Thank you for visiting Rotary Albert Park's website.
Rotary Albert Park (part of Rotary International) is a group of neighbours, friends, and community leaders providing humanitarian service, encouraging high ethical standards in all pursuits and helping build goodwill and peace locally and worldwide. Our club was established in 1992 and has a long history of service. We have a membership of about 40 with a 50:50 gender balance.
Join us for Dinner where we can introduce you to the Club & its members, and answer any questions you may have about membership. For more information, click (here)
Thanks SDI Australia
SDI Australia just sent us this incredible box of filling materials, bonds and Silver Fluoride to start up our Melbourne Homeless and Food Insecure program! Please show them some much deserved LOVE especially if you are a Dentist or Dental Support Staff member. We just can't do what we do without generosity like this.
THANK YOU SDI - WE LOVE YOU.
Special shout out to Samantha Cheetham, Adrian Atyima and Kirsty McEwan.
Project of Rotary Albert Park & Rotary Fitzroy
THANK YOU SDI - WE LOVE YOU.
Special shout out to Samantha Cheetham, Adrian Atyima and Kirsty McEwan.
Project of Rotary Albert Park & Rotary Fitzroy
Response to COVID-19 Lockdown V2
With the latest lockdown announced by the government, we obviously have to continue our meetings by Zoom. As before, we will be doing these only twice a month, on the second and fourth Wednesdays.
Leading teams and organisations in a changing world
Annette Kimmitt 
You are invited to join us for the next Rotary District 9800 Business Leaders Breakfast being held on Tuesday 22nd September via Zoom. It is free and open to your Community Partners so please share this opportunity.
Topic: Leading teams and organisations in a changing world.
Date: Tuesday 22nd September 2020
Time: 7:00am to 8:30am
Bookings at: https://www.trybooking.com/
Philip Archer, District Governor
Cluster Clubs Meeting
On behalf of the D9800 Port Philip Cluster, it is my pleasure to invite you to attend and participate at the Port Philip Cluster meeting on Wednesday 23 September.
President Richard Chater from Rotary Albert Park will be hosting the meeting, President Kevin Beagle from Rotary Port Melbourne will be our MC for the night, assisted by President Pam Dittmer from Rotary Melbourne South.
We look forward to your visit at our first Cluster Clubs meeting.
Warm regards,
Lili Teichman
District 9800 - Assistant Governor Port Philip Cluster 2020 - 2021
Geoff Gartly
All About Albert Park
Geoff is very well-known in the business community, and in 2011 was a finalist in the City of Glen Eira’s Citizen of the Year Awards. He is an active member of the Bentleigh Moorabbin Central Rotary Club and has been closely involved in the founding of a Bendigo Community Bank on North Road as the Director/Treasurer, as well as the Traders Association in Ormond. Geoff is the Group Leader for his kids’ Scout Group at 5th/6th Central Moorabbin Scout Group.
Geoff and his wife, Vicki, have a young family who enjoy the great outdoors and hockey.
When not at work, Geoff’s weekends are spent in the outdoors or watching his kids play hockey at Southern United Hockey Club and camping and bike riding.
Get Ready for World Polio Day 2020 
24 October is World Polio Day!
World Polio Day is a time for Rotarians and Rotaractors across the globe to raise awareness about our work to eradicate polio for good. If we stay committed to making progress, polio will be the second human disease ever to be eradicated.
In our fight to end polio, we’ve used our collective strength to defeat this devastating disease in almost every part of the world. This year, the World Health Organization’s African region was certified free of wild poliovirus – showing that eradication is possible even in very difficult circumstances. Wild poliovirus still paralyzes children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as long as polio exists anywhere, it remains a threat everywhere.
In our fight to end polio, we’ve used our collective strength to defeat this devastating disease in almost every part of the world. This year, the World Health Organization’s African region was certified free of wild poliovirus – showing that eradication is possible even in very difficult circumstances. Wild poliovirus still paralyzes children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as long as polio exists anywhere, it remains a threat everywhere.
Update on Installation of Playgrounds
Thought you could use a bit of good news! Photos of another playground being installed in Sri Lanka, this one from Queens Park in Healesville. You can appreciate that the first site for installation was deemed to small and the disassembled playground had to be transported back to Colombo and be reallocated and then transported to another club to be installed. Transport in rural Sri Lanka is a tough task! It shows the commitment of the Rotary Organisation in Sri Lanka to ensure your work in donating/harvesting/storing/etc is honoured. For more photos, go to (here)
RAP Provides Books for Vanuatu
This is a big shout out to Ken Hall from Rotary Albert Park, in conjunction with Albert Park College, who tirelessly gathered and handpicked hundreds of library books donating them to the Ratua Foundation so that we in turn could help schools in Vanuatu provide their students with a great collection of books from around the world. The Ratua Fondation is headquartered on Ratua Private Island ( Santo) and its goal is to improve the education conditions of the Children in Vanuatu.
Thank You Bound Words
We would like to say a huge thank you to Bound Words, bookshop owners in Hampton, who whilst closing their business, have donated 285+ boxes of high quality secondhand books to our book recycling project.
Rotary Albert Park is excited to be able to start selling them to raise funds that will directly impact our local community projects. If you, or someone you know, would like to buy any books, please get in touch at info@rotaryalbertpark.
For more information on our book recycling project, go to (here).
During this critical time, we have been continuing our support of Star Health (formally Inner South Community Health) in real and client focussed ways, as attached (here)
Winds of Hope Facemasks Available
Since face coverings have become a way of life here in Melbourne, we have a range of amazing 2-layer and 3-layer (with filter pocket) face masks available via our online store. https://shop.windsofhope.org.au/
In the destitute villages of Bodhgaya region of Bihar state of India, where normal children are considered by their parents as assets and those with mental health issues as liabilities, Bodhi Tree Special School was established with a clear vision to bring about attitudinal change. The school, through its very limited resources, offers help to approximately 1,000 families, as well as assists with the sanitisation of village hutments.
COVID-19 is having a significant impact on the management of the school, as the children are expressing their frustration to the pandemic response in the form of violent behaviour. A great video highlighting the work being done at the school during this current COVID-19 crisis has been sent by the school’s Director, Dhirendra Sharma and can be seen below:
Albert Park College and Rotary Albert Park are using the Premiers' Reading Challenge to raise money for the Victorian Bushfire Appeal. The Premiers' Reading Challenge has been changing lives for young Victorians for years, by inspiring millions of students to read. Now, Rotary and the school have found a new way for the challenge to support the community.
Today we received notification that our matching grant application has been approved. As you can imagine we were delighted and very happy with the successful outcome of the joint application. This is a joint project by Melbourne South, Albert Park, Port Melbourne, Hawthorn and Malvern Rotaries.
See extract from The Alfred Newsletter (here)
As you know we recently started a fundraising campaign for the Sovuzwa Educare Centre in South Africa. We've had a great response, but obviously with the current pandemic people's focus is understandably elsewhere. The facility is located in an informal township outside of Khayelitsha, itself just outside Cape Town, which has been hard hit by the virus. The situation in the area is dire, with even water becoming a rare commodity.
The new Toyota Yaris that Rotary Albert Park helped Melbourne City Mission to purchase for their Learner Driver Program. For more photos, go to (here)
The City of Port Phillip program is currently assisting 20 young people from the local area, serviced by MCM St Kilda office. Currently about 60% of the program participants live in public housing in the South Melbourne and Post Melbourne areas.
Rotary volunteer mentors will undergo training by VicRoads and undergo mandatory training with MCM. For further details, see https://www.mcm.org.au/learning/youth-engagement/l2p-learner-driver
Women over 50 are the fastest growing group of people experiencing housing instability in Australia – often as a result of pay inequity, little to no superannuation or savings, divorce, domestic and family violence and time taken as unpaid carers. Adequate supply of social housing and affordable housing remains an enduring issue across Australia. Currently there are more than 40,000 applicants for social housing, on the Victorian Housing Register alone.
The Lakehouse is Melbourne's first Pop Up Shelter for women in need of temporary housing. For the Study report, go to (here)
Presentation of donation of $4,500 to One Ball. For more photos, go to (here)
OneBall is a free community program designed for young people aged between 8-18 years. The program provides opportunities for young people from CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) backgrounds across Melbourne to play soccer in a social setting and encourages them to:
- be fit and active, and to enhance both their physical and psychological health and wellbeing
- develop positive cross-cultural relationships with others, and
- feel more connected and empowered to make a positive contribution to their community.
Presentation of $1,000 to Geoff Amor to support Orange Sky Laundry, see https://orangesky.org.au/where-we-are/melbourne/
The shortage of emergency response vehicles is a serious problem being faced in the Western Cape, South Africa, with the numerous fires that need to be contended with. The lack of vehicles often leads to emergency services taking up to 40 minutes to arrive at disaster scenes, especially in more remote areas. It goes without saying that the vital lost time can literally mean the difference between life and death. With the help of Rotary Albert Park, The Rotary Club of Newlands were able to donate a multipurpose vehicle to the Emergency Volunteer Services (EVS).
Below are some stories and video of the project:
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