Wednesday 24 November 2010
The President's Column
This week we welcome Rev. Paul Bartlett as our guest speaker. Paul who has varied background – a Meteorologist, a Uniting Church Minister, a fundraiser- and a lapsed Rotarian!
Paul will speak to us about Frontier Services which is the descendant organisation of that was begun by Rev John Flynn in 1912 as the Australian Inland Mission and later joined in this work by the Methodist Inland Mission. Initially this work was organised around providing pastoral support (patrol ministry) and medical services to all those who live in the Outback.
Annual General Meeting – with a difference!
AGM & Ramesh Ferris: Next week, 1 December, is of course our AGM - and in a break from tradition we will be having a guest speaker following the AGM.
We are fortunate that Ramesh Ferris - who is in Sydney on a series of speaking engagements – has made him self available, at short notice, to speak to us – on his one free night.
Ramesh was born in 1979 in Coimbatore in India. He contracted polio at age six months and his legs were left paralysed for life. Ramesh’s mother had no alternative but to place him in a Canadian-founded orphanage. Soon after, Ron Ferris, the Anglican Bishop of Yukon in Canada, and his wife Jan began the lengthy process of adopting Ramesh and to take him back to Canada. After several operations, Ramesh learned to walk with crutches and braces for the first time - at age three.
In 2002, Ramesh returned to India for the first time to meet his biological mother and to visit the orphanage where he once lived. During the visit, Ramesh learned of polio survivors who, without the necessary medical attention and supports, were forced to pad their knees with cut-up pieces of tyre and crawl on the ground. After much reflection about his visit to India, Ramesh was determined to raise money in order to make a difference to the lives of polio survivors.
In 2008, Ramesh cycled 7,141kms - coast to coast - across Canada. Along the route, he participated in 350 media interviews and made over 200 presentations at Schools, Rotary Clubs, Churches and various levels of Government. This campaign raised over $350,000 increased the awareness of polio dramatically. Ramesh is a member the Whitehorse Rotary Club.
He also features on the speaking circuit in India, the United States of America, and throughout his home country of Canada, talking about his experiences of surviving the effects of polio and the need to end polio now. Most recently, Ramesh spoke of Polio Eradication at the RI Convention in Montreal. He also recently gave a speech at the United Nations in New York City as part of Rotary International Day.
Cowboy logic: “The best thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow”
President Pete
