MEETINGS
FRIDAY 7am
JULY
NEW ROTARY OFFICER'S YEAR OF SERVICE MONTH
July 2020 - UPDATE
The lockdown to contain CoVid19 that started on Mar 26th, has been eased to Level 3, but it is still not possible to hold a physical meeting with all our club members.
From Fri 20 Mar 2020 an online meeting will replace our regular breakfast meetings.
The major up-side is that you don't even have to be in the same country to attend - so do invite Rotary friends from other countries to join us!
Request an invitation: email Sue Truter
CAPTAIN'S LOG:31 July 2020
ENHANCE PARTICIPANT ENGAGEMENT...
We are all seeking experiences that feel personally and professionally relevant and fulfilling. Just like the people and communities we serve, our club members need to feel valued.
MEETINGS & EVENTS
Join our virtual 'Zoom' meetings - contact Janet Kriseman. She will send you an invitation link.
Fri 31 July 2020
"Fifth Friday Fellowship" Meeting
Fri 7 Aug 2020
Visit of District Governor, Carl-Heinz Duisberg
2020/21 BOARD
Meet Janet Kriseman
Janet has been a member of WRC since 2014. Cape Town born Janet is an alumnus of Herzlia High School. In the USA, she received a BA Hons in Political Philosophy from Brown and a Law degree from New York University.
AWARDS & CERTIFICATES
VOCATIONAL SERVICE AWARD
SUSIE MOFFATT - for exemplary vocational service and her selfless contribution to literacy through support of School Libraries
MERIT AWARDS
For exemplary MERITORIUS SERVICE - fundraising and raising awareness of Rotary...
JUNE WEBBER - for the Waterfront Canal Challenge event.
SPIRO MITCHELL - for the Waterfront Canal Challenge event.
SIHAM BODA - for the Waterfront Canal Challenge event.
DIRK HOFMANN - for the Cape Town Cycle Tour and Cape Town Marathon events.
COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARDS
MOHAMED AHMED-MOHAMED - for sustained service to Christine Revell Children's Home - particularly handling the Covid 19 protocols.
MICHELLE KOREVAAR - for her invaluable support to numerous Covid19 Hunger Relief projects.
PIETER SWART - for sustained Community Service with 'One to One' fun-day for the intellectually disabled community.
JANICE HALLIFORD - for sustained community service in respect of Wallie's Golden Oldies and support for club members.
BIANCA & THOM MITTAG - for 16 years continuous commitment to Early Childhood Development in Northern Cape Province.
PIETER POSTEMA - for sustained service to Club Community Service Projects including Christine Revell Children's Home.
SPECIAL SERVICE AWARDS
SIMON GERBER - for outstanding service in running an on-line Quizz fundraising event.
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Need a "feel good" boost?
Watch these little videos:
Christine Revell Children's Home
They will warm your heart: YES - Rotary IS making a difference!
NEWS from 2019/2020 have been moved to the HIGHLIGHTS page...
Until the global pandemic made so many of WRC's community and social activities impossible, there were loads of pictures to enjoy. Take a look back at the highlights of previous years:
24 JULY 2020 - 67 FOOD PARCELS FOR CRCH
FishSA made a generous donation of 67 food parcels to Christine Revell Children’s Home last Friday 24 July for Madiba Day. Piet Postema writes - "CRCH has been so blessed with donations, a day doesn’t go by without somebody dropping off something such as fruit and vegetables, nappies, baby food and knitted jerseys and more". Great news!.
17 July 2020 - Mandela Day "All Hands on Deck"
CMH (Change Makers’ Hub) had a mission of gifting 67 000 meals to over 100 soup kitchens on Mandela Day. The volunteer team assisted packing 15 tons of fresh produce into ready to make soup packets – each feeding 100 on “67 minutes for Madiba” shifts.
Rain and Pieter's mom Hanna, got out the knitting needles... The aim was 67 Mandela Day Beanies and we ended up with more than 170 that went out to Change Maker's Hub.
22 July 2020 - Best District ECD Project Award to Newlands & Waterfront RCs
PDG Geraldine - the Langa ECD Project Co-ordinator, warmly thanked Waterfront RC for our contribution of R80,000 as a Global Grant Partner and for our hands on hard. PDG Geraldine paid tribute to both Maryka Vermaak who had assisted on the legal side, but also especially thanked Piet Postema.
"Piet's time and effort on this project over the past two years was worth very much more that the club’s initial financial contribution. Piet used his superb building industry knowledge and expertise to help plan and ensure quality control of facility upgrades for 16 Langa ECD centres, to make them more health and safety compliant and thus able to apply for government subsidies which would lead to sustainability". PDG Geraldine went on to say that Piet had “literally walked the walk, regularly tramping the streets of Langa, working closely with the ECD principals, assessing and measuring buildings and advising on options and ensuring quality control. More recently Piet also provided major financial management support to the project team”.
WRC and Newlands RC shared the award for “Best ECD project” at the recent 2020 District Conference. Well done WRC; Well done Piet and Maryka, for all their hard work!
7 July 2020 - Supporting the Environment – RI’S 7th Area of Focus
This is Rotary Club President Induction season. The highlight of your Scribe’s week was attending the induction of President Koos Burger of the RC of Cape of Good Hope on Tuesday, 7 July.
To celebrate the good news of the Environment being added by Rotary International as the 7th Area of Focus, President Koos Burger launched what we believe, is the biggest ever “Mandala” in the world. The new Mandala at Rotary Camps Glencairn is a 36m diameter Rotary wheel. It was created using fynbos plants and was done to make a positive mark on the planet. This is another way to celebrate Rotary's involvement in Environmental Sustainability.
Video footage from a drone also showed President Koos being handed the chain in the cog of the wheel – spectacular!
July 2020 - Welcome DG Carl-Heiz and Caroline!
We wish Distrit Governor Carl-Heinz Duizberg and his wife Caroline, an enjoyable and successful year ahead as they take the leadership baton for our unique, diverse district. Waterfront Rotary is committed to suport our DG to achieve the goals idenfied by RI President Holger Knaack this year, one of which is to expand our reach creating new innovative club models. The RI President has asked us to select our members carefully, also to take a look at what our club should look like in five years time and how do we can achieve this vision.
We are proud that members of the RC of Waterfront are serving on numerous district committees this year to assist our DG - they are Siham Boda and Derek Pead (Support Facilitation Team), Derek Pead (Entrepreneurship), Glynis Jennings (Environment), David Bradley (Rotary Youth Camps) and June Webber (Membership - Future Pillar) Janet Kriseman (Literacy without portfolio). Siham also is on an inter-district Mediation Team for the African Centennial Celebrations in April next year.
30 June 2020 - Sans Souci Girls High School donates 10 domestic Sewing Machines
On 30 June, Piet Postema took delivery of 10 domestic sewing machines from the Headmistress Ms Ruschda O’Shea which the Sans Souci Girls High School no longer use. “Some years ago they stopped offering sewing lessons as part of their Domestic Science subject” writes Piet. He promised the sewing machines to President Marcel Hoogebeen of the Rotary Club of Franschhoek and Drakenstein Valley who will be collecting them from Piet on Friday for their project called Hope Through Action Centre. Unemployed women are paid a minimum wage to sew masks for the folk in the informal settlements around Franschhoek. The project thus not only employs people, but also provides free masks to the community whilst learning the art of sewing. Well done Piet! (As an aside, there was apparently also an article in The Tatler.)
Sat 27 June 2020
INDUCTION of JANET KRISEMAN
as 30th Captain of WRC
ROTARY - 'GLUE' FOR A BROKEN WORLD?
In the Anthem – Leonard Cohen sings; “There is a crack in everything, that’s where the light gets in…” I think he means that when something breaks, it can be an opportunity to improve it.
Covid19 has crashed into us like a wrecking ball, and while we are still standing, we are surrounded by the shards of the world we knew. The challenge for us is to try pick up the pieces that we want to keep, and glue everything back together in a way that we emerge stronger and more beautiful...
Read the full transcript of Janet's inspiring speech here.
What went well?
Having resolved to hold some of our regular meetings on-line, the lockdown forced us into holding all our meetings on-line. Our membership and speakers displayed amazing adaptability; we transitioned almost seamlessly. Apart from reducing our carbon footprint, 'zoom-meeting' allows us to connect with the world - we've already hosted 'visitors' from 5 continents.
Great efforts in Fundraising - well done!
Great efforts in difficult circumstances with projects. This was never going to be easy, but members rose to the challenge.
What could we have done differently?
More effort in looking after our members
More volunteers for club projects
More socials – while we could
Finally, to quote Alvin Toffler - now, more than ever, we need to learn from what's in front of us, un-learn what has become obsolete and re-learn as events evolve - The future will be different - that is a given.
15 May 2020 - Zooming in from all over the world!
What an amazing experience - friends zoomed in from the USA, the UK, Switzerland and Kenya to join us for JP Smith's informative chat - thank you JP for spending time with us - you must be one of the busiest people in Cape Town at the moment!
11 MAY 2020 - Packing Food Relief for Western Region
The Club's Covid-19 Relief donation of R7000 went to Michelle Koerevaar who is an online media and marketing strategist and has many years of experience in serving both local and international business organisations, boards and non-profit organisations.
ChangeMakersHub is what she believes is her legacy work, a way she can use the gifts she has been given, the expertise, the network, to build something that will connect and inspire those who want to help with ways they can, for real.
Michelle and her little army of willing hands deliver cooked food and food parcels to the destitute people of Joe Slovo, Dunoon, Fisantekraal and Lavender Hill settlements. She expressed her gratitude for our generous donation. - Spiro Mitchell -
May 2020 - Food Relief for Langa ECD's
As part of the Langa ECD upgrade project with RC Newands, RI was asked if we could aportion part of the Global Grant contingency to the Covid-19 Feeding Scheme as we were told that only registered ECDs would receive their usual allowance of food. This left 15 unregistered ECDs with nothing and we covered this gap to the value of over R200k. There are food parcels for 770 children which will feed a family of 5 for 6 weeks. Leeanne, the principal of Siyahanyisa Centre was delighted with the contributions.
SPEAKER'S CORNER
GUEST SPEAKER: Fri 17 July 2020 Professor Frank Shillington “Perspectives on the oceanography around Southern Africa”.
What a privilege to welcome Professor Frank Shillington whose research interests include physical oceanography, satellite remote sensing of Sea Surface Temperatures (SST), Waves and Wind also ocean numerical modelling of the coastal ocean and coastal upswelling.
Some interesting facts shared -
At the base of the ocean food web are single-celled algae and other plant-like organisms known as phytoplankton. Like plants on land, phytoplankton use chlorophyll and other light-harvesting pigments to carry out photosynthesis. Where phytoplankton grow depends on available sunlight, temperature, and nutrient levels. Because cold waters tend to have more nutrients than warm waters, phytoplankton tend to be more plentiful where waters ware cold. The West Coast is high in chlorophyll; Sea temperature at the equator remains static at 28 degrees throughout the year; warm water raises the sea level – the pacific ocean is 1.5 meters higher; 20 000 years ago, False Bay was dry; average rise in sea level is 3.2mm a year (Muizenberg could be flooded with rising sea levels).
GUEST SPEAKER: 10 July 2020 - Nikolaus Bauer: DlalaNje
Nikolaus Bauer, a free-lance journalist and co-founder of Dlala Nje in 2012, a social entrepreneurship vehicle, gave a fascinating insight into the history of Ponte City.
Ponte City is a skyscraper in the Berea neighbourhood of Johannesburg, just next to Hillbrow. Built in 1975 to a height of 173m, made it the tallest residential skyscraper in Africa.
The 55-story building is cylindrical, with an open centre allowing additional light into the apartments. The centre space, known as “the core”, rises above the uneven rock floor.
Nikolaus took us through its history, from being the most famous high rise in Africa – home to the crème de la crème at the time, through its infamous years, to the present day where it is a microcosm of a new South Africa.
Nikolaus lived in Ponte for five years, starting the DlalaNje foundation in 2012, that creates entrepreneurship opportunities through running inner-city immersions and experiences in some of our city’s most misunderstood areas. For more information on DlalaNje, take a look at https://www.dlalanje.org/
14 Apr 2020 - Lockdown at CRCH
In spite of the lockdown, the caring staff of Christine Revell Childrens' Home are making heroic efforts to entertain their small charges... Here they are all showing off their masks.
20 Mar 2020 - WRC meeting goes virtual!
At 7am on Fri 20 Mar 2020 the members of WRC assembled for a notable 'first': a virtual meeting and an opportunity for Cindy Mkaza-Siboto from Emagqabini Education Academy to share their wonderful story.
A record number of members attended and this format of meetings will continue for at least until the CoVid19 countrywide lockdown ends.
16 Mar 2020 - Blouberg Rotary & Rotaract
Blouberg Rotary Club member Jean Freeborough thanking WRC Siham Boda and fellow speaker incoming Claremont Rotary Club President Tsie Mogoje for talking about their Rotary experience.
Siham with Rex Omameh current Blouberg Roteract Club President and who will be incoming District Roteract President. Rex Omameh is on the far right with newly inducted Rotaract members. Also in photo is Blouberg Honourary member Dr Bettie Walker.
13 Mar 2020 - Meeting in the Aquarium
The weekly meeting was held at the beautiful Two Oceans Aquarium, in front of the Predator Tank. Guest speaker was Maryke Musson who is the former Curator of the Aquarium and now heads up the Two Oceans Aquarium Education Trust. She spoke about what the Trust is doing and told us where Yoshi the turtle has been swimming since he was released from the Aquarium.
Janice Halliford and Maryka Vermaak were ready to welcome members and guests at the beautifu venue.
Sue Truter and regular visitor Kai Howie took time out to pose in front of the coral.
Glynis Jennings and Vaughan Pierce chatting while a ragged tooth shark circles around. We were shown the teaching classrooms where school children are exposed to all aspects of the ocean.
8 Mar 2020 - Cape Town Cycle Tour
And before we knew it, it was Cape Town Cycle Tour day again and what a gorgeous day it turned out to be for the 30,000 odd cyclists who came out to enjoy a perfect day for cycling in Cape Town.
Florencia, Vic and Janice huddle for a 'selfie'.
Once again the WRC crew - and a bunch of interacters - rose to the 'marshalling challenge'. Thank you one and all. The reward is enormous - we get the chance to contribute to the amazing atmosphere in a gorgeous setting.
Joe Hansen takes a 'groupie' with Glynis, Maryka and Vaughan.
"WHAT IF Paul Harris started Rotary today?"
A very interesting read by Evan Burrel.