September Zoom meetings
The Club organised two zoom meetings in September with special guests Ms. Pragya Kapil, Person Behind the Badge and Mr Andy Moutray-Read, CEO of Inner West Community Enterprises. Dr Catherine (Kitty) O’Connor will be the speaker for the upcoming meeting scheduled for Thursday October 1st at 6.45 for 7pm start.
Pragya presented about her early experience of volunteering for Rotaract Club of Chandigarh, RID 3080 in India. She showed a colourful presentation using images of her experience volunteering from providing polio drops in heavy traffic, bringing smiles to children with special needs, planting numerous trees, running around looking for scholarships for many fund raising projects including but not limited to large scale concerts (Heartline) and dance workshops (End Polio Campaign), maintaining books as the Club Treasurer to leading a group of 100 volunteers from the tricity as the Club President in her third year of under graduate degree. She shared that the presentation preparation at Rotary Club Footscray's meeting brought back fond memories of how much work went into contributing to community projects. Pragya credits her public speaking, organisation, interpersonal and event management skills to Rotary International and is very honoured to be a part of the Footscray Club as a Rotarian.
Mr. Andy Moutray shared about the community-based organisation, which is owned by local shareholders.The enterprises they are involved in running or partnering with include:
Seddon Community Bank as a branch of Bendigo Bank. Profits from the bank, are returned to the community and to-date around $800,000 has been fed back into the community. (see Community Pitch)
Community pitch is an annual event which offers the opportunity for local projects / non-profit organisations to present a 3 minute “pitch” in appealing for funds ranging from $500-4000 from local businesses, Rotary Clubs and Seddon Community Bank. It is truly a fantastic evening where you see a wide variety of the community work being done by local volunteers. A feel good night.
Westsider newspaper currently around 6000 copies per month are distributed to local cafes, libraries, waiting rooms, etc. They now have an online version. Initially provided opportunities for “work for the dole”. Guaranteed income from local business and advertising. Aim of newspaper is to inform local community of local activities and issues.
Mad Youth Inc. Helping youth undertake small local projects and get young people involved and active in the community. They ran a coffee stand at the local footy to help raise funds for their own projects.
Community Bike Hub - partnership with Footscray Rotary Last year the new improved Bike Hub provided 900 services and repairs, 280 sales of second-hand bikes and refurbished 386 bike donations for lucky western suburb refugees and locals alike.
The Bike Hub now employs 4 staff, and was expanded last years when Andy applied for funding from Victorian Gov’t via “Pick my project” grants. Over next 12 months they aim to raise $20,000 to purchase a transport vehicle to collect bikes and provide a mobile repair service. We are hoping that Rotary will be able to contribute to the cause, and match the IWCE donation of $5,000.
IWCE are also working with VU to develop a program to deliver financial literacy training to kids and young adults.
As always Andy says that Seddon Community Bank is happy to assist our members if they would like to become part of a local bank doing great things in our own community.