Rotary Club of Buderim - International Service Report

July 2008 – June 2009
The plan adopted by this year's Committee has been to focus particularly on fund-raising for the Rotarians Against Malaria "Adopt-a-Village” project for provision of long-life insecticidal- treated mosquito nets- and the outcome was very productive.

We started by supplying every Club Member with a -village house money-box with which to collect the sort of loose change that often comes out of our pockets and accumulates near where the car keys get left at home. At the end of each month we invited Members to bring in to the Meeting any contributions that they might have gathered that way. and we prepared two "village huts” to allow Members to watch progress with these collections. The idea was to add a new thatch panel to a hut to coincide with each $100 raised. Some Members even went to the extent of placing these money-boxes on shop counters.

It was heartwarming to watch as each hut was progressively protected as a physical analogy for the protection from malaria that the mosquito nets provide. The Committee had hopes of raising $100 each month to generate $2000 funds in this fashion, though that was a "stretch” goal given such an enthusiastic response to a similar fund-raising initiative last Year. The goal was exceeded in fact and the huts were both fully paneled before the end of June! As it turned out, the total to the end of June exceeded the $1,000 goal illustrating the power of small change!

Our second approach to mosquito-net fund-raising was to plan and conduct an International Theme Night with the aim of generating money for protecting five whole villages, We were pleased to have the Rotary Club of Woombve Sunrise partner with us in the venture, which was held early in May_ The night was composed of a variety of international food and dance and we were helped in a big way with the development of the Function. by the very generous assistance of Sole Paez, a previous President of the annual Festuri Festival held at the University.

Woombye Sunrise co-coordinated the preparation and service of a marvelous variety of international food and also organized a very successful Raffle. Professor Dennis Shanks. Director of the Australian Arm'. Malaria institute. attended as a world authority guest speaker and a broad variety of international dance was presented for guests.

All in all the night was enjoyable and successful, with Rotarians and friends from far and wide filling more than.100 seats. The final result was a gratifying outcome for the two Clubs, and even more so of course for the final recipients of the Project.

A highlight of the Club this year occurred in March with a visit from the incoming GSE Team for a few days. From New Zealand, the Team of professionals was a real pleasure to host and to socialize with. A dinner with them at Past President Bob's home was simply a great night! The Team's presentation to the Club that week was enormously interesting and appreciated by all in attendance. We are confident that they also enjoyed their time with us.

As a post-script, it was pleasing to discover that the Shelter Boxes that our Club raised funds for last year were deployed to great humanitarian use in Pakistan and Burma.

A summary of the Year for the International Committee would be we had fun, We raised funds and we made a difference.

Laurence O'Keefe
International Director

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