of these programs to help ensure students are not deprived
of an education due to hunger. Participating schools to date
are Kilmore Primary, Wallan Secondary and Broadford Secondary.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Rose King
Rotary Recycle Op Shop makes available $50 vouchers
for children’s school and sporting shoes. The vouchers are
redeemable at Kilmore’s Booteek Shoes who have kindly
offered a 10% discount on all shoes purchased with a voucher.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Ian Dempsey
We have chosen to work in a large area feeding the
creeks that flow into the Goulburn River and eventually
into the Murray River. In normal conditions, thirty (30)
tonnes of salt per square kilometre leaves this area annually. Since the inception of this project 23 years ago, over 123,000 native trees have been planted on bare hilltops and other areas within the district.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Rose King
We have introduced Well-Being Wagons. These little garden wagons are filled with activities such as colouring pencils, books, jigsaws, games, balls etc. Each school receives two wagons, age based. One for ages 5 to 8 and the other, nine till 12. These will be used during playtime and lunchtime for children that find themselves sitting alone with no friends. Schools are Kilmore Primary and Beveridge Primary.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarian Roseanne Whitten
A small team of high achievers from Southern Mitchell
Rotary source grants and donations to make the annual
Broadford Seniors Christmas Luncheon free to all attendees.
They then plan and co-ordinate all the activity and put in the hard yards on the day to make it happen.
RESPONSIBILITY: Rotarians - All of us!
Rotarians treat everybody with kindness, no matter who you are or where you come from. It's like a big family of friendly folks just trying to make the world a better place. Whether it's helping out at a local laundromat for the needy, organising a charity event, or simply lending an ear for someone who needs to talk, Rotarians are always there to spread positivity and show some love and kindness to all.
