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We had no meeting last week as we had the pleasure of doing a make-up at the Bowral/Mittagong meeting on Tuesday evening. This combined meeting made it a little easier for the District Governor, Margaret Hassall, to visit the Southern Highlands clubs and have a chat with the respective Boards and members. This week was a club meeting as our potential speaker was unavailable. The turnout wasn’t huge for a variety of good reasons, but we made up for lack of numbers with the quality of the attendees. There was some discussion about the variety of possible fundraising events that our Fundraising & Events Committee has put together, and it was agreed that we should focus on just one major event this year. It is likely that this will be a Where’s Wally Car Rally in the first quarter of 2018. More details on this event will be forthcoming in due course. We also touched on the subject of attracting new members to the club and the question was raised as to whether we should be more aggressive in our promotion of the benefits of joining, even if that cost the club some money. There were mixed views on this subject and it was agreed to leave the matter in abeyance until Barry Barford is back from his trip as he has some strong views on this. In the meantime, we will still use our presence at a variety of events around the traps as a means of promoting Rotary and the Berrima District Club in particular. A recent example of this was the stand that Lyndall and Melissa had organised at the Relay for Life which attracted a good level of interest. Finally we spoke a lot more about Mental Health First Aid. As you know, this program has a lot of parallels to physical First Aid as it enables all of us to better recognise the early signs of a problem and then have some informed ideas how to deal with those problems until professional help is available. As such, it does not compete with the various excellent programs out there which offer direct assistance to sufferers rather than to their family and friends. I think it is incumbent on Rotary to make the local community more aware of the benefits of MHFA and to provide the means whereby community members can learn more about it. To that end, we have obtained a short video on the subject and provided it to the Empire Cinema so they can air it prior to the showing of Bohemian Rhapsody on the 1st of November. We are also working with 2ST and the staff of MHFA to come up with some short conversation grabs for the radio that will spread the word on the program. Finally, we hope to develop a number of seminars that we can refer interested locals to for them to learn more about the benefits in gaining proficiency in mental health first aid. Due to our movie night on the 1st November, and Dream Cricket last Friday, there will be no formal meeting at the Bowling Club this week.
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