 Sergeant John Erickson brought the meeting to order on time at 6.15pm, welcomed members and, in lieu of a guest speaker for the evening, John offered to do a 1.5 hour presentation on the novel “Wuthering Heights” by English author, Emily Bronte.  Needless to say, with Game One of the State of Origin Series commencing at 8pm, John’s facetious proposal was emphatically rejected by the members present.

 Once the howling towards Sgt. John’s suggestion ceased, President Phil welcomed
everyone present... a courageous and committed group of about 14 souls.

 The reflection from Michael made reference to a couple of quotes within the recently deceased Neale Danaher’s 2019 biography “WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE”, including comments about the need for researchers to quickly find a cure for the insidious motor neurone disease, that Danaher nicknamed ‘The Beast’.
“When all is said and done, more is said than done. The mark of a person is not what
they say, it’s what they do.” The same can be said for our many hard-working Rotarians!

 John performed a ‘double-gig’ this evening... Sergeant and an international toast
proponent. He spoke about Antarctica as a massive living laboratory where researchers
primarily investigate climate change, glaciology and the unique polar ecosystem. John
provided a brief history of the two Rotary clubs within Antarctica and toasted the Rotary Clubs of Marambio base – Antarctica (Chartered 13 May 1997) and the Rotary Club base Antarctica Esperanza (Chartered November 2005). Although both are Spanish-speaking clubs, feel free to drop in if you happen to be travelling near the South Pole!      

 President Phil’s announcements:
  - A reminder to members/friends of our Bunnings Kembla Grange BBQ on Monday 1
June... A few vacancies remain in the morning shifts!
 - A special deal for seniors using the Uber rides service is currently on offer, whereby a 50% discount is available on your next five rides. Phil will send an email to
members/friends with the details and links to access the offer.
 - The Club’s changeover dinner is on Wednesday 24 June at The Builders Club and not
all members/honorary members/friends have yet indicated whether they will be
attending. Please respond direct to Phil ASAP if plan to attend and have not yet
notified Phil. He also asked members to “put their collective thinking caps on” and
come up with ideas for potential invitees to the changeover and let him know.
 - As next Rotary year’s Community Services Director, Phil asked for a small number of
members to volunteer to participate in the 2026/2027 donations committee. Jim
Christensen, John Erickson and Kerrie Hayes-Williams were the fastest to raise their respective voting arms!

 There were no directors’ reports this evening; however, Ray Lee filled in the gap by
mentioning that the Native Bees remain at his home – for now. They are scheduled to be relocated next Tuesday!

 Lords of the Grapes and partners in wine, Bob Armessen and Dennis Simpson were the winners of this week’s wine raffle.

 Although real and imaginary fines were few, Sergeant John managed to extract some coins from members for the fines box and tell a short tale, thanks to Mr Simpson.

 A couple of final comments from the floor:

 - Phil did some digging about a misplaced PHF... Interestingly, the Rotary Club of
Bishop’s Waltham (a UK based club) has a member with a similar name as one of
our own members and had not twigged (as far as we know) as to the missing PHF.
The mystery has now been solved... but, with ~1.2M members, it makes you
wonder whether there are many other similar oversights!

 - Ray Lee received a late email from PCYC regarding Thursday’s ‘Fit for Life’ breakfast. Our services will not be required this week as they have another event/BBQ with plenty of helpers.
 - REMINDER: IF YOU CAN ASSIST WITH THE COLLECTION OF MONEY FOR THE RED SHIELD APPEAL AT FRED FINCH PARK, BERKELEY ON SATURDAY 30 MAY, PLEASE COME ALONG AND HELP.

 A relatively short meeting without a guest speaker concluded a minute or two past
7pm... Much to the delight of the die-hard footy State of Origin fans!