Notes from Ashmore Rotary Club Meeting, 4^th February 2026 

Our chair for the evening, Robyn, opened the meeting at 6:52pm.

She welcomed our guest speakers Delilah Nuttley and Mattias Steljic, and also our guests, Julie O’Dea, Roxy Steljic (Mattias’ mother) and Peter (accompanying Pat), to the meeting.

Denise informed the members of the sad news that Joan Adams’ son in London had died suddenly of a heart attack. The club had sent Joan flowers and expressed their condolences. 

The meeting was paused whilst those eating enjoyed a tasty Thai dinner provided by Kumar.

President Owen again welcomed our guests and also Ian McPherson on his return to the club.

He reported that many members enjoyed the recent Trivia night with Parkwood and Nerang clubs. Our team boosted the confidence of the other two clubs whilst gaining more clues on how to win the trophy next year.

He thanked Red team for running the meeting.

Robyn then introduced both our guest speakers – Delilah Nuttley and Mattias Steljic. Both are students at Queensland Academy of Health Sciences and are President and Vice-President of our Interact club at the school. Under their leadership, membership has grown to around 40 students. The topic of their joint presentation was their attendance at the recent National Youth Science Forum at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. Our club sponsored both of them to attend.

Key points which were presented included:

• It was a wonderful opportunity to meet like-minded students from the whole of Australia, and many lasting friendships were established.

• About 220 students attended the week long forum

• The quality of the speakers and the whole content was excellent, e.g. one keynote speaker was Dr Katrina Wruck, Young Australian of 2025, and advocate for the power of green chemistry.

• Attendees were exposed to a vast range of subjects including nuclear fusion, the CERN particle accelerator, cyber security, robotics, the Integrated Pathology Museum, the uses of a UV spectrometer and military drones.

• It was stressed that successful adoption of a new technology is reliant on the ability to “sell” it well.

• During the week, they had the opportunity to visit the Gallery of Modern Art and the Queensland Museum of Natural History.

• The Great Debate was entitled “Are we building the things that will replace us?”

• They had fun as well, with team challenges, trivia and flying paper aeroplanes, a capella singing, a choir, and a human pyramid.

• Around 40 careers counsellors were circulating giving insights into possible career paths.

• At the moment, Delilah is considering Veterinary Science, whereas Mattias is still weighing his options.

• Both thanked our club sincerely for enabling them to take part in such an impressive event.

They answered number of questions and were congratulated for their presentation and their commitment to Interact.

President Owen thanked Robyn for chairing the meeting.

The next meeting will be an update on KIVA.

The meeting closed at 8:05pm.

Rotarian Graham Allchurch

Report on Lynne Richardson Community Centre AGM

On 12th December 2025 I attended the AGM and Volunteer Christmas party at Molendinar.

Overall the centre had a good year in helping the local community in as many programs as possible. 

Some programs had to be curtailed due to lack of volunteers.

Income for the year was down, mainly due to less income from hall rental.

There were less government elections held this year so hall was not needed for election related hiring.

Ashmore Rotary was thanked for it’s $1000 donation towards 120 Family Christmas hampers.

They were distributed to families  at the Family Christmas day when about 300 people attended.

Some of the programs are: Molendinar Help-Hub, BeConnected Digital Literacy, After school drop-in, School Holiday Programs,Chess club and 2nd Bite food distribution.

I do every 2nd Tuesday picking up unwanted food from 4 Coles Supermarkets.

University students do placements where they learn hands on application of the theory they study,

From President Deborah

“If you know someone who is a retired social worker and wants to volunteers for a few hours 1-2 days a week it would be great.

We need someone who can assist the students who do placement with us.

It looks good too to have a social worker on site”

Overall the centre needs qualified volunteers, retired or still working. Social workers, teachers, child carers.

There are other roles that need no requirements or maybe a drivers licence eg donated food pick up , sorting and packing.

The group running the centre are caring and inclusive but sometimes overworked.

I hope they can keep going with the wonderful job they are doing.

Rotarian Brian McAllan