Here is the text of President Helena Wimpole's final message as club president, delivered at Changeover 2026 on June 23rd.
It has been a busy year for me as the President of the Rotary Club of Glenferrie as there is so much to learn about this position and, like all organisations at the present time, Rotary is required to behave like every other business, albeit that Rotary is a completely volunteer organisation.
Rotary clubs are now mostly incorporated entities, with a board which must adhere to a constitution and good Governance. The secretary is required to take accurate minutes at the board meetings and follow up many other matters as well. The treasurer’s reports must be audited. This is a big change from the early days of the club when i joined more than twenty-one years ago.
On my board, I have been fortunate to have had a very competent secretary in Don Heath and a very competent treasurer in Thelma Hutchison. I’d like to give a big thank you to both of you. I appreciate all the long hours you have devoted to these roles.
Every member of the board has worked hard and I would also like to thank you all.
The Rotary Club of Glenferrie has been busy throughout the year with many projects. Very importantly, we celebrated our 50th Anniversary which was a highly successful and memorable occasion.
Our Director of Rotary Foundation, Joanne Shentu, and I agreed to host a Rotary Global Scholar from Japan for two years. We are delighted to be hosting Masaya Endo who is studying for his Master’s Degree in Linguistics at Melbourne University. He has been with us for a year now. Masaya is popular not only in our club but among all Rotarians and people he neets. He enjoys all the events in which he participates with us and we feel very fortunate to have him.
Masaya is not with us tonight as he is back home in Japan for a few weeks.
The Boroondara Farmers Market is a vital source of revenue for the club. Half of the proceeds is given to the important program, Education CHANCES. This program has existed for almost the same amount of time as the Boroondara Farmers Market. It provides financial scholarships to students experiencing financial hardship. Over the years many students have been able to proceed to tertiary education because of these scholarships.
Our club has a close relationship with Norman Gale at the Salvation Army in Camberwell. We provide the centre there with non-perishable food and other products for their pantry to be distributed to people in need. We also supply unsold
bread once a week, which we pick up at the end of the day from Bakers Delight, Camberwell and take it to the Salvation Army for their use the next day. We provide cooking classes at the centre for men who are isolated, lonely and some of whom suffer mental health problems. The men all appear to benefit from this experience and appreciate sharing a meal together at the end of the class.
Our club also supports Camcare, an organization in Boroondara that assists people in many ways who need help. Members of our club help some church members provide a BBQ once a month for the clients of Camcare and assist with their garden, especially the vegetable garden.
We have a very comprehensive international program. This includes the Sumba Eye Program, which has been successful for many years, undertaken by Dr. Mark Ellis AM, ophthalmologist in our club and Peter Stewart, optometrist, from the Rotary Club of Kew. Due to this program there have been countless eye operations and the provision of glasses to the people of western Sumba, a very poor island of Indonesia.
Recently we have worked closely with the Rotary Club of Bo in Sierra Leone and have provided new toilet blocks for the local school. This has especially benefitted the girls, and consequently many more girls are now attending the school. It was such an important achievement that it was televised in the region. Following this project, we established a water tower at the school and now everyone can wash their hands and use clean water. A big thank you to Amelia Anderson and her committee for achieving this amazing outcome under difficult circumstances. Thank you to Don Heath for his hard work in making sure that the financial aspect of the project proceeded without loss of funds due to major problems experienced with the transfer of the monies. Thank you to Don Moore, an engineer in our club, who provided the plans and advice for the project.
The international committee has undertaken other programs such as providing birthing kits in New Guinea, making giving birth safer and more hygienic. A big thank you to Geoff Widmer and his daughter Susie for their very generous donation to this project, which is obviously dear to their hearts.
The club is very involved in youth programs with the purpose of fostering education and enhancing confidence in young people. You will hear more about these programs later.
A relatively new addition to Rotary projects is the environment. Our club is becoming involved in recycling , including soft plastics, books sold at the Farmers Market and plans to sell bric-à-brac at the Balwyn Sunday market, providing suitable clothes for the organisation,” Fitted for Work” for women; in cleaning up the environment, such as in “Clean up Australia Day” and planting suitable plants in areas where they are required and providing gardens and cleaning up gardens.
Like all Rotary clubs, we are working on reaching out to attract new members and hopefully younger members, as current members are ageing. Our founder, Paul Harris, very wisely said that Rotary must change with the times to remain relevant. I believe this is happening among a younger generation. There has been the development of newer types of clubs which better meet the needs of younger people, parents with young children and people who are very busy in the work force. These new clubs include: satellite clubs, which are a sub club of a Rotary club. They often tend to be more flexible and the sponsor club usually meets most of the costs. E- clubs meet online and they are fully affiliated and fully functional. Cause based clubs are formed around a specific service. They attract members who are passionate about a particular issue such as the environment or health. In recent years a music club has been established and there are others. All of these clubs provide services to the community just like traditional Rotary clubs but in a way which is more manageable for their members.
This is just an overview of what the club has achieved this year and is by no means exhaustive. You will hear some more about our club’s programs from our president - elect, Chris Raw.
I would like to thank the members of the Rotary Club of Glenferrie for a very successful year.