Over the last few days, once again the Rotary Club of Brisbane Mid-City sponsored an ECOMAN business simulation program in Brisbane’s CBD for students from Yeronga State High School. Twenty students from a mixture of backgrounds managed four competing companies for three days in the Eagle Street premises of the venue provider KPMG. The students’ fulsome thanks underlined how much they had gained from the exercise in understanding business and enterprise. Brisbane Mid-City and earlier Brisbane North have sponsored ECOMAN for 16 consecutive years.

Photo shows the four Chief Executive Officers of the competing companies with, from left, ECOMAN facilitator Tracey Sheehan, Brisbane Mid-City member Collin Myers, KPMG Director Business Development Fred Gwinn, ECOMAN Coordinator Barry Hopf, and ECOMAN facilitator Bob Kelsey.

For More information about Ecoman http://qpec.org.au/ecoman.html

Judy Xavier, President of the Rotary Club of Brisbane Mid-City, visited the Wesley Medical Research BioBank today (Thursday 29 September 2016) to inspect the special equipment that the Club has donated.

The BioBank, now Queensland’s largest such facility, provides researchers with a rapid, customised service to supply human tissue, blood and data.

Welcoming Judy to the BioBank, the Manager Emma Raymond said that the specialised hot air dryer funded by Rotary was already proving its worth in speeding up the process of preparing tissue samples. The time taken to melt the protective wax from samples prior to making them microscope ready has been reduced from eight hours to 12 minutes. At the same time, the quality of each sample fix to the slide has been improved.

The gift from the Rotary Club of Brisbane Mid-City had its genesis in May when Professor Jim Nicklin accepted the club’s invitation to be the guest speaker at a special club meeting to mark Mother’s Day. Professor Nicklin is a well known gynaecological oncologist and researcher at Wesley Medical Research. His talk to Rotary was about research into ovarian cancer and he spoke glowingly about the role of the Wesley Medical Research BioBank. As a result, the club decided to purchase the hot air dryer.

President Judy Xavier (R) with BioBank Manager Emma Raymond (L)  and Club member and former WMR Board Member Collin Myers inspecting the the hot air dryer.

The Rotary Club of Brisbane Mid City gift to the Wesley Medical Research BioBank.

Neil Dickson wants you to sponsor him for sleeping on a couch (you’d think he would do it for nothing, like the rest of us with the TV remote falling from our hands).

As you’d expect, of course, there’s a good cause in Neil’s madness. Last year, he was a SOUPERHERO raising funds for Australians living below the poverty line.

This year, as he explains:

“I've taken on The Couch Project challenge, raising awareness and funds for young people experiencing the ‘hidden’ form of homelessness – ‘couch surfing’."

“It’s unfair that over 44,000 young people under the age of 25 are experiencing homelessness tonight* because home isn’t safe for them."

“The challenge is to sleep on a couch on Friday 16 September. Too easy, right? So, if you help me reach my sponsorship goal of $1,000, I'll willingly sleep on the couch for a week!"

“In sponsoring me, your donation means the Salvos at Youth Outreach Service can give food, blankets, counselling and support to get young people back on their feet."

“Visit my sponsor page at: https://thecouchproject16.everydayhero.com/au/neil" 

*ABS, 2012, Census of Population and Housing: Estimating Homelessness 2011

Please consider a donation to Springs of Hope Foundation Through Global Giving as it will be matched 50% by Global Giving if you donate on the site between Australian time 23:00 Wednesday June 15th and tomorrow till 2pm. See details at Great News From Springs Of Hope Foundation and Global Giving Project Donation

President of the Rotary Club of Brisbane Mid-City Michael Sargent presented the CEO and Director of Research of Wesley Medical Research (WMR) Professor David Paterson with a cheque for $2040 from the Club at WMR’s quarterly Advocates event last night.

The Club’s donation will be used to purchase a hot air dryer for the WMR’s Tissue Bank. The dryer will speed the preparation of slide samples of tissue for researchers and increase the quality of the fix of the samples to the slides.

Club Members Kathryn Draper and Collin Myers joined the evening’s activities which included a presentation on an important new addition to the Tissue Bank, the Australian Autism Biobank, the first such facility in Australia which is helping the study of biological causes of autism.