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President's Message 13 December 2025
Kelly Binyon
President’s Message
Hello,
Well, that week went by quickly! Time seems to speed up the closer it gets to Christmas!
A huge thank you to members and guests who attended our Vocational Visit to Torquay Food Aid (TFA) on Monday afternoon. We were given a tour of the facilities, and a rundown of how the operation works by Co-ordinator Michael. Lots of interesting questions were asked and even better, lots of donations of goods made by and through our club.
TFA would appreciate donations of toiletries which is something they run low on regularly. So, if you can pop an extra shampoo & conditioner or deodorant in your shopping bag, that would be gratefully received.
We then moved onto dinner at the Point Danger Beach House (formerly Frontbeach Taphouse) for an enjoyable meal and discussions.
We also warmly welcomed Chris Moxey who is new to the area and keen to give back to the community and is applying for membership. Please make sure you introduce yourself to Chris at the next meeting.
Community Spirit Awards have begun to be handed out at the local primary school by different members and this has been warmly received. We have a few missing Monday’s meeting to do this, and wish them and the recipients all the best. This is another way that Rotary supports local families.
On Friday night I attended the BNI Surfcoast Connections Xmas Break Up, and thank all members past and present for their support of Rotary activities and sponsorship this year.
This coming Monday (15/12), we are back at Kithbrooke Park on Monday night for our final speaker of the year – Christine Mellons from The Musical Society of Geelong. Thanks to everyone who has registered or replied to my emails. A couple of reminders for the meeting:
Meeting is in the LAKEHOUSE – park in main car park or gravel car park on corner of Kithbrooke Park Blvd & Blue Gum Dve (in a manner that allows as many cars as possible).
BYO all drinks
Depart via Ghazeepore Road gates
Reminder: Board Meeting this Thursday 18 December commencing at 9.00am at my place.
Finally, you should all have received the invitation to the Christmas Break Up on Monday 22 December. PLEASE register by no later than FRIDAY 19TH for catering, and to keep Neil’s blood pressure at an acceptable level !!
Cynthia Bollen has requested that this invitation be sent out to club members.
Maggie Isom has also been asked to speak about Pete's time in Torquay Rotary and in Kerang.
If anyone has any good photos or comments, that they would like Maggie to include in her presentation, could you please send them to her via email at: maggie.isom@rotary9780.org.au
On Monday night, 8th December, we had the privilege of visiting the Torquay Food Aid as mentioned in President's Report above.
We were given an enlightening view of how the Food Aid is run, plus opening hours, who accesses the service and how much is actually costs it costs to restock the shelves weekly- $350 - $700.00.
It was great to see the “new rooms” and the amount of space they have.
What was absolutely fantastic was the amount of food Torquay Rotary Club members donated to the service.
It was great to see and a huge thank you goes out to you all.
We hope that those who access the service have an enjoyable and peaceful Christmas.
Welcome to the Barwon Community Refugee Integration and Settlement Program (CRISP)
On Wednesday evening I was talking to Steve Richards.
Members may recall when Steve and his colleague came to the club nearly 2 years ago and spoke about a family relocating to Torquay from Syria.
Here is an update on the family ….
The Hammuds moved to Torquay from Syria and have made this their home over the past 18 months.
They have been so grateful to Rotary for all the assistance we gave and asked Steve to pass on their thanks.
Mr. Hammud is in full time employment and is currently relocating his family to Craigieburn to be closer to work and to connect with the local Syrian community there.
Steve and his colleagues have formed a new group of volunteers (Welcome to Barwon CRISP group) and are about to apply to assist another refugee family in resettling in the Barwon region.
Our Annual Book Fair will run from Friday 16 th January to Sunday 18 th January.
Location is once again at Surf Coast Secondary College, Hillside Parade, Torquay North.
The trading hours will be 9.00am – 4pm.
This year our price will be $2 per book with no further discounts - although some childrens books may be tied into small parcels for value. For the benefit of our new members and volunteers, we set up the Fair from Mon to Thurs. “Bump In” is the term we give to moving in all our books from our storage container at Bellbrae.
Much of this stock is already sorted by genre and author and the boxes labelled accordingly.
Bump In is fairly physical and requires many helpers, trailers and SUV’s.
We have arranged to get access to the school on Saturday 12th January to vacuum the floor, clear the space of educational materials and set up our tables. We will Bump In Sunday 13th January this year. From Monday morning we need helpers to unpack and display the books.
We have a lot of new stock this year that needs to be sorted into non fiction categories, or by author in the fiction area, which takes about 2 days.
My roster will show Wednesday and Thursday as vacant, but we have this day up our sleeve if it is needed. Packing up normally starts around 3pm Sunday afternoon and then continues from early Monday morning.
Bump Out will be Mon 19 th Jan.
After the books are all gone we need to dismantle our tables, vacuum the floor, do any necessary cleaning and restore any educational items to the original locationswhich is normally completed by lunchtime.
Note that Rotary is also running the BBQ Trailer on Sunday 18th January at the Cowrie Market so the roster will concentrate on our volunteers on Sunday, as Rotary personnel will be thin. Last year we sold around $10500 and this year we are hoping to possibly reach $12000.
All this is directed into Rotary humanitarian projects – locally we have been helping the Torquay Community House, Torquay Food Aid, local landcare projects, educational awards and much more.
Torquay Rotary Club is also assisting to build a school in a village at Lese Oalai in Papua New Guinea.
I have sent an email to you all, if you could check your inbox.
Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.
Kind Regards Neil Henderson Book Fair Coordinator Ph: 0411 753885
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