Thanks to PP Kenn Williams for filling in for me at last week's meeting. I had a minor dose of 'man flu' that I knew I wouldn't be popular if I shared it with the meeting. I was still able to join the meeting via our Zoom connection.
Chris Whelan's comprehensive report on the Jacaranda Festival confirmed that even with all the challenges provided by the COVID 19 pandemic the 2020 Jacaranda Festival was one of our most successful and only marginally down from last year. The attendance of approximately 11000 people throughout the day would be our most accurate count compared to other years, due to our COVID 19 event plan requiring people to be registered for contact tracing purposes if required.
The 'on the day' volunteer time was an impressive 740 hours with our club members contributing 398 hours, followed by the Waylan Bay Sea Scouts with 227 hours. We are very appreciative of the support we received from our fellow Rotary Clubs in Attadale, Willetton, Melville and the E-Club. The Applecross Primary School P&C did a fantastic job under the direction of Clive Pearson to manage the car parking task on their school grounds.
It is pleasing that we are able to contribute funds to the organisations who support us in running the Jacaranda Festival. Also that we have funds to support Rotary programs such as RYLA, RYPEN, Handicamp, Rotary Foundation, Rotary Health and many more. We also provide support for a number of local community groups and this would not be possible without the Rotary Jacaranda Festival. So keep in mind there are only 355 days to go before our 2021 Rotary Jacaranda Festival! 
XMAS LUNCH
What a beautiful day for our Xmas lunch at
Brookside Vineyard located in the picturesque Bickley Valley. Thanks to Liz and Lorri for organising the event and it was unfortunate that Liz and David were unable to make the lunch due to unforeseen circumstances.
The Vineyard Kitchen served some delicious food and everyone had the opportunity to taste Brookside Vineyard's award winning wines.
Most of the group of 32 Rotarians and partners travelled by bus and the mood was captured (picture above) perfectly by Ian Fairnie from the co-drivers seat before we left to head home.
GUEST SPEAKERS
'GIVE A FEED' Ambassadors Aaron Pitt and Wayne Smith
This weeks guest speakers were Aaron Pitt and Wayne Smith who are Give A Feed Co-Founders.
Give A Feed is an initiative of the Rotary Club of Heirisson which started in 2011. Both Greg and Aaron (current and past Rotarians respectively) have used their professional skills and network, to answer a challenge to provide Give A Feed Festive Hampers to West Australian families in need so they can celebrate Christmas and not go hungry.
Now in its ninth year, 19,285 Christmas Hampers have been distributed and this year their goal is to provide more than 2500 hampers.
They need our support to reach this target and for just $30 you can help provide a Christmas food hamper to a WA family in need. Spread the word amongst family and friends
Tomorrows speaker is our sergeant and PP Chris Dawson. Chris is going to be a 'busy boy' tomorrow. Looking forward to it.
Also looking forward to our guest speaker the following week (15th December) when our recently returned Rotary Youth Exchange student, Connor Ovens, will be reporting on his Youth Exchange in Germany. As we know through some updates during the year from Connor via Zoom, he has shown unbelievable resilience spending a significant amount of his time in Germany either in lockdown or under significant travel restrictions.
