This document summarizes the key discussions and announcements from the Rotary Club of Parramatta City meeting on August 5th, 2013. It discusses: 1) A guest speaker from the Australian Thyroid Foundation who spoke about thyroid disease and iodine deficiency. 2) An update from the club president on the Rotary Indigenous Health Scholarships event and a Rotary presidents' meeting. 3) Upcoming volunteer opportunities with Rotary Youth Driver Awareness and Northcott Disability Services. 4) An induction of a returning club member and a brief self-introduction from another club member. 5) Announcements about upcoming district meetings and a reminder about RSVP procedures for the club meetings

1. Rotary Club of Parramatta City
Rotary Four Way Test
The Four Way Test’ challenges Rotarians, in everything they do, to ask of
themselves:
Of the things we say or do:
1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
Meeting 5 August 2013
Guests
John Surian introduced Beverley Garside, president of the Australian
Thyroid Foundation Ltd.
Rotary Indigenous Health Scholarships
President Keith reported back on his attendance at the Rotary Indigenous
Health Scholarships function, attended by three students. Of these, one
had been at a PhD evening hosted by our club. A second had been
sponsored by the Rotary Club of Oberon. The other was being sponsored
by a medical practice in Merrylands. The students each received a
scholarship of $5,000, of which $2,500 had been provided by a Rotary
club or other organisation and the rest was in the form of a State
Government subsidy. The students came from interesting backgrounds.
One was in her first year of Medicine at the University of Western
Sydney. Another was in her 40s, mother of four children, of whom two
were autistic, and had gone back to study. She was doing a Bachelor of
Social Science dgree at Bathurst and would be doing postgraduate work
later. “It was really worthwhile and makes you proud to be a Rotarian,”
he said.
Rotary Presidents’ Meeting
Keith also attended a Rotary presidents’ meeting on Friday night last
week, which was notable because of inspired chairmanship by the district
governor. There as a “push on” for the district conference which would be
held on Saturday, 1 March, at the Sports Centre, Homebush Bay. Chris
Jocelyn stressed the need to educate the community about Rotary, and
that if someone was inclined to join Rotary, that person should get a good
impression and be inspired to come back.
ROTARY CLUB OF PARRAMATTA CITY DISTRICT 9675
COMMUNITY NETWORKER
ROTARY YOUTH
DRIVER
AWARENESS
(RYDA)
Young people aged 17-25 represent less
than 15% of the population yet account for
over one quarter of deaths and injuries on
our roads. In 2000, a group of concerned
Rotarians decided that something must be
done to stop this tragic loss of young people
and established the Rotary Youth Driver
Awareness (RYDA) program, a road safety
education program for year 11 students.
RYDA was initiated in District 9680 on the
north shore of Sydney and each year
around 10,000 students from over 90% of
schools in the district attend RYDA. The
program has now been adopted by 12 other
Rotary Districts and has rapidly spread
to venues across NSW and interstate to
Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and
Western Australia. Last year over 25,000
students attended RYDA at 23 venues
located across Australia and to date over
100,000 students have participated in the
RYDA Program.
RYDA is unique as it attempts to
influence “attitudes and behaviours” of both
drivers and passengers before they get their
licences. Peer pressure from passengers
has a major effect on the way young people
behave behind the wheel - by addressing
students as both drivers and passengers,
the program aims to change the nvironment
in the car rather than focusing solely on the
driver.
The one day RYDA Program includes six
sessions that are designed to be interactive
and cover a broad range of topics including
hazard perception, stopping distances, safe
celebrating and fatigue plus financial
responsibilities - all aimed at influencing the
attitude of young people before they get
behind the wheel of a car.
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2. Rotary Club of Parramatta City
Northcott had asked for volunteers to work at their riverbank event on on 13 September, from 11.30 am till 2
pm. Parramatta Rotary had participated for the last few years and Keith suggested we do it again this year.
RYDA (Rotary Youth Driving Awareness)
This organisation was looking for more people to assist in its activities. They needed volunteers on Friday
this week and on August 20. The hours were from 10 am till 2 pm. It would probably be at Penrith.
Our Sister Club, the Rotary Club of Ramon Magsaysay, the Philippines
President Mina Bonita, sends this message:
Hello Keith! Thanks for sharing with us your club's very inspiring programs . So far, the RcRM had already
accomplished the feeding & literacy program which we co- sponsored . This is a six-month program for 200 children
from indigenous families in one area. We hope for a successful program before the year ends. Last month, we co
sponsored a job fair for deserving PWD students (see picture). We're planning to join again a job fair for PWD to
announce later. Lastly, please extend our gratitude to you & your family and to your club members for being too
supportive to our club projects. I am also inviting you and everybody on Sept 23 our club officers induction. Hope to
see you all.
Glenn Gardner Induction
Glenn Gardner Induction
Glenn, an ordained Anglican minister, who first joined Parramatta City Rotary in 1989 is a former chief
executive officer of Northcott Disability Services. He resigned because he moved from the area to become
chief executive officer of Ability First Australia. He has several roles now, one being board membership of
Ability First Australia, another curacy work with St Philips Turramurra. He was rejoining because he had
missed the fellowship. “Rotary has made a difference round the world,” he said. “With Rotary, of all the
organisations, if it went out of business it would be missed.” He was inducted again on Monday, to the
applause of those present and an embrace from a member with whom he appears to have had, in jocular
fashion, a past difference.
Thyroid Matters
Beverley Garside, president of the Australian Thyroid Foundation Ltd, herself a thyroid disease sufferer along
with others of her family, has been president of the foundation since 1998. She said she could not stress
enough the need to recognised the disease, which affected one in seven Australians, and to recognise its
importance in maintaining a healthy metabolism and its importance in other areas, such as development of
foetal brain. A world-wide iodine deficiency, including deficiency in Australia, was a serious issue. She said
that an Australia-wide iodine deficiency in the 1990s could be correlated with a ride in the incidence of autism

3. Rotary Club of Parramatta City
in children and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. Today, she said, 50 percent of pregnant women were
iodine-deficient.
Ms Garside said that thyroid cancer was on the increase. Research in 2008 showed that over the previous
decade, there had been an 84 percent increase in thyroid cancer for women and 40 percent for men. But
doctors were often not keeping up. Some were not even doing the examinations that would reveal the
presence of the cancer or not reading the test results properly.
Joy Gillett
Joy Gillett, being the first of our members to give a brief summary of themselves, disclosed that she was not
of convict origin but the first of her family to reach these shores did his best to become one. His name was
Tayt and he was captain of the last convict ship to arrive at Tasmania. But it appears he had been drinking, the
ship hit the wharf and Mr Tayt ended up in gaol. The family did, however, prosper, Mr Tayt was the great-
grandfather of Joy, who, the youngest of seven children, was born in Melbourne. Virtually the whole of that
family, however, came to New South Wales, Joy when she was very young. She is now proudly part of the
working class west of Sydney.
Joy said she did not want to stay at school, and with Education Department approval got out at 14 years of
age to work. She worked sex months with an insurance company and then went to work for Rotary, which
suited her. She has been with it ever since and now heads Australian Rotary Health, with a staff of six. In the
meantime, she virtually finished an accountancy course, has done numerous TAFE course, has been married
and has two adult children and a grandchild. In her job, she is extremely busy, having in just over two weeks
prior to this meeting been to Victoria, Tasmania and Darwin.
In sport, Joy has had a lifelong passion for netball. She played it till she was almost 50, then went into
administration. She acts sometimes as an umpire, and her daughter, sharing Joy’s passion for the sport, has
coached one of the state teams which came 9th
in the state championships out of a cast of 180.
District Meetings coming up.
RAWCS committee meeting Friday 8th August at 7.30pm at Sutherland United Services Club.
Membership matters evening Wednesday 21st August
Apologies and Guests
Apologies to Joy Gillett on 8837 1900 before 9.30am on Monday morning.
This is the latest time apologies can be accepted as numbers must be given to the hotel by this time.
If you are bringing a guest please also advise this to Joy by that time to ensure a meal is prepared.
The Club is required to pay for the number of lunches ordered. Invoices for the cost of a meal will be sent to
members by Vandana if you do not apologise for non- attendance by 9.30am on Mondays.
The speaker for next meeting will be Albie Tenedora, our GSE representative.
A Reflection on Politics
I am really not very good at risqué jokes and in writing this brief editorial, I must declare that I am never
going to try to influence voting. But I cannot resist commenting on the thunderous offensive that News Ltd
has launched against the Rudd Government in the lead-up to 7 September . Yesterday, for the first time in

4. Rotary Club of Parramatta City
many years, I bought a copy of the Daily Telegraph, with the banner headline: “Throw This Mob [the Rudd
Government] Out”, just because I was so appalled. Despite all these years of the media being called to
account, through that excellent institution, Media Watch, and all the condemnation of News Ltd in its attack
on the ailing Whitlam Government in 1975, it just keeps going.
I know that in my career, being only ever occasionally obliged to report politics, I was equally appalled at
the power game I saw being played in my backyard. I have seen many instances of it but there has nothing as
blatant as has happened, year after year, in the opposition papers.
I will mention. Fairfax Media, as it is now called, had had a huge falling-out with the Wran Government in
the 1980s. Wran removed all government advertising from Fairfax in retaliation. When the royal commission
was called into allegations of a cover-up of the fraud offences of Kevin Humphries, headed by Justice Sir
Lawrence Street, I expected the royal commission to be called, as virtually all royal commissions are, after the
royal commissioner (ie Moffitt Royal Commission, Costigan Royal Commission). There was a suggestion that
Neville Wran had played a part in the cover-up but the royal commission was not into Wran himself. The
Sydney Morning Herald sub-editor invariably changed my copy, on instruction, to have the inquiry as the
WRAN Royal Commission and the paper put Wran’s photo beside each headline. For months, reporting on it
and filing my copy, I referred to the “Street Royal Commission”. And every morning it came out “Wran
Royal Commission”. And nothing I could do would change that. Wran, as it turned out, was cleared.
As I say, I am not advocating a vote one way or the other. By nature I tend to conservatism but I am
normally a swinging voter. The diversification of the news media, the convergence of print media and digital
imagery and the explosion of social media, is undoubtedly healthy. It is to be hoped that it will lead to the
decline of the great media barons as gatekeepers for what the public has a right to know and what it should
think.
Malcolm Brown