hout bay helps haiti

What a great response!

Within 24 hours of a request by DG Mike Saxby of District 9350, Rotary Club of Hout Bay had met the challenge of raising funds for Rotary International's call for Shelter Boxes in Haiti following the devastating earthquake that claimed the lives of over 200,000 people, injured and traumatised countless thousands and made homeless some 1.5m persons.

Well done to president Joe for moving so fast on the issue, thank you to all the club members who donated and most of all, thank you to Rainer Jahn who made up the R3,500 odd needed to make what must have been one of the first pledges to reach DG Mike Saxby. 

As the largest service organisation of its kind in the world, Rotary has the infrastructure to quickly respond to disasters and Shelterbox, a Global Rotary Club project, was among the first to respond to the humanitarian crisis.  A Shelterbox management team arrived in Haiti last Friday and by now some 2,000 Shelterboxes are deployed.  pics New York Daily News

 

One Shelterbox costs R8 000 and provides emergency accommodation for an extended family of up to 10 people with a tent and essential equipment to use while they are displaced or homeless.  In Southern Africa, Shelterboxes were most recently deployed in response the 2009 earthquake and floods in, respectively, Malawi and Namibia.

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ANOTHER SHOW, ANOTHER TOWN !  (Mother Russia comes to Hout Bay)

Rotary had a great meeting produced at 4-hours notice by Colin Sutherland following the mysterious and possibly final disappearance of Andre Jacobs, scheduled on our weekly speaker billings. Well-known as a tap and dance showman, Colin did his second act on short notice in as many weeks.

 

This time he was billed as "Banking in Russia" which he managed to weave as such, giving us all an amazing look at life in Russia in the early 'nineties whilst he served as a consultant in Mongolia, Khazhkstan and various portions areas in that mysterious middle zone of Asia/Russia/Europe.

 

Above is an example of a part-retirement programme to keep welfare monies coming into households - an over-60-year  woman cleans ice off roads in Novosbirsk. In South Africa they also give such welfare but don't seem to get anything back for it.

 

On the right is Colin's bank where he consulted for a while, the National Bank of Ukraine, with its strange, baroque frontage but no central heating! The Federal Reserve Bank in the USA employs some 16,500 people whilst this bank employed 73,000 - another example perhaps of what SA is trying to do.

 

Below is the similarly rather strange assortment of food on the menu at the local market in Kazakhstan, which Colin's wife, Dagmar, had to chose between for the evening meal.

Thank you Colin for the interesting talk at short notice. This coming week your editor, Patrick McLaughlin, will try and be as half as entertaining with a talk on the business of parliamentary reporting in South Africa, perhaps a subject as equally mystifying as outer Mongolia to most Rotarians.

 

 

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Future Talk:-

On 23^rd February we have as our guest speaker award winning Author and Journalist Tim Butcher.

Pres Joe says he will circulate more details on Tim nearer the date but in the mean time the website for his book ‘Blood River’ can be  found at www.bloodriver.co.uk.

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Sponsorship needed for Bursary Applicant, an urgent appeal

from Fedde Renkema  

 

 

We received an application from  Tombani ( better known as Pitchou, the car guard).  Pitchou has official status as a Refugee from CongoDRC.   He has a bachelor’s degree from Congo but his academic papers are not recognized in SA.  He now has a letter of admission for a Honours degree in Social Science at UCT (1 year program). 

The course fees are R21,000, but he has savings of only R6,000 and is applying for a grant of R15,000.  He has excellent references.  For years he has been the unpaid supervisor/spokesman/manager of the Area Marshals (the car guards with the red bibs) and the Coordinator Miked Rigg is extremely positive about him (“very reliable, good leader, interested in studying).

The VocServ Committee will interview him on 26 January.  However, our Bursary Scheme requires that 1 or 2 Rotarians endorse his application and are becoming co-sponsor, contributing R5,000 while the remaining R10,000 would come from Club funds.

The Vocational Committee urgently appeals to club members to consider becoming Pitchou’s sponsor.  The registration for the course is already next week.

Please contact Fedde for further details.

ARGUS CYCLE    TOUR 2010

 

The 2010 cycle tour will take place on Sunday March 14^th.

 

We will need 63 marshals and we have secured some already from South African Figure Skaters and Helderberg Sunrise Rotary Club.

Whilst not everyone will agree that our Club is well rewarded the contribution to our Club Funds is substantial and your support is needed.  The more we have to farm out the less we will earn.

Please don’t make holiday bookings to coincide with the day,  if there special reasons for decreased activity let me know and we will accommodate you.  

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This year is special as it will be the 25^th year that Hout Bay Rotary has marshalled the Argus, so lets be positive and make the day good fun.  We appear to have some budding actors who enjoy fancy dress – why not get dressed up for the Argus Day and give everyone something to smile about.