Good morning fellow Rotarians,
 
Thank you for another great attendance at last Tuesday's meeting.  It's always that little bit more difficult on cold winter's morning like this.  Special mention must go to Graham Baker, who made it, despite his alarm waking him at 630am, well done, Graham.
 
Continuing with our segment, "Three Minutes on Me", our resident 'figures man', Mark Ward was thrown into the spotlight.  Mark provided us with an interesting perspective of his life, starting from now and going back in time.  Mark has spent a lot of his working life in the Airline Business, both in Perth and Vanuatu, then as we know him best, has been CFO of our home grown earthworks company, Tenkate.  Mark has now "semi" retired and promises to keep up his 'touch typing' skills on his time off.
It must have been too cold for our rostered Guest Speaker, who was a no-show.  Instead, we heard from Merv's driver/wife, Anne Paddison who spoke about her involvement with Inner Wheel.  Thank you Anne for your very informative and impromptu speech.
 
Not to be outdone, the male contingent of the Club was represented by Alan Bethune, who was kind enough to give us an impromptu talk about the Men's Shed - Alan has been so instrumental in making into the success it now is.  Thank you Alan.
 
We say goodbye to Gerry for six weeks, while he heads north to Darwin to thaw out for awhile.  In that time, Chris has taken over the reins of the Bunnings BBQ's - our Club has been lucky enough to secure a Sunday time slot on August 6. We are extremely fortunate to be given the opportunity.  No doubt it will be a very busy day with lots of bread, snags and onions being sold.  Being on a weekend, this is a great chance for those Club Members who work during the week, to come and lend a hand at the BBQ.  Keep an eye out for the roster, and I look forward to seeing you there.
 
Congratulations to Neville and his team who we have been informed, have the best RYDA program in the whole of Australia.  Well done team !
 
It was great to have enough time to sneak in a Sergeant's Session.  Deb, you do a great job keeping everyone honest.  Keep up the good work !
 
You will find attached a copy - click here - of the article I read regarding the plight of farmers, and how a combination of the fickleness of the weather and the ruthlessness of the banks, contribute to unnecessarily high amounts of mental health problems and in particular, suicides.
 
I'd ask you to please read the article even if you were present at the meeting.  A warning, some of you may find the contents confronting.  This is the area that I am most passionate about, and want to Make A Difference in my year with fundraising.  I hope you believe as strongly as me, Let's Make A Difference, together.