am excited to see what we

can do with this balance and

diversity. Come join us - the

rest of 2014/15 Club year will

be a great thing to be a part

of!!!

Mark Hams-Club President

With so many events hap-pening in the Rotaract and Rotary circles that we move in, I thought it an appropriate time to have a go at an E-newsletter. We will pilot this as a way of keeping everyone updated with our movements and what we have coming around the corner. Let me know how we go – what you liked, what you believe we missed – your feedback will be welcomed with open arms With a quiet start to the Ro-

taract year the ball has well

and truly been rolling in the

past few month with a taste

of what we have been up to

in the following pages. A

number of us had the oppor-

tunity to attend the Rotary

International Conference in

Sydney in May. At the Con-

ference RI President Gary

Huang challenged each of us

to Light up Rotary. I am

pleased to say that the flame

is burning strongly at Rota-

ract South Brisbane with

some fresh faces in regular

attendance. The highlight

for me is the diversity of the

country of origin of these

fresh faces and the move-

ment back towards gender

balance within our club. As a

graduate with a degree in

Engineering being sur-

rounded by women for the

last couple of years has been

a welcome change but I think

there is benefit in balance. I

The annual Billycart Champion-

ship was organized by the Rotary

clubs of Carindale, Balmoral and

Port of Brisbane, who called out

for volunteers, and who is best at

helping Rotarians other than the

South Brisbane Rotaractors, we

divided ourselves into two

groups, a morning shift and an

afternoon one. Our help was

needed in two areas, putting the

carts on the start line and helping

the little kids when they crash

and restacking the hay. It was a

long day but it was so much fun,

plus we were on TV, Although it

was only Kerryn and Billy’s

shorts but it still counts.

President’s Editorial

I N S I D E T H I S

I S S U E :

Brisbane Billycart

Championship

1

Calling All Fans Of

Country Music And

Rotaractors

2

Artists Needed –

No Experience/

Talent Required

2

Lending A Hand

For Children In

Need

3

A Halloween Curse 3

About Us 4

Meet Our Board 4

Brisbane Billycart Championship

South Brisbane in Action N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4 V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1

P A G E 2

South Brisbane Rotarac-

tors with DG Phillip

Artists Needed – No Experience/Talent Required

Calling All Fans Of Country Music And Rotaractors

It was the combined effect of having a couple of won-derful contacts at the Ro-tary Clubs of Booval and Ipswich through RYLA, and seeing how much fun our friends from Rotaract South West Brisbane had at the Gympie Country Music Festival that drew us to put up our hand to help out at the Rotary Club of Booval’s 2nd Annual Coun-try Music Festival. Six of our members made the trip out to Swifts Sports Fields at Yamanto for the event. While none of our members claimed to be huge fans of the genre of country music the atmos-phere made it easy to set-

tle into the groove for the afternoon. The Rotarians of Booval and Ipswich had everything under control when we arrived so we were happy take the op-portunity to catch up with District Governor Phillip and Marlene while ensuring that the bar had drinks for the afternoon at an appro-priate temperature. Soon enough we were

commandeered into look-

ing after the Children's

Farm Race where I think

the adults had more fun

than the kids. Following

that the group moved onto

the positions of chief adju-

dicator, administrator and

measuring team in the

Gumboot Throwing Com-

petition where 2 of our

members Billy Nabil and

Mark Hams could only find

it in them to place 2nd and

3rd consecutively – surely a

reason to return next year

to better these results. The

standout of the day was

Anthony Liu’s raffle ticket

selling where after a solo 5

hours shift he was able to

raise over $300. Great job

Anthony and we look for-

ward to coming back next

year. A big thank you to

Phil Gray from the Rotary

Club of Booval for the Invi-

tation

bit rusty, but after about 50

batmans, spidermans, butter-

flies and dragons, it was a piece

of cake. Nevertheless the kids

were very happy with what-

ever they had on their faces

Our Sponsor Rotary club was

organizing their annual special

children’s picnic, and this year

they had more than 300

little children with spe-

cial needs, they organ-

ized lots of fun activities

for them, but the main

events were getting to

ride an army car, and

the face painting which

was the responsibility of

the Rotaract club of

South Brisbane. In the

beginning our talent

was… well lets call it a

Kate and

Claudia,

our great

artists

S O U T H B R I S B A N E I N A C T I O N

Lending A Hand For Children In Need

P A G E 3 V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1

The first Saturday in November saw our Rotaractors up bright and early before we all arrived at a strange warehouse in the sleepy streets of Yeronga. On our way through the front door we passed a sign which read “Through these doors walk some of the world’s greatest volunteers” and then another showing a geographical repre-sentation of where the little boxes were to be shipped to

Children in need. The warm and fuzzy feeling had started to flow through us all and we got stuck in without a mo-ment’s hesitation

We were off course helping out Samaritans Purse with their annual mission to pack shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. The Brisbane Warehouse processes over 50,000 each year and the organisation re-quires assistance from volun-teer’s to check the contents of each box before they are con-tainerised and shipped off to around 6 countries in the Pa-cific Islands and South East

Asia. These boxes are filled with toys, stationary and hy-giene items and are often the only Christmas gifts received by the children who they are dis-tributed to. It was a great morning being able to get hands on with this project in our local area. After-wards we adjourned to one of our members houses for swim and a BBQ. It was defi-nitely a great start to a weekend – for more info or to volunteer operationchristmaschild.org.au

After donations were com-

pleted we continued to Verve

Restaurant where the remain-

der of the group joined us for a

fantastic dinner of Pizzas, Pas-

tas and other assorted Italian

fare. While a few of us were

keen to kick on afterwards, it

was a school night so we called

it with a busy Rotaract week-

end ahead with Logan Rota-

ract’s Smart Pups Dinner, Op-

eration Christmas Child and our

Dinner with a Difference in the

days following. Looking for-

ward to our District Christmas

Party Camping Weekend in a

few weeks’ time

The month of October was kind enough to give us five Thurs-days – a good excuse for a so-cial night. A Blood Drive had been on the cards for a few months and this was a great opportunity for those happy to donate to get together as a group before we met for din-ner. Truth be told from 6 will-ing donors, only 3 were able to successfully complete a dona-tion. The remainder were un-able to donate due to a number of reasons – those question-naires are getting stricter year on year but hey, our hearts were in the right place.

South Bris-

bane Rota-

ractors

after pack-

ing

A Halloween Curse

Sponsored by the Rotary club of South Brisbane

PO Box 7111 East Brisbane QLD 4169

The Rotaract Club of South Brisbane is a group of

young people aged 18-30 who are interested in mak-

ing a difference.

We meet fortnightly in Woolloongabba, and work

on local and international community projects

through fundraising, service and social events.

Want to join us? Come along to one of our meet-

ings! Anyone is welcome!

When: The second and fourth Thursday of the

month

Time: 6:30pm

Where: Rotaract South Brisbane Headquarters:

Woolloongabba Rotary Hall – Upstairs, 22 Qual-

trough St, Woolloongabba

Rotaract Club of South Brisbane

Meet Our Board

Website: www.rotaractsouthbrisbane.org.au

Facebook: facebook.com/rotaractsouthbrisbane

President: Mark Hams 0434 587 224

Vice President: Craig Brennan 0431 279 937

Secretary: Pahia Cooper 0427 425 058

Treasurer: Jessica Shaw 0421 969 188

Mark Hams

President

Craig Brennan

Vice President

Pahia Cooper

Secretary

Jessica Shaw

Treasurer

Alisha Radford

District

Kerryn Gresty

International Director

John Keys

Club Director

Phoebe Thompson

Professional Development

Ahmed Nabil

Communications Director

Fiona Walpole

Community Director