Roger took charge of our meeting and welcomed our Guest Speakers as well as Honorary Member Jan, Kath (hopefully being inducted next Tuesday morning), Michele (RC Five Dock, Sydney) and two of President Bernie's grand-daughters Holly & April.
 
He then introduced himself and his vocation as an Architect giving some background on his calling and telling us about igloos.
 
President Bernie made some announcements:
 
  • She is hoping we can make-up a team to enter the Mooloolaba Rotary's Walk for Mental Health on 14 October
  • There is a garage sale on 15 December for which goods and volunteers are wanted but not money
  • Alan Bethune is looking after RYDA in Merv's absence
  • A Movie Night to see Bohemian Rhapsody is being planned
  • A morning tea for Norm is likely soon
Our guest speakers were Rae Smart and Stuart Mason from RC Noosa Heads who spoke about their SpaTap Portable Tap project which aims to provide water saving and dispensing technology that can be installed and maintained by five year-old children.  SpaTap is committed to bringing the best personal and communal washing experience to children, adults, schools, campers, outdoor enthusiasts, WASH professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative SpaTap ultralight portable, pocket-sized, tap & shower system. SpaTap can be used as a personal tap or communally.
 
The SpaTap's water saving feature transforms a 1.5-litre bottle of water into 67 handwashes with soap or a 15 minute shower.  This is perfect for installing outside a toilet block.
 
Click here to see the video on YouTube
 
The project's aim is to "End Hygiene Poverty" worldwide, one country at a time. The intent is to scale the project across the South Pacific first in order to eliminate easily preventable communicable diseases by raising communities out of hygiene poverty. Through RAWCS a classroom of 30 children can be made hygienic for just AU$10, And this will last for many years!
To give you some idea of the problem, some of the schools we work with have 1000 children and 1 tap or no taps, this ratio is commonplace across PNG, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and other South Pacific Nations.
 
There are enormous social economic and health benefits to creating the handwashing habit.
 
Here are some links:
 
SPATAP WEBSITE: spatap.com/humanitarian
INFO FOLDER: goo.gl/pnYRQ1
 
A very interesting talk that captured the interest of several members.
 
There were a few minutes left for our stand-in Sergeant who had so much material that he was forced to keep some in store for next week!
 
PS Roger is very shy so we will need to remember to bring our camera next time he takes the Chair - for photos of the esteemed architect as well those casual shots around our meeting!