Venue is the New Bridgeport Hotel - Enter from the new carpark area PLEASE NOTE - THIS IS A MEMBERS ONLY EVENING. NO GUESTS OR PARTNERS WILL BE PERMITTED DUE TO RESTRICTED NUMBERS.
BUILD and THEY WILL COME !!!!!!! Proven yesterday to be TRUE. The new $45m Bridgeport Hotel in Bridge Street Murray Bridge overlooking the riverfront had its first day trading yesterday. What an exciting crowd for a first day including the Rotary Club of Murray Bridge members who had their weekly dinner meeting there. The challenge will now be to maintain the rage. General Manager Mary Lou Corcoran was the guest speaker at the Rotary Meeting and outlined the the lead up and future plans. They aim to be an employer of choice and a facilitator model business for the Murraylands. 97% of the staff are locals of which 52 had a major unemployment history. They have spent 7 weeks in TAFE Hospitality training six hours per day then two weeks on the job training. All of the major suppliers have had input into their product training. The kitchen staff produced nearly 800 meals yesterday with the dinning and lounge rooms packed at tea time. In addition the Lounge and Sports Bars were full. 23 staff came from Big W's distribution centre which recently closed and some others came from the Murraylands Multicultural Network new settlers groups. Government Grants have been forth coming in training and traineeships including for 10 Indigenous staff to complete Certificate 111 in Hospitality. Local retention and upskilling is a high priority for the hotel. Local photographers have contributed to the room decorations. Work experience in hospitality is being provided for Murray Bridge High School Students and others. A short film is being produced to record before and after. Target markets include the Conference market, interstate, South East, Adelaide, RAA, and Tourism SA. They are part of the State Voucher release for weekend and day trippers. They expect return visitation particularly from Conference attendees. The Hotel has about 150 staff to operate its 100 rooms, 5 bars including a Sports Bar, a restaurant, four conference rooms to cater for a variety of meetings, a bottle shop, gaming area, and infinity pool overlooking the River Murray.
Dear All at Rotary Club of Murray Bridge,
As I write to you, St Jude’s is in the midst of our Annual Appeal - our biggest fundraising event of the year.
A huge thank you to everyone who has supported our stories so far, I am so humbled to see a community that cares, even when times must be tough for you also… but we still have a long way to go.
In Tanzania, 70% of school-aged children are not enrolled in secondary education and in 2020, just 29% of those enrolled students successfully completed A Level studies (the final two years of secondary school). To help counter this, St Jude’s recently welcomed our largest ever secondary intake. We want to continue celebrating milestones like this each year, but of course, as we accept more students, we need more sponsors and donors.
You may have read my recent email about our sponsorship gap – the widening distance between our student numbers and our sponsor numbers. 40% of our most recent graduating class are not fully sponsored. Soon, they’ll enter the Beyond St Jude’s Program, creating an even larger gap once they complete the Community Service Year and begin their Tertiary scholarships.
The stories in this month’s newsletter are a celebration of recent milestones at St Jude’s. First, read about the graduation of the Class of 2021, a true milestone for our 139 Form 6 graduates. Then, meet the two students and one alum whose stories feature in the Annual Appeal and catch them in our first appeal video below. You can also find out more about the students who recently presented their first speech at an international conference and learn about how leadership training is helping St Jude’s teachers reach new milestones.
I’d also like to invite you to listen to our podcast and discover two more St Jude’s stories. I got to chat with Christopher and Zahra from Standard 7 who are about to reach an important milestone; the end of primary school.
St Jude’s is one school with thousands of stories and counting. I’m sure you’ll enjoy discovering more of them!
Honouring and celebrating St Jude’s Form 6 students as they complete their A Level studies, graduate from secondary school and begin the next chapter of their lives.
The School of St Jude is one school with three campuses, 1,800 students, 430 Beyond St Jude’s participants, over 800 alumni and almost 300 staff. St Jude’s has, quite literally, thousands of stories to tell.
Last week, we launched our Annual Appeal; the most important fundraising event of the year. St Jude's is one school with thousands of stories and counting. So, this year we're asking you to support our stories and help fill our current sponsorship gap.
1st $ 100 No. 708 Vivienne Flynn (Salisbury ) (sold by Strath. Darts Club) ch. no. 3949 2nd $ 30 No. 489 Ali Irish (M.B.) (sold by R. Smyth)
3rd $20 No 587 Rob Afford (Woods Point) (sold by Grandisons)
End Polio Now
In 1985 Rotary launched PolioPlus to immunize every child in the world against polio. Working with our partners and members of the global health community, together we will end polio.
Through the science of vaccines, Rotary & partners have saved nearly 19 million children from becoming paralyzed by polio. Learn more about our work to End Polio Now and how you can get involved: https://on.rotary.org/3eqtrrr
Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years, and we’ve made incredible progress in the fight to rid the world of it forever.
It’s crucial to eradicate polio from the last two countries where it remains endemic and to keep other countries polio-free.
If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.
What is polio?
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a paralyzing and potentially deadly infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of 5. The virus spreads from person to person, typically through contaminated water. It can then attack the nervous system.
What's happening on our Facebook page
John Scarvelis has been posting up a storm with some great content.
