AUTUMN UPDATE 2019
Australian Rotary Health Districts of Australia
Research
Scholarships
Education
Awareness
Chairman’s Report “If it ain’t broke ...” Australian Rotary Health is our oldest and largest Australian Rotary project, administered by our long-time CEO Joy Gillett and her small staff, and is consistently successful in its research funding. Gregory Ross
Change is an essential in life and ARH is continually evolving as it should. However, when everything is working as well as it is, I question strongly the change for change’s sake mentality. Recently a Rotarian expressed the view that all Australian Rotary projects could be bundled into one group and administered from a central body. Now in my sixth year on the Board of Australian Rotary Health and fully appreciating the requirements in successfully running such an organisation, I disagree with that view. As a research based Rotary project, ARH is unique and is administered accordingly. Thanks to the generosity of many Rotary Clubs, we have had a wonderful year. We have been able to fund more new researchers and, with support from the Federal Government, we continue to run an effective and uplifting indigenous health scholar program.
26th January, 2001 at Glenbrook: Paul Henningham, Joy Gillett, and Bob Aitken celebrating Paul’s 80th birthday.
‘We have lost one of the best and nicest human beings I have ever known ...’ Joy Gillett OAM ... CEO Australian Rotary Health
As Chairman, I thank all those Rotarians who value and support what we are doing in the area of mental illness prevention. You are our life blood. Our most important challenge is to enlist support from those clubs which don’t have Australian Rotary Health on their giving list. ARH has been funding research since the 1980’s and is our biggest and longest serving home-grown Australian Rotary project. In talking with many of the young researchers we are funding at Australian Rotary Health in 2019, they speak overwhelmingly with passion about their research and their desire to make a positive difference to the future health of Australians, and to people globally. In the coming year, our researchers will focus on important topics such as suicide prevention, eating disorders, substance abuse, depression, anxiety and perinatal mental health.
You have a nine member ARH Board which represents every Australian state and district. I thank each of them for the excellence of their work and for their commitment. Special congratulations to our Tasmanian Vice Chairman Kevin Shadbolt, whose great community work was recognised with an OAM in the recent Australia Day Honours List. Well done Kevin and Anne. Some decades ago I became a Benefactor for the Rotary Foundation, Rotary’s greatest international humanitarian arm. That’s something that needs to be encouraged more for Australian Rotary Health. Happily, John Anderson, an accountant from the Rotary Club of Croydon, rang me and said that following his advice a recently deceased client named Australian Rotary Health as one of five beneficiaries. Since the amount being divided was around $2 million, the $400,000 we received has helped ensure part of our research funding in 2020. Continued page 2
Australian Rotary Health • PO Box 3455 Parramatta NSW 2124 • Phone 02 8837 1900 • admin@arh.org.au