Meeting Report
30 March 2010

Attendance
55 Members
3 Guests
2 Speakers
 

6 April 2010

Attendance
50 members
1 visitor (the Speaker)

Email all apologies to Philip Lambers or call Philip on 0439 344 407

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A former nurse who is now the CEO of Eastern Health, Allan Lilley, accepted a cheque for $52,000 from Balwyn Rotary Club this week. The money would be spent mostly on buying anthropomorphic dummies on which medical procedures could be taught at the hospital.

The obstetric section of the Box Hill Hospital would be the main beneficiary, he said. The hospital’s territory represented 2400 square kilometres and it serviced 800,000 people in its area.

The dummies are high-technology simulators that would help train people to treat heart attack and stroke victims and a mannequin for training for obstetrics.

``It is a change from when we trained for giving injections by injecting oranges,'' he said. Mr Lilley’s nursing training recently was called into action when a heart attack victim was found outside a medical facility he was visiting and he performed CPR on the patient whom he later met. He was expecting some reaction from the patient on finding out who had performed the vital resusitation.

``So you are the one who produced these sore ribs,’’ said the patient.

It was 12 of us Balwynians who made the journey to the Far West – to Perth - for the 78^th Annual Conference of District 9800. My impressions in just a sentence: “Definitely the best, always the best Rotary activity in the whole year.” Yes, it was a little bit expensive, but well worth it. In fact, speaking personally, I’ve been wanting, for many years, a good reason to visit Perth. Rotary Conference provided that, and I was not disappointed.

First aspect which appealed was the location of the Convention Exhibition Centre, overlooking both the expansive Swan River and the Waterfront Wharves. Our comfortable hotel the Permelia Hilton was just a 10 minute stroll away.

Being my first visit to Perth, I’m not sure whether I expected a frontier type town or a city rich with Chinese mining money whose pavements were paved with gold. In either case, I was wrong. Here was a City with a charming waterfront, from which ferries sped over the broad reaches of the Swan River. I turn around and admire the expansive manicured lawns – I’ve seen nothing like it, anywhere. A feeling of great space brings satisfaction, knowing I am in the heart of a capitol City. Fine old morton bay figs – a hundred or more years old – outline the waterfront.

 Look beyond the vast lawns, and there rises an avenue of splendid modern office and hotel buildings. They look new, and architecturally impressive. At least they are comparable with the view across Darling Harbour, Sydney. The area is spotless, with not a sign of graffiti. There is pride in the City of Perth.

All of us did some exploration, by ferry and coach to Fremantle, Rottnest Island, Kalamunda, Scarborough and the vineyards.

And now, what of the Speakers at Conference? Of course they are always the drawcard to Conferences. Without exception the twelve of them were outstandingly capable in their subject and inspiring in their delivery. 

Entertainment? Oh yes. For me, it was the Vocal Revolution, a singing group of 15 men, tenors, bases, and counter tenors who in true a’capella style treated us to BarberShop Quartet songs equal to anything I have heard in the deep south of Louville Kentucky.

Finally, my reaction was one of pride in belonging to such a magnificent organization as Rotary International. I took off my badge, and gave it an extra polish.

Owen Tassicker

One of the students the Rotary Club of Balwyn is helping, Mei, turned out for the early morning Camberwell market this week and met the OIC of the day, Peter Thomas.

Sunday Market Roster

Building the next roster covering the 4 month period for April to July is about to happen.

In order to minimise your need to arrange swaps, can you please let me know via an email to murray@wilkinson.com.au if you are aware of being un-available for duty on any particular Sundays within this period.

Thanks,

Murray Wilkinson
Roster Co-ordinator

Everything you ever wanted to know about Earthquakes………..! 
by Hugh Rutter – Balwyn Rotary Tuesday 30^th March, 2010

Planet Earth is not a rigid sphere orbiting the sun. It is not even a sphere but rather an oblate spheroid consisting of a number of layers. Starting from the outside, these include the crust, the astherosphere, the mantle, the outer core and the inner.  The outer core at a depth of 2,900km is liquid and about 6000 degrees C hot.

The skin of the planet is solid and much thinner, however, generally 60km in thickness. In Victoria, it is unusually thin of only 30km. 

This skin is composed of oceanic crust and continental crust which form the crustal plates.  These plates are continually moving because of the thermal currents originating in the planet’s core.  They may move in small jumps or large jumps; the smaller the move the lower the energy of the resultant earth quake.  The larger the move and we have a major earthquake, such as that of Chile, and there are two scales against which such movements are measured.

The Richter Scale is a means of calculating the energy released by an earthquake; it is a logarithmic scale. The Mercalli Scale is defined by visual observations by the people at the earthquake site.  A description of both scales was provided at the last meeting.

In Tokyo, for example, there is the meeting of three of the tectonic plates of the earth’s crust, the Pacific plate, the Philippines plate and the Eurasian plate. As a result there is a great likelihood of movement between them creating earthquakes.

In California, the San Andreas fault runs clearly down the coast and government buildings such as schools and hospitals have been built upon it because the land was available.

``There is no timetable to predict earthquakes, time scales in geophysics being very different from what we think,’’ said RBC member Hugh who studied geology and geophysics in London before becoming a consultant and joining the boards of several mining companies. In answer to a question, he said that unusually when the planets all lined up recently, there was a negligible pull on the earth.

People judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold, but so does a hard boiled egg.

At 20, we don't care what the world thinks of us; at 30, we worry about what it's thinking of us; at 40 we discover it isn't thinking about us at all.

Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and then getting out of range before it is understood.    

NOTE
There are many other Rotary events scheduled for the year. Please refer to the calendar in the club website for details. You can click on the "Agenda" tab for a summary.

For details of meetings beyond the dates above, click on the READ MORE link below

23 Mar 10 - The information housed at the State Library of Victoria . . .    Hamish Curry

30 Mar 2010 - All you wanted to know about earthquakes. . .   Hugh Rutter

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