District Governor's Message (continued)

Visited Kinglake-Ranges club this week where I took a ride in their ‘Trailrider’ which has been developed by the club with the main coordinator of the project being Bob Burns.

The Trailrider is used to take disabled people to experience nature and all the health benefits that can result from that.

RC King-lake Ranges received a district grant to develop this project and have since placed this with Parks Victoria in Kinglake.

There is also significant interest from both the SES and Ambulance Victoria in having one available to transport injured or disable people out of the bush or away from danger.

I also understand that Bob is about to take the Trailrider to an Aboriginal community around Echuca to enable disabled elders to go back ‘on country’.

I also had the great privilege of inducting into their club Tamara and Jordan. These induction not only significantly reduced their average age but also took them over the RI board set target of >30% women in Rotary by the end of the Rotary year. Well done!

I was invited to the RC Tocumwal recently where I was personally able to present the ‘Best Club Builder’ award to Tocumwal Rotary at the club's Christmas party.

Their club went from a very low base and was in very real danger of folding to add 11 new members which represented a 366.67% increase in membership.

So out of the over 1,100 clubs in the whole of Zone 8 (Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands) Tocumwal had the highest percentage increase in membership.

Congratulations!