WEST PENNANT HILLS & CHERRYBROOK AND LANE COVE ROTARY
SUMMER RYPEN WITH ST IVES
POCKET PALS WITH SPRINGWOOD ROTARY
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CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF WORLD HERITAGE : 27 FEB
AVOCA BEACH THEATRE FOR ROTARY : 27 FEB
CASTLE HILL ROTARY 60TH ANNIVERSARY GALA : 7 MAR
RYDE ROTARY'S 80TH YEAR OF IMPACT : 2 MAY
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IN MEMORIAM
Share your Rotary Club's stories with District 9685 via email by the 18th of each month
DISTRICT CONFERENCE
District Governor Niranjan and the Conference 2025 team have pulled off coordination of our most ambitious District Conference yet, with a great roster of speakers, topics, the Pitch for Purpose Student Innovation Challenge (more on that below), and a revitalised Rotary Projects Showcase within easy access at the Pullman Hotel, Penrith.
Rotary Leadership Institute is full steam ahead - sign up for new Rotarian, refresher, or graduate content in the new three-level structure for RLI.
You can choose from in-person, online, and mixed opportunities to increase your understanding of Rotary and connect with other proactive Rotarians from across District 9685.
President Elect Learning & Development is on Sat 8th March at St Joseph's Baulkham Hills. Attendance is mandatory for incoming Presidents, and the content is new - make sure your club is represented at PELD to ensure access to the latest information & learning opportunities.
Save the Date : District Assembly is on Sat 5th April at Lindfield Learning Village. It is *strongly* advised that all incoming club board members attend. A registration link will be sent to all incoming board members.
The Learning & Development team have put in considerable effort along with our session facilitators to make sure the day is a great use of your time and attention, and sets up each club across District 9685 for the new Rotary year.
PITCH FOR PURPOSE
"Why do you have such big eyes?" asked a 9-year-old girl participating in our first Pitch for Purpose preliminary round hosted at Blackheath Public School last Monday.
What a milestone...we have embarked on a new program that:
Provides hands-on Design Thinking training for school students in a way that aligns to their curriculum
Brings together members from multiple clubs into one joint project
Builds a pipeline of potential non-member attendees for our conference, which is a great way to showcase the full potential of Rotary to the community
Harnesses the innovation and creativity of young minds into ideas that could one day help shape Rotary's projects aimed at protecting the environment.
Oh and by the way, provides one more way of having great fun! I cannot get over the moment when that 9-year-old girl responded to my offer of answering "any questions they had" (about the exercise at hand) with a question about my eyes.
More importantly, the students were having fun too - working on their ideas, like mirrors made from the shiny bits in packaging waste, water filters that allow grey water reuse, automatic timers that limit the water used in showers...
You can see some photos on Facebook - and please share further in your networks!
Thank you to the whole team working hard on Pitch for Purpose, bringing an entirely new program to life in time for our Sustainability and Humanitarian Summit on 22 March:
Sharina Shanaz - schools coordinator
Jade Catherall - school promotions and registrations
Richard Vahtrick - facilitators coordinator
Russell Zimmerman - club sponsorships
Marilyn Kenney - judge & cross-stream coordinator
Vinita Deodhar - creator of the Pitch for Purpose handbook
plus COTA, our District Team volunteers, and all our Pitch for Purpose volunteers and facilitators across the preliminaries and making preparations for the finals.
Niranjan Deodhar District 9685 Governor
Rotary Club of Beecroft
SHARING ROTARY'S IMPACT
It is important to take stock of just how much we can achieve through Rotary, with our volunteering effort, vocational expertise, and enthusiasm for doing good in the world.
These summaries from Presidents Colin Sharpe & Tania Mace about what the Rotary Club of West Pennant Hills & Cherrybrook and Rotary Club of Lane Cove are all about caught our eye to share with the District 9685 community. If your club makes one of these, please share it with communications@rotarydistrict9685.org.au!
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THE ROTARY CLUB OF WEST PENNANT HILLS & CHERRYBROOK
I would like to briefly summarise who we are what our club does in the community and beyond. We do more than just cook sausages at Bunnings.
Chartered in 1987 and currently have 42 members + 19 Honorary Members. Member’s partners are an important part of the club. Members reside beyond just West Pennant Hills and Cherrybrook.
Run a Christmas Tree of Joy at Cherrybrook and Westleigh shopping villages. Our 12 contributing Charities provide gift requests for their clients who may not otherwise receive a Christmas gift. We collect around 1200 gifts with an estimated value of around $50,000 from the community.
We support:
DV Transition houses run by Kenthurst Rotary Club.
Helping Hearts Survive Charity at Dural who provide meals etc to needy people.
Rescued and Reused at Arcadia that provides home wares and clothes to needy people around Sydney, especially refugees.
Grace’s Place run by Homicide Victims Support Group that supports children affected by homicide.
We support Rotary Youth Programs by funding students and young people for:
Youth Exchange Sending students to other countries and receiving students from other countries),
RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards),
RYPEN (Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment), and
Science Experience to help Year 9/10 students choose a future career in science.
We run international projects:
Providing water and sanitation to Flores in Indonesia.
Providing “Teacher in a Box” also in Flores. This program is an interactive library of school resources that can be accessed without the internet. The required used laptops are donated by local businesses.
We support the Rotary “Say NO to Domestic and Family Violence and YES to Respectful relationships” Janelle Craig our Youth Director is the District Chair of the Respectful Relationships program.
We fundraise by cooking lots of sausages, holding a book sale, a Trivia night and market days.
We provide funds/support to disasters locally and internationally.
We provide funds to the Rotary End Polio program. We are nearly there. One case so far in 2025. The total for 2024 was 73.
We provide funds to The Rotary Foundation that provides grants for global projects. We currently have one to support of water and sanitation project in Flores.
President Colin Sharpe Rotary Club of West Pennant Hills & Cherrybrook
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THE ROTARY CLUB OF LANE COVE
Welcome to a busy 2025, we look forward to serving our community, to helping each other closer to home and to supporting humanitarian projects for those in need further afield.
We are a vibrant, talented team who trust, respect and appreciate each others' skills and participation. Together with our Local Govt, Community Advocates, Partners, Sponsors and community deliver Local and International projects.
Here is our latest scope of reach:
Out and About in Lane Cove: Rotary Lane Cove Fair, Sustainable Carboot Sales, Christmas Tree of Joy, Australia Day BBQ
Support for local Youth Orchestra, Youth Centre and Education programs to prepare Young Leaders in Australia, Nepal and St Judes in Tanzania
Buddy Benches in local schools, parklands and support for The Lane Cove Toy Library
End Domestic Violence campaign and local Delvena refuge
Local RSL SubBranch, handcrafted poppies sales on Remembrance and ANZAC Days
Investment in latest Maternal and Infant care equipment in India
Australian Rotary Health research and Trish MS Society
ROMAC - Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children surgery
Maternal health Fistula and Obstetric Clinics in Sub-Sahara African Continent
Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia (started by Rotary Lane Cove)
Clean water tanks for Nusa Tengarra remote villages
Shelterboxes for refugees in war torn, climate ravaged countries
The environment End Plastic Soup organisation
The Rotary Foundation's efforts to End Polio and rebuild our fragile world
President Tanya Mace Rotary Club of Lane Cove
SUMMER RYPEN WITH ST IVES
What a success the 2025 Summer RYPEN Camp was this weekend! District 9685 hosted Rotary
Youth Program of Enrichment (RYPEN) Friday evening 14 February to Sunday afternoon 16 February at the Sydney Academy of Sport Narrabeen. Special thanks are extended to Greg Keighran, District Youth Chair and Melanie Lewis, RYPEN Camp Chair.
Rotary Club of St Ives sponsored two students from St Ives High School. It was outstanding to see their enthusiasm and growth after two days of learning about teamwork and communication
effectiveness by completing challenges and meeting new friends from all over our District.
We look forward to meeting Chase and Anna, together with Makena and Amy who did RYLA in January, at our upcoming Youth Night - contact Youth Chair Di Barnes if you would like to join St Ives for that event!
POCKET PALS UPDATE FROM SPRINGWOOD ROTARY
When Deborah Wood saw the heart wrenching image of Mesut Hancer holding the hand of his 15-year-old daughter Irmak, who was killed in the 2023 Turkey earthquake, on the evening news and later in Rotary Down Under (March 2023), she reached out to Rotary to help bring some comfort to children in the region.
Her vision was to get her Pocket Pals – small, knitted teddies – into the hands of as many children as possible.
A presentation to the Rotary Club of Springwood, NSW, by Paramedic Murray Traynor, who was part of Australia’s Disaster and Response Team to Turkey on February 13, reinforced Deborah’s belief that they could do something to make a difference.
Her Pocket Pal concept and pattern was included in the March 2023 District Newsletter and initially caught the attention of Rotary knitters.
This summer, Deborah updated the Springwood Rotary team:
Last week we received a Facebook update from our Turkish friend Asye. She sent a wonderful message noting that it was 2 years since the Earthquake in Turkey. She included video of her times visiting Hatay, the site of the Earthquake and our 6 boxes arriving and the distribution of our Pocket Pals was included in the video.
Co–incidentally at the Sustainable Cambodian Dinner Jennifer Scott (who knitted several Pals), mentioned that she was heading for Istanbul for the Rotary Peace Conference in late February. I mentioned this to Asye and she contacted me by return mail to say she would be delighted to meet Jennifer.
I have now supplied both ladies with each other’s details and they plan to meet for coffee; and this may result in much closer ties with our Rotary Clubs in the mountains and Turkish Club proving that it is a small world.
A special THANK YOU to SPRINGWOOD ROTARY INC MEMBERS, who made this possible.
As we mark the 25-year milestone of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, we invite you to an evening of captivating stories from our remarkable environment.
Join Katoomba Rotary's Gala Dinner for an inspiring evening and hear from keynote speaker Jon Dee, co-founder of Planet Ark.
For 60 remarkable years, The Castle Hill Rotary Club has been at the heart of our community—championing causes that change lives, fostering enduring fellowship, and driving meaningful impact both locally and beyond.
This milestone event will honour the visionaries, the changemakers, and the community heroes who have shaped our journey and continue to inspire the path forward.
Enjoy an unforgettable evening of:
Fine dining and entertainment
Heartfelt reflections and stories of impact
A celebration of friendship, community, and Rotary’s enduring legacy
Please email editorial@rotarydistrict9685.org.au to let us know of any bereavements you would like published. It is much appreciated if you can also send a short biography and photo to include in the monthly District 9685 ClubsNews.
You may also wish to inform your Rotary Community Group Leader, the District Secretary, or the District Governor. Remember to also update your clubs member database on ClubRunner
