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PRESIDENTS
MESSAGE
Last week saw the two clubs of Cairns
Mulgrave and Earlville enjoy a joint meeting. It is good for
Rotary to meet and socialize for we often forget Rotary is a huge
worldwide operation and there are many other clubs including clubs
in our own area spreading Rotary to the world.
It was very inspiring to hear our guest
speaker Mrs Eileen Denton address the two clubs on her plight
with the loss of her kidneys. Her husband Keith was also very much
part of the whole ordeal and he also has been through an amazing
journey.
From December 1 our lunch meetings
on a Friday at the Hilton hotel will be $20 instead of $25.
For the club to reduce the cost, we are invoicing members twice
yearly for an increased amount. This will be tax deductible
at the end of the year.
The amount members will be invoiced
will be $200 if you pay be the end of December and $220 if you pay
after December. This will be a much fairer way for all members
because at present the members who attend every week are subsidizing
the members who only attend occasionally.
There will be no meeting on Friday
December 5th at the Hilton we are having our Xmas party at
Fettas Greek restaurant $30 per head, all you can eat.
The progressive dinner has been
re scheduled to early next year.
After the meeting could the Past President's
please stay for a short meeting to elect the President elect for
2005/2006.
We will be having our AGM on Friday
November 28th.
President Robyn
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Rotary 4-Way Test
1.
Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
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Christmas
Party
Saturday December 5th
‘Fetta’s’ Abbott Street Cairns
6 for 6.30pm
Great Food Great Fun Great Company!!!
Greek Buffet, Greek Wine, Zorba Dancing, Plate Smashing
Buffet is approx $30 per person.
Seats are limited – so please let me know numbers ASAP.
Sandy
East
Timor design plan for housing project
07/11/2003 ABC Radio
A retired cabinet maker from Australia's
Gold Coast has designed a low cost tropical dwelling that could
be part of the solution to the problem of rapidly expanding squatter
settlements in the Asia Pacific region.
The organisers of a Pacific Planning
Forum in Brisbane have invited Des LaRance to present his design
to urban and land planners from eight Pacific Island nations.
Presenter/Interviewer: Sean Dorney,
Pacific Correspondent
Speakers: Des LaRance of the Surfers
Sunrise Rotary Club
DORNEY: The Surfers Sunrise Rotary
Club has ventured into the tropics before. Its cheap wheelchairs
for East Timor project has been a considerable success. Now, one
of its members, Des LaRance, has designed a house that attracted
a good deal of interest from the urban planners at the Pacific Planning
Forum especially those from the Melanesian countries of Papua New
Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands. I asked Mr LaRance what prompted
him to look at tropical housing.
LARANCE We make wheelchairs out of
recycled bicycles and I was delivering our 1,000th wheelchair to
East Timor, over there for ten days, and could see what the people
were living in. It was a bit heart wrenching looking at the dwellings.
They'd grab a piece of cardboard and use it as a panel in their
wall and so forth.
That really got to me. And I was staying
in a rather elegant European style home which just wasn't working
because you'd wake up at night time and it was just so hot you couldn't
sleep. You'd go outside and there was a nice cool breeze but you'd
get eaten by mosquitoes. So I came back with ideas in my mind that
I would do something about a low cost housing project for the people
who were living over there.
Obviously it has to be mosquito proof,
cyclone proof. So I put my mind together - I'm a cabinet maker by
trade but I do computer drafting now. I've come up with this design
of a simple-to-erect building made out of refridgerated roofing
panel for the roof which keeps you cool and the whole house just
opens up to let the breezes flow through during the hot weather.
And if a cyclone shows up, all the slats on the side of the building
close up.
DORNEY: What is that refridgerated
panel?
LARANCE; Well, it's what they use
in coolrooms. It has a colourbond on the outside and colourbond
on the inside and with 50mm foam between the two surfaces you don't
get a transfer of the heat coming through and that's exactly what
they use in coolrooms.
DORNEY: Can you describe the house?
LARANCE: The house itself caters for
seven people. It's a two storey house built on an A-frame design.
Downstairs we have a kitchenette with a kitchen sink in it. A full
sized shower, 900mm square shower, and a double bed downstairs and
then a utility table that caters for seven people. You go up the
loft ladder and upstairs there is more sleeping area for five more
people. It catches its own water and stores 400 litres of water.
In the tropics it's very rare that they have a drought.
DORNEY: Looking at the design it's
sort of a wing design, isn't it? Is that to ...
LARANCE: That is.
DORNEY: ... to catch the wind, to catch
the breezes?
LARANCE: Catch the breezes, yes. Let
the breezes flow through the house. When it all opens up it just
becomes so easy to live in. We've actually put it to use ourselves
when we had our first proto-type going and we were amazed how cool
the house is.
DORNEY: So if this was transported
to a village, say, somewhere in Melanesia, how long would it take
them to put it up.
LARANCE: Three days. As it just goes
together with bolts and screws. All you need to put it together
is a screwgun, cordless screwgun. And charge that somewhere at night-time
on a little generator or something. But we have put a whole house
together just using the two cordless screwguns without having to
charge them at all.
DORNEY: The cost of the kit ex-factory
is $13,000. Des LaRance says Rotary International has shown great
interest in it and they're looking for sponsors. He's already spoken
to a shipping company which has offered to transport a container
load of the kits - that's three houses - to East Timor for free.
Mr LaRance says the design is adaptable.
LARANCE: Exactly, yes. And one particular
lady, one of our District Governors in Rotary asked if we could
turn one of these houses into a school. And I went home that night
and clicking around on a computer I got hold of the complex and
I stretched it and added five more centre modules and automatically,
boom, there was a magic school. It's just amazing how this particular
module can be turned into something like that. For $25,000 we can
supply a school for 46 children and that includes desks and everything.
07/11/2003
Horny
Rubbing Rams Home Signal
A randy ram was revealed as the root
of a mysterious transmission that had British intelligence analysts
scratching their heads for days, according to an AP report.
Scientists at the Government Communications
Headquarters in Western England were stumped by strange high frequency
noises coming from a Yorkshire transmission station.
It was eventually revealed to be the
work of a ram rubbing its horns against the aerial masts “in between
servicing some local ewes.” It’s possible the ram was attracted
to the mast, which may have given off some tingling sensation, but
it was probably just a post to rub against.
Luckily the confusion the ram caused
among intelligence analysts didn’t lead to any mistaken missile
strikes.
Lemmings
Don’t Suicide
A 1958 Disney documentary White Wilderness,
in which bought lemmings were herded off a Canadian riverbank doubling
as a seaside cliff was a fake – an irritating one to zoologists,
not only because the behavior was faked, but also because they used
a wrong species.
White Wilderness is still available
on VHS as part of Disney’s True Life Adventure series.
Hypocrictical?
An Adelaide magistrate will face a
committal hearing on charges of having unlawful sexual intercourse
with a 15- year-old girl. The magistrate had been known for intemperate
remarks.
He once told a young prostitute she
was a “junkie” who would “die in the gutter” Michael Frederick is
currently on extended leave but has practiced as magistrate in the
Port Adelaide Magistrate court for nearly 20 years.
Branded
For Life
A recently published report suggests
that American parents are turning to the corporate world and brand
names ass a source of inspiration in naming their offspring.
Nearly 50 babies in the states are
carrying the moniker of Canon, whole one newborn has been lumbered
with Xerox (presumably because he's the image of his father!)
Other "new" names include Bentley,
Jaguar and Timberland.
It's only a matter of time before little
Nikes and Reeboks are running around!
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