Presidential Ponderings
Whilst the cat's away the feather duster will play - yes President Kelly is sampling the offerings of Adelaide so I'm left to hold the reigns and muster on!
Guest Speaker - Gerry McGann Sri Lanka Eye Camp 2025
Gerry, a Perth boy, grew up with a love for boats and a fascination with rocks—a passion that led him to pursue geology at UWA. His 45-year career in the oil industry took him to some of the world’s most fascinating and unexpected places, including Libya, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, and even "Trumpland."
Having previously visited Sri Lanka as a tourist, Gerry found this experience with the eye camp to be truly, in his words, "enlightening, sobering, and awakening".
Rona, with her warmth and friendliness (pictured below on the left in her red T-shirt), took to volunteering as a dispenser like a duck takes to water!
Her genuine care made every interaction with beneficiaries a pleasure to witness.
As the project coordinator, Reggie stated that both Rona and Geerry embraced their roles with enthusiasm and flexibility, switching between tasks—whether giving a TV interview, dispensing glasses, assisting with visual acuity tests, managing crowd control, or even making sandwiches for hundreds with minimal kitchen equipment. Most importantly, Gerry knew how to take orders from Rona and followed them to the letter!
With his adaptability, and willingness to jump in wherever needed, Gerry was a fantastic asset to the team. His contribution, alongside Rona’s, helped make the eye camp a success, and the team were grateful for their dedication to the cause.
A team of 18 took to the road in Sri Lanka to conduct the 6th Global Hand Charity/Mill Point RC Eye Clinic. There are at least 150 people involved in this project including interpreters, transport, crowd control, optometrists, volunteers, etc.
Most of the recipients live out of town and make special effort to attend the clinics. Five members of Mill Point RC attendee - Raelene, Astrid, Gerry, Rona, Reggie (and her husband Gordon) as volunteers paying their own way e.g. flights, accommodation, and meals.
Sri Lanka is an amazing place - the people are warm and friendly, gentle and dressed beautifully; there are elephants and monkeys at the side of the road and then there's the exotic food! It's a country that has a whole mixture of cultures, whether it's Buddhist, Christian or Muslim, and with few exceptions they've all got along pretty well over the years. In saying that the place is not governed that well over the years. This is the gross domestic produce per person , there is a lot of food, and they have a universal health system (in theory) that everyone has access to but they just don't have the money to implement it.
Sri Lanka is the size of Tasmania but 25 million people strong so they are crammed in pretty well, and there's really no government program for adults, but there is a school program.
Over the years Global Hand Charity in conjuction with Mill Point RC set up the Eye Care clinic program and have reached into areas of Sri Lanka where most needed.
The clinic has been held in various places from Jaffna in the North in 2020 to Batticaloa/Kalumnai in the East, Anuradhapura in 2018, and Kandy and Matale in 2025. In 2020 and 2023 the Northern areas were rife with a lot of fighting against the Tamil separatists.
Over 20 years the Sri Lankans are still poor and a lot of evidence of all that fighting is still around, so this was a brave project to take onboard.
This year ,the clinic operated in Padala for two days and then in two towns just outside of Kandy, where the tea trade is.
It takes months and months of planning to take a team over and this year there were 18 volunteers in the team.
Every day the volunteers wear their red T-shirts an start work early to get organised on a kind of mass production process.
The work flow was highly structured so that people were seen effectively and efficiently.
First of all registrants were checked and passed on to the Acuity testers (below), then the auto-refractor, optometrists and finally dispensing.
The
8 optometrists (pictured below)were all second-generation Sri Lankans, each of them giving back
to the motherland and whilst all but one were from the Eastern States
they got to know each other pretty well and discovered that many of them were
related through second cousins.
2,300 people were seen; 3,000+ pairs of spectacles were dispensed (some needed more than one pair, and those who worked outside were given sun-glasses). Some needed special prescriptions and some were referred for cataract surgery.
The cost of such a project is in excess of $20,000 and that does not include the personal expense of each volunteer. The project pays one Sri Lankan optometrist - Krista -who provides one of the auto-refractors - a minimal stipend, plus his accommodation and food.
It all costs come down to $8 per person - where else can you get such a bang for your buck - in changing the lives of 2,300+ people?
The project is planning to return in 2026 and needs help in raising the funds necessary to make a difference.
If you would like to volunteer for the 2026 clinic and/or contribute to this worthwhile project please visit
https://www.globalhandcharity.org.au/
Directors' Reports and Member Announcements
David R: The Pines dinner - 3 June, 6.30pm - is coming up again where we recognise and award top hospitality students. Only 40 places so book quickly at https://www.trybooking.com/CZWNG - se events page.
Gerry McG: 15,000 items of bed linen has become available for any charitable organisation including 2,623 doonas! Being stored in Raelene's warehouse so put your thinking caps on as to may benefit from this. (Remember our linen project of 2020?).
Rick S: Community and Fundraising committee meeting after breakfast.
Jenny McL: The Sewing Sisters have sent 184 feminine hygiene packs to PNG - 150 last week an 60 the week before to a second location. All arrived intact - thanks to Australia Post!
Veronica L: Membership Committee meeting after breakfast.
NOTE: Catherine Rousset sent in a note of thanks to the club for the Next Door voucher that she won at the Christmas meeting. She had a lovely night with her boys, Sally and Kate.
Fine-ally!
The fines master this week rebuked Rotarians for engaging in erroneous activities and many dollars were dished up to Owen the Own-erous!
- Veronica: Forgot to welcome Wendy Longshaw HUGE fine!
- Geoff L : No longer needing a hair cut.
- All non-attendees at Friday's Birthday celebration.
- Gorby: Who turned up last Friday for breakfast?
- Wayne M : 2 weeks ago decided to balance the 4 finesmaster - what a sea-saw Owen and Joy on one side; Wayne and Jenny on the other - needs a lesson in metrology.
- David T: Full of gas in Sri Lanka but able to sell it AND appear on TV!
- Gerry: The 'eyes' have it!
- Warren: Moved into his new unit without blinds - hope you're not wandering around au naturelle!
- Lorrie: No purple T-shirt today?
- Mark J: 'Welcome back' and 'Goodbye' as he leaves for another journey en bicyclette!
- Jenny McL: VIP? Yes you are but remember 'Poison' also comes in small packages!
- Brian A: Electoral Official at the weekend - hope you weren't responsible for the 'stuff up'
Winner of Heads and Tails
2 x Tails, 2 x heads and Astrid won the coveted grog by a head!
Attendance
44 attendees in all, including visitors Mark Jones, Wendy Longshaw, Rona McGann, Catherine Roussett, Justin Madden, Gordon Smith, Loveness Matemera and Nic Coveney.
