Let's start with the English Merry Christmas, the French Joyeux Noel, the Brazilian Boas Festas,
the Chilian Feliz Navidad.
Whether the faith of the nation is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Hindu, or followers of the teachings of Buddha, every nation has a Christmas greeting and a ritual attached to this period of time.
In Egypt Christmas in the Coptic Orthodox Church is celebrated on the 7th of December and the festivities include special foods, visiting friends and neighbours, presentation of gifts, and the sharing of shortbat and Kaik, shortbat being an fermented refreshment and a shortbread like food without yeast.
In Ethiopia a yeast free bread, a soup made only at Christmas, singing, gift giving and visiting mark the arrival of Christmas.
In Lebanon, coffee, sugared almonds, liqueur, visiting, singing, small gifts and festive meals also mark the occasion.
Some nations celebrate Christmas from the Christian teachings -- the celebration of the birth of Christ.
Some nations still embrace many of the older festivities of the Pagan Yule which celebrated the winter solstice and the 12 day festival of celebration and honour for Frey the God of fertility and farming.
Common in all nations is a practice of giving. The giving is celebrated in many forms from Father Christmas, St. Nicholas and Russian Baboushka whose role is to deliver presents to children. There is a common theme in all the giving stories. The practice of giving as a token, the practice of giving to bring on the spring.
Common in all nations is festive food, the Christmas cake, pudding, the yule log, mince pies, pork pies, turkey, chicken and pork and in Australia of more recent years the recognition that our season provides an abundance of seafood and stone and berry fruits.
Common in all the nations is the visiting and catching up. Friends, relatives, those without family those impaired or ailed. Each reference to Christmas has an implied message of peace, friendship and goodwill.
Each year we demonstrate that as a global population, regardless of race, language, or religion, we focus the attention of this global village on a single purpose - the celebration of Christmas.
What would it take for the entire globe to extend the attitudes of care, friendship, peace for one extra day?
And then extend that attitude for an additional extra day. Imagine our world, if we could start the ball rolling , and this concept could gather momentum. As we've illustrated with the differences, we don't have to believe in the same doctrine, we only have to share the similarities, peace, goodwill and friendship.
The legends of Yule perhaps give us a hint as to how this can happen. Many have tried to explain the meaning of the word Yule to no avail. Some have suggested that Julius (or yulius) Ceasar has a link. That trusty resource Google shows that Yule is derived from the nordic word Hjol which means wheel and that the Yule time is a celebration that the wheel has made another full turn, another year has cycled through.
The Yule and the Rotary Wheel have a very similar concept.
In this year where our theme is Imagine, we can imagine a world where the principles of peace, goodwill and international understanding, are extended for more than just one day, each and then every year.
We have had a number of special experiences with our program this year - the content that is presented by our own members provides very special insights into the thoughts, dreams and achievements of our own members.
We have captured from each month, just one of the meetings to share some reflections on the year to date.
July 6, 2022 - An insight into Rotary Convention
First program for this year was PDG Tony Monley with a preview of the planning, program, and volunteer opportunities for International Convention that will be held in Melbourne May 27 - May 31, 2023.
Any of our club members who have been to a Convention will assure you that this IS an opportunity to consider - the scale of the event, the content of the program - this is a truly international experience and we have the best opportunities as the event is being hosted in Melbourne.
Remember the impressive presentation from Alice Terrill - originally a member of Interact, she has participated in Model United Nations Assembly, and National Youth Science Forum and the Rotary Youth Leadership Award program and now serves as the District Rotaract Representative for Rotaract in our District.
An impressive presentation and an inspirational reminder of the value of the many programs that we offer and the outstanding candidates who both benefit from the programs, and contribute to our community in so many ways.
A very special event in our calendar and (like many events), we welcomed the opportunity to participate in this breakfast event, in person!
Take a moment to remember Simon Madden and his stories from his days on and off the field, and the very interesting insights into the leadership of Essendon that was unfolding at the same time as our breakfast.
Beneficiary of the event, each year is SALT - Sport & Life Training and the proceeds raised will be used within the City of Whitehorse to benefit the clubs in our community, and enable them to access the many programs offered by SALT whose vision is to transform Australian culture, through sport.
October 26, 2022 - Melbourne Spark Engineering Camp - 2022
Spark Engineering Camp is a week-long residential camp that empowers Year 10-12 students from under-represented backgrounds in pursuing tertiary education. It is run solely by university student volunteers. This presentation to our club was a token of appreciation to the for generously sponsoring $500 to the camp.
One focus of the experience is to foster relationships between a diverse range of people from all walks of life. The camp is a project of Youth Without Borders and provides students with the opportunity to experience STEM subjects in a tertiary context - with program content including Robogals, WEB Prosthetics, WetLabs and the EY Workshop.
November 9, 2022 - Louise Hardman - Plastic Collective
Louise is a passionate environmental science educator, innovator and business woman.
After witnessing a small green turtle die from plastic ingestion, Louise started a social-enterprise called Plastic Collective in 2016, in an effort to stop plastics entering the ocean. Her mission is to train communities to create value from waste and change attitudes that plastic is a resource not rubbish by demonstrating that our behaviours, not the plastics, are causing untold devastation for many many communities and wildlife.
December 7, 2022 - Alan Turner - Zaidee's Rainbow Foundation
A very definite highlight of our program this year - Alan Turner provide a far reaching insight into the work of Zaidee's Foundation.
The work covers fund raising as well as advocacy and awareness for organ donation and the long and often challenging work of seeking to achieve a change in policy and legislation. Today we live in a world where as members of the public we need to actively decide to become an organ donor - Zaidee's gift of organs changed the lives of seven other people. Zaidee's Foundation is seeking to have the legislators of our nation move Australia to join the leading countries around the globe, where the default setting is that every one IS an organ donor, and there is provision to opt out, should you chose not to donate organs.
