With club dinner meetings suspended, ascaled-down version of the bulletin will be published to maintain member contact and communication during the coronavirus Covid-19 restrictions.
Message from President Lorraine.
Our 'Helping Our Hospital Heroes' project has four sewers from our club making scrub caps for nurses at major hospitals. On Thursday I received a message from Kerry Kirk (coordinator for our District). Her update said that 1000 caps had been delivered to Royal Melbourne Hospital and another 1000 to Box Hill Hospital. Orders are coming in daily from other hospitals. We will post our caps on Tuesday, maybe to Monash, but it will depend on where they are being sent on a particular day. Please ask anyone else who wants to help to get in touch with me.
D9790 Four Rivers Ride, Ride To Conference. March 14th – 19th
The D9790 Ride To Conference Team completed this year’s ride after a bit of a uncertain start. With the District Conference being cancelled it was put to riders, “do we continue ?” Being at the very early stages of the COVID19 crisis and it still permissible to ride in groups, it was a unanimous decision. We were very lucky, a week later and the opportunity would have been lost.
The local knowledge of Albury Rotarians & friends , put together The Four Rivers Ride , a beautiful, challenging ride . Our team of 27, including 4 crew members enjoyed great fellowship over the 6 days of riding, covering 560 kms. Departing Albury , the first two days comprised loop rides returning to Lake Hume Resort, making the most of the beautiful valleys and views in the area. The ride then moved on to Tallangatta, Bright, Beechworth and back to Albury on the final day, where we were welcomed back by DG Brian.
We were also able to enjoy Rotary fellowship with The Rotary Club of Tallangatta, Rotary Club of Bright and assisted by the Rotary Club of Beechworth with catering. We thank these Clubs for their support. We also thank The Rotary Club of Numurkah for again taking this ride on as a Club Project and for use of their trailer, much appreciated by all.
The Ride would normally conclude with the Sportsman’s Dinner prior to Conference, but this event was also cancelled. The team was very fortunate to have been able to gather for a beautiful open air lunch in the Albury Club gardens at the end of the ride, before riders headed home to a whole new world. Special Guests at the lunch were Margaret & Graham Brown Rotary Club of Corowa , founders of this ride , as well DG Brian Peters and Albury Nth Rotarian Ian Crosley who was an early scratching on the ride & missed by all. The lunch was in fact a lovely way to end the ride, a real plus.
Two new RTC perpetual trophies were also presented. The Tony Thomas Captains Trophy was present to Rotary Club of Numurkah Rtn Greg Moralee & Family of Rotary Fred Hodge, for their support , encouragement and mechanical skills along the Ride : and I was very honoured to receive the Margaret and Graham Brown RTC Trophy for my contribution to the ride.
We thank all our Sponsors who supported this ride, Clubs & individuals as we raised $11, 770 for Australian Rotary Health, and in particular supporting our Indigenous Medical Student Scholarship .
We also thank Carmen’s & Bega for their sponsorship & support.
Next year’s are off to Wangaratta hopefully post COVID 19 hopefully
Chris Sutton
RTC Team
The Rotary Club of Numurkah sent six students to this year's RYPEN camp at Lake Nillahcootie.
Here is a report on that camp.
MEMBERS ISOLATED THOUGHTS
CHRIS SUTTON
Our New Normal for the Time Being at the Pioneers Lodge
Recently I went on a RTC Bike Ride and when I returned to work two weeks later, it was a whole new work world. My work day and the program I could now offer was very different in a COVID 19 world. The basis of my program at the Numurkah Pioneers Lodge has always focused on promoting community inclusion, if not getting into the community, bringing it into the Lodge. Also promoting resident interaction, working together, sharing is caring. Not now, April calendar was very quick replanned.
We are the lucky ones, our community is doing everything to keep our most vulnerable safe. And our residents are amazing ,taking it all in their stride, and retaining a sense of humor. Life long learning has seen them survive adversity before; there are a resilient lot.
As staff, we start our day with a temperature check & questionnaire before we can enter our work site.
Residents are socially distancing, 4 to a dining table is now 3, and are spread out over two rooms. Coffee lounge has every other chair removed. The staff distance too, limits on the number of staff in the nurses station & also staff room at one time.
We are in lock down which along with no volunteers , including the hairdresser , omg!, but also means no family visitors. We have had a couple of over the fence long distant family chats , but very clearly at a distance with no contact or passing of items. The telephone at times like these, fills the gap for those who have one. Skype, facetime, messenger are all social media applications we are also trying to set up to assist with family connections.
Our only outing is Walk the Block , a much loved activity by a small group of residents. Exercise & from one household so allowed , but we have had to change. We walk Thornton Street and up to the Numurkah Swimming Pool, where we turn around now, and retrace our steps, so as not to run into too many people near the hospital . but we are keeping an eye out for Teddies !
Residents and I both miss our volunteers greatly. Without volunteers, residents get only who ever is on doing lifestyle, to do the activities for the day. My work week is Monday to Thursday, so they get me, me and me for the day. Think they might get sick of me! And it also means , there is very limited time for other aspects of my jobs, paper work, planning, etc. On the plus side we now have activities 7 days a week, with other staff filling in the days, which is fantastic. So we try to think out of the square , to continue to offer variety . Sing a longs to CD’s; bingo but everyone has their own personal bag of tokens, quizzes and word games re invent to be delivered different ways; staff dress up days to add abit of fun, weekly shopping trip ( I had 7 lists last week & expect more next week ). And the list goes on. Very interesting times , challenging times.
Chris Sutton
Diversional Therapist
Numurkah Pioneers Lodge.
Marie & Geoff Austin
Hello, fellow Rotarians,
We are keeping in good physical and mental health to date.
Our usual lifestyle is fairly quiet relative to some people, so the time at home has not changed much. But, as would be the case with everyone, the social side of our life has disappeared. We make up for that with frequent phone calls to friends and family. Because most of our family members are interstate, that is not too different, except that we cannot just "up and go" to actually see them when we choose.
Those chores, so often put off, have come to the fore, especially for Marie, who has done some gardening, and substantial sorting and cleaning out of drawers and cupboards. Marie loves computer card games, so Solitaire, Pyramid, Free Cell, Three Peaks, and Spider Solitaire have been getting a hammering.
For Geoff, group cycling with the Giraffes has changed to a solo ride about 5 times a week. We know that the other Giraffe members are out either solo or in pairs. We keep in touch on Messenger and occasionally pass one another on the road. Marie cycles with a different group and we (Marie & I) have been out once together this week and did 22km.The Numurkah Town Band has suspended activities, but that doesn't preclude home practice - there just hasn't been any tenor horn practice yet in this house! The piano has been going well with many old tunes being resurrected, or unfinished ones finished off, and new ones in the pipeline. As for ukulele, we both have not touched the instrument since the last ukulele club rehearsal. So, we are not likely to run out of things to do with music.
We thoroughly enjoyed Rotary Ride to Conference in March. That was our last outing before the world closed. We have however followed Rotary emails, and think that Jennifer's suggestion that we use Zoom for board meetings in the future, is a good one. It could potentially be used for regular meetings as well.
