Home Page | Rotary Club of Beenleigh

Janee Hong

Hi everyone

I hope you have all had a fabulous Easter and enjoying the sunshine and unseasonal warm weather. Well, what a busy start to 2023 for the Rotary Club of Beenleigh.

We have hit the road running with our support of many of our projects and links within the community. We have supported Wesley Mission and their youth holiday programs, sugar sweet stories promotional events, companion pet program within our 4 nursing home partners, water safety and drowning prevention sizzle for swimming fundraiser and volunteers for RARE and much, much more

We were fortunate to be able to benefit from the hard work of our sister Club in Loganholme and successfully obtain a Australia Day grant to be able to deliver a FREE morning tea to our Community. The three Rotary Clubs of the city of Logan set up at local parks and served free coffee/tea with Lamingtons or Lemon Myrtle cupcakes. Lamingtons were delivered to local emergency service workers, Logan hospital and nursing homes. It was well received. On the same day I attended the Logan City Council Award and Citizenship presentation as I was nominated for the Citizen of the Year award. It was an incredible honour to recognised.

Our Club facilitated a meeting between the CEO of Mini Farm Project, Nick Steiner and Rocky Point. As a result of the meeting a certified organic soil was chosen to supplement the charity farm at Loganlea State High School and a collaboration between these organisations and our Club saw the launch of the Give a little Dirt initiative. This involved a Humanitix site and social media marketing campaign to buy a cubic metre of dirt. It was very successful and raised $3000 for the farm. We even got out there and helped spread the soil! It’s such a fabulous charity and we are thrilled to be involved.

The Club has been blessed to have the support from the Logan City Council and Division 4 councillor, Laurie Koranski who was instrumental in securing funding to have a park bench commissioned for the Windaroo Memorial Peace park. PP Heather Kucks had a Peace Pole erected in the park in her year and commenced this project and we finally took delivery of the bench. We held a Picnic for Peace to unveil the bench on International Peace day.

In February Club hosted our local Combined service dinner and it was the largest turn out for sometime. It was a fabulous evening with like minded community volunteer champions sharing news of their successes and upcoming projects. Our Club was pleased to announce the final plans to complete the updating of our Community Road Signs on the multiple major entry points into Beenleigh. This project has taken over 2 years to come to fruition and all Clubs are pleased that this project is finally being finalised.

On our Club charter day we celebrated our 70th Birthday at the Beenleigh & District Senior Citizens Club. It was a fantastic night with just over 70 guests enjoying a lovely buffet, a great 6 piece band and a display of all the Club’s history, relics and achievements. We were honoured to have District Governor, District Governor Elect and Nominee all present to help us celebrate this milestone. We also were very grateful for the editorial in our local newspaper, My City Logan and the evening and milestone was mentioned in Federal Parliament by the honourable member for Forde, Bert Van Manen. He made special mention of our Club stalwart, PP John Mulraney PHF and the fabulous speech he gave honouring the legacy of our Club and it’s member in our Community and beyond. Beenleigh Library for the month of March provided our Club with the use of their 2 large display cabinet which we showed off some of our key relics and achievements.

We also saw the Club be acknowledged for our response to the recent floods and were approached by ABC Brisbane to be interviewed about our efforts and plans for future natural disasters. We saw 8 of our members be involved in CPR training and it was a great day until one member, who shall remain nameless broke a manikin. We have had 3 of our members commence the process to become a Logan City Council Disaster Community Champion and training will soon be underway. We also were over the moon to partner with Bendigo Bank and Logan Community Bank team and take delivery of the donated portable Sand Bagging machine, “Bagger 2” nicknamed “Bertha”. This was a fabulous initiative that will be so valuable when disaster strikes again. This will help our local community to be able to protect their property and belongings more effectively. The Club will commence training on this piece of equipment so we can be of service to the first responders and allow them to be out helping our Community while we man the machine. Just another example of our Club being People of Action.

In March we had our District Governor's visit with Tim Keeler AM and Gail and we were proud to share our Club’s commitment to our community and showcase our key programs and projects. We were also honoured to have Tim Moore and Jane visit our Club and answer some of questions regarding Regionalisation.

10 members attended the District 9620 Conference in the Brisbane City Hall and wow what an incredible weekend. As always, our District does not disappoint, the caliber of speakers were inspirational and informative. The opportunity to meet and catch up with fellow Rotarians really gave all our members a peep in their step. We are now planning for our contingent to head to Melbourne in late May for the Rotary International Conference.

Our members on the busiest day in the Children’s ward at Logan Hospital presented the Easter hamper as a part of the annual Easter appeal organised by the SES volunteer, Les Hoppe. We are now working on preparations for ANZAC DAY and our presence at the local Dawn Service.

Since our members returned from the Christmas break we have also been focused on the planning of our signature event, the Beenleigh Cane Parade, Festival and Gala Ball. The committees have be very busy bringing all the aspects together for the 2023 events.

We are looking for volunteers for the day so please message the Club to register your interest and please join us for these fabulous events

PARADE & FESTIVAL

Saturday 13th May

Parade - 2pm

Beenleigh CBD : George and Main Street

Festival 3-8pm

Beenleigh Showgrounds

Free rides, face painting and entertainment, Food trucks, sideshow alley and much more. Laser Show 7:30pm

GALA BALL

Saturday 20th May - from 6pm

Beenleigh Events Centre

$115 per ticket via Humanitix

We will be focusing on finalising outstanding programs and projects whilst preparing for our change of office bearers on 1st July. I look forward to sharing with you all the updates next quarter and see what our Club will do next.