I hope you and your families all enjoyed a restful holiday season and a Happy New Year. I recently returned from a month in the US visiting family, so my apologies for my long absence and the delay in resuming our club meetings. Our club board met yesterday afternoon to make some immediate plans for the upcoming weeks and to discuss what is ahead in the second half of this Rotary year.

The board shared a lot of enthusiasm for activities and events we can contribute toward to get the year off to a good start.

• PE Ashika has offered to organise a weekend working bee at SPCA in February when members, friends and families can come down and donate some time, love, and resources to our four-legged friends. As some of you may be aware, the Parvo virus is running rampant in Fiji and killing lots of pups at the moment. Vaccinations at 6 weeks can prevent this, so please help spread the word! Thank you Ashika!

• PP Shane’s company provided support to Father Law Home over the holidays, and he’s highlighted the poor state of the toilets and showers there. Our club would like to contribute toward improving these facilities. Thank you Shane!

• Erica has offered to work with Suva North and Suva Peninsula Clubs to identify candidates for Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) for this year in New Zealand. Many thanks Erica!

• PP Peter has been very involved with the Pacific Children’s Heart Facility construction which is going up down in Muanikau. Our club has offered to be the host club for a matching grant to bring in a state of the art cath lab for this facility, which will provide free heart surgeries to children from around the region. The facility opening date is planned for end of April.

• PE Ashika is also involved with a new initiative- the Fiji Counselling Association, which will serve a crucial role in advocating for and advancing the profession of counselling in Fiji, and highlighting the importance of mental health support for individuals and businesses. RCSE would like to support the launch of this Association on February 29th, and to help advocate for this important issue.

• I’m making slow but steady progress with getting SCC approval for a location for our playground project and, as ever, Rotary Pacific Water continues to do our club proud—they have opened a new project office at Fiji Teachers Union to accommodate their growth under the new European Union funded project, and are currently advertising for an intern- if you know of any interested, young environmental science students or those with an interest in water engineering.

• And of course, none of this is possible without fundraising, so we’d like to discuss some opportunities for fundraising in the upcoming months.

There’s a lot to discuss and plan for the year ahead at our next meeting!
We would normally plan a meeting for this evening, but rather than rush it, we will plan to meet next Tuesday night, 4th February, to give everyone a bit more time to plan. The following meeting with me Monday 17th Feb at lunch, and then in March we’ll get back to the usual schedule.
We also have a number prospective members who are keen to join the club, so I hope many of you can make it to one of our upcoming meetings and help answer questions and make these new members feel welcome.

Thanks again to all our hardworking and supportive members and I look forward to the remainder of my year ahead, and to ushering in a successful year for President Elect Ashika!

Yours in Rotary,
Molly

Come join us at 6:30 PM for a 7.00 PM start
04 February 2020
Venue: Cafe 30

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[ NO – I will not be able to attend Tuesday ]

Upcoming Events:
17 February – Lunch Time Meeting

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