Great time in Blacktown…..

March 21 – Monday . At 10 AM, the GSE Team and some Rotarians from Blacktown met at Featherdale Wildlife Park for a great interactive animal experience. Upon arriving at the gate, Rtn. David gave each one a passport for admission and map and for us to stamp the photo of the animals we visited. Everyone was fascinated to pat some Koalas with  photos taken close-up with them,  and enjoyed to hand feed wallabies, kangaroos and emus. More than 30 species or 2,000 animals such as flying foxes, bilbies, wombat , cookatoos, koalas, wallabies, snakes, emus, tazmanian devils, crocodile,  and farm animals were only a few who made our day complete. (Lorna)

Different Faces of Vocation. Service to others is one ultimate reason though we choose different vocations that we are to live on. On Tuesday (March 22) each of the members of the team went on separate ways for our vocational visits which was facilitated by the ever energetic members of the Rotary Club of Blacktown. Rucel went to Ken Fairfax Law Office and had a chance to sit in Ken’s conference with his client.  She spent the rest of the day doing some research on Court Pleadings and Papers. Our team leader, Arleen with Chris visited the SMARTLINE, a mortgage and brokerage firm. They had a personal encounter with Aaron Sainsbury, who is also a Rotarian. He is one of the mortgage advisers in the firm. Lorna who was supposed to visit WASH (Self-Help Program for Women) went to the City Library and learned about the Paint Blacktown  REaD (pronounced “red”, a pun on ‘read”) ia a whole community literacy support program. I was brought by Cathy to Westmead Millennium Research Institute and toured me around the Westmead Hospital. I had a very informative day as I was oriented by the institute’s current research on human melanoma. At the end of the day, each member of the team shared how our learning could be applied to  our own workplaces  and vocations.  In the evening, we attended the meeting of RC Blacktown at Worker’s Club.  After our presentation, we sang “Dahil sa yo”, together with our kababayans.  RC Blacktown, handed us a Certificate of Appreciation, aside from their bannerettes. (Ben)

March 23, 2011. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Went to the local council of Blacktown and met with a friendly bunch of politicians, among them, the Mayor of Blacktown, Councillor Alan Pendleton.     Not everyday you get to meet someone important.  Well, everyone is important, but you know what I mean. And get the chance to sit on their important seats in their council office and served with sumptuous morning snacks.

 Thank you, Mayor Alan Pendleton for your warm welcome. Thank you, Councillor Russ Dickens for showing us around. Thank you, Councillor Jess Diaz for showing us that Filipinos can make it anywhere if they try hard enough. And thank you, wonderful Rotarians of the Rotary Club of Blacktown, you have made our week equally exciting and educational. We had our free time in the afternoon and stayed with our respective hosts. (Chris)

Wonderful treat from PP Bob Gardiner…Hawkesbury River Cruise. On March 24, 2011, the team was very fortunate and was taken for a cruise down the Hawkesbury River aboard Rtn Bob Gardiner’s boat.  Everyone was so excited, digging on cheese, cold cuts, salads, wine and of course, beer.  Chris guided the boat and was practically steering  the wheel almost the entire day. Ben and Daniel could not refrain from taking a dip on the river. Midway through, Rtn. Gus Baekler arrived in his speedboat and treated the team to a fast and furious joy ride.  Anchoring on Gunyah Beach, we then had our  lunch, then  headed back to Berowra Waters Marina around 4 pm, exhausted after the day’s event, but overjoyed.  Thanks Rotarians Bob Gardiner, Tess  Sayas, Kerry, Scotty, Gus, Tony, Daniel and PDG Dick White for that wonderful  treat.  A paradise, indeed.

            GSE Team with Rtn Bob Gardiner

7:00 pm – A get together party  was hosted by Marivic and Ray Manalo (hosts of TL Arleen and Lorna) in their beautiful place.  Guests were treated to a sumptuous Filipino cuisine (sisig, pancit, tokwa’t baboy, picadillo, fish, etc) and wines, and of course, the famous past time of Filipinos, Karaoke… Rtn. Gus serenaded us with his lovely voice, as well as Atoy and  Ray. I  had the chance to practice my vocal chords too, and nobody went home without  having a sing or two.  Present were, Tony, Atoy and Tess, Kerry and Kathy, Nelma, Gus, Florence and Daniel.

Great night…  (Rucel)

March 25. All Day – Free! After a night’s sumptuous food and karaoke, we were picked up by Tess Sayas at around 9:30am and headed to Blacktown. Lorna, Rucel and I took the train forTown Hall to go to Darling Harbour. Made a quick  tour around the area via the mini train, had burgers for lunch then decided to go to the Sydney Tower.  Before that, Lorna and Rucel went up the foot bridge,  Pyrmont Bridge and am supposed to meet up with them at the end of the bridge. . .  lo and behold. .. we kinda lost each other. . . I saw them coming in from the top (I was waiting for them in the same level, but on the side part of the bridge)  and I didn’t realize they went down, and they, thinking I was waiting for them below. Nevertheless, we found each other and up we walked to Market  St. to go to Sydney Tower. Only Rucel and Lorna went up and I stayed behind and met up with a friend Lea for coffee. Went back to Blacktown by 4:15pm.

Ben visited the Prospect Reservoir and helped Daniel prepare for the evening’s farewell party. Chris just stayed home with his hosts.  At 7:00 pm drove to Daniel’s pub, Cricketters Arm,  for the farewell party.  Good attendance of Rotarians from Blacktown together with their spouses showed up. After dinner, we said our individual thank yous  and goodbyes to Blacktown Rotarians. . . and did I cry bucket of tears? . . . ask the members . . . we really had a great  and memorable time  in  Blacktown. Thanks too, to Raymond for coordinating our stay and schedules. Next stop will be Springwood.  (Arleen)

GSE Team 3860 on to 9690 DISCON 2011 in Bathurst

Friday, the end of another working week, as well as the end of our week in Penrith. After lunch, the team  proceeded to the lovely, quaint town of Bathurst for the District Conference.

After a short rest, we proceeded to the Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre for the opening program of the District Conference. After a brief welcome address by the District Governor, Marilyn Mercer, the district conference proceeded with the inspiring talk by RI President’s Personal Representative, Past RI Pres. Bill Boyd, followed  great speeches from various speakers.  The evening was concluded by a wonderful presentation delivered by the GSE Team for Taiwan.

March 19, 2011 - All dressed up,  we had our breakfast at 7:00am of bacon, sausage and eggs, plus toast, coffee or tea.

Walked to the venue, Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre by 8:15am for the Saturday Plenary Session.  After the call to order, parade of flags followed and had the honor to parade our Philippine flag while our national anthem was being played.

This was followed by various speakers including ---- Mayor Cr. Paul Toole and another talk of RIPR Bill Boyd, he is really amazing.

Governor Marilyn also had the district awards, both club  and individual awards. PDG Bob Aitken, the managing editor of Rotary Club Down Under House received the “Service Above Self Award”. Afternoon was free and we got the chance to practice for our group’s presentation for Sunday morning. With our Rock and Roll attires, we met up with RC Burwood at 4:30 pm for drinks and “pica-pica.”  Boarded the bus, together with the other Rotarians up we went  to the venue at 5:45 pm. We were seated separately and I was assigned at the table of DG Marilyn and Sps. Dudley, Alex Buchanan and Sps. Jo, together with John Konrads. It was a sumptuous dinner of ribs or fish, with night long dances  to the tunes of  rock and roll. What a great night with Rotarians all in their fantastic and stylish costumes.

March 20 - Again, we were all up early and already in our Philippine costume and headed for breakfast at 7:0am. We were at the venue by 8:45am and stayed at the green room to wait for our team’s presentation time.  We did our presentation at around 9:30am and ended it with a malong dance number.

This was followed by more  inspirational  talks and the 2012 conference presentation by DGE David Cook of Lower Blue Mountains.  Afterwhich,  brunch was served. The last part of the conference was a report on resolutions by Barry  Thompson,  address again by RIPP Bill Boyd and he ended his talk with this message,  and I  quote  “the world doesn’t need more celebrities, it needs more heroes, people who are willing to stand up to their principles,” unquote.  Finally, it was Conference flag handover and tribute and accolades to DG Marilyn Mercer for a very successful  District Conference .

All bags packed and with wonderful memories of Bathurst, we, together with the Taiwan Team headed back to Penrith.  All were “Koalas” once we hit off the road. Thanks again to Daniel Kellie for the ride. (Arleen)

GSE’s second week in Sydney as they Explore Penrith

Our Monday (March 14) in Penrith was worth reminiscing for aside from club presentations and educational tour; we were able to visit, for a rare chance, Sydney’s State of the Art Sports Facility during the 2000 Olympics, THE REGATTA CENTER and PENRITH WHITEWATER STADIUM.

We started the day as early as five in the morning with thrill for we were to beat the time and meet the members of Rotary Club of NEPEAN in Penrith at 6:30  am. The group had fun as we were introduced to the energetic members of the club. After a while, we took advantage and had photos with the Nepean River as where the venue of the meeting was just on the riverside. The excitement was then intensified when after the meeting, Rtn. Graham Wilson and his wife Helen brought us to Regatta Center  and the manmade whitewater river. After which, Graham with the assistance of John Harding drove us to one of the biggest water reserves  in the New South Wales, the Warragamba Dam. Our excitement was paid with astonishment to see the huge, highly sophisticated technology of the water system.

Full of contentment, we made our way back to our respective host families to regain our energy and freshen up for another meeting, this time with the Rotary Club of Penrith. The team arrived at the venue at around 6:00 O’clock in the evening and were assigned to different tables.  After dinner, we made our presentation.  It was fortunate then that the team was able to listen to the inputs of the club’s invited speaker from Nepean Research Foundation who talked about latest researches on health management. As the meeting ended, the team’s Monday in Penrith also ended with our respective host family. (Ben)

March 15-  The GSE Philippine Team went to Canberra, the Australian Capital Territory. Three hours drive from Penrith, Canberra is a capital city of beauty and culture. With great historical museums and galleries we explored and learned about the Australian heritage – as seen in the National Museum and War Memorial Museum. We also visited the Parliament house, which is very famous and most well known buildings in Australia, being the centre of government. We went to discover how the senate and congress operate.

What a lovely day to see the sights of the national parks and rolling hills.  Thanks to Graham and Keith Wakefield for bringing us there. (Lorna)

March 16 (Wednesday). Another vocational day for the GSE Team.  Arleen and Chris went to West Pac Bank – Penrith Branch. They got to compare the banking system and realized that such have almost similar banking system,  rates, products,  but  Oz banks have sophisticated credit checking system for their respective borrower. West Pac ranks number 2 in NSW.  Rtn. Mark of RC Penrith Valley, the Branch Head  and Josh, their Business Manager  were very gracious hosts, answering questions of Arleen and Chris.  Rucel went to a Lawyer’s Office of Mr.  Mario Bellantonio and was fortunate to visit and attend an actual court proceeding in the District Court of Penrith.  In the afternoon, Lorna, Ben and Rucel went to Penrith police station and got to get more information from the domestic violence desk, forensics and police  prosecution unit, respectively. (Chris)

Day 9 (March 17) of our Group Study Exchange took us to the second oldest settlement in Australia – Parramatta, which was  established in 1788.  First stop was the office of Rotary Down Under , RI’s  Regional Publication Office.  We were hosted by PDG Bob Aitken, the managing editor of said publication.  We were given a bagful of give-aways / tokens and served morning merienda.  We then headed to Parramatta Park  and listened to PDG Jack Elliot talked about the  city’s history and his Rotary experiences.  We were together with the Taiwan Team here.

After the sumptuous lunch, GSE Chair Graham Wilson took us to the  Regional Office / Headquarters of Rotary International,  a  special request of TL Arleen.  We met Frank Pessimenti, the Regional Head and Bruce Allen, Manager, along with filipinas working  there and  holding important functions too. It was indeed a wonderful experience to meet these people who are in the forefront of Rotary’s program. (Rucel)

Week 1_Exploring Burwood and Strathfield

Dist 3860 GSE Team Mindanao, Phil to Dist 9690 Sydney, Australia

March 9, Wednesday – Arrived at Sydney, Australia, 6:30 am via Qantas Airlines. We were met by Dist. 9690 GSE Chairman Graham Wilson and some members of RC Burwood and RC Strathfield who were our hosts for 4 days. We started the ball rolling that same day. We just said our Hi’s and Hellos to our hosts and we went straight to the Council Office of Burwood,



afterwhich, took sandwiches and sodas for lunch at the park. In the afternoon, we went to the Burwood Community Welfare Services where Lorna got more interests in their domestic violence program. After some rest, we attended the joint meeting of 4 Rotary Clubs, with RC Strathfield as the lead club. Before the formal meeting, we had an orientation with GSE Chair Graham together with our counterpart Team from Taiwan. We also met District Governor Marilyn Mercer and her spouse Dudley. Our respective teams were presented and we did a multi-media presentation. There were PDGs present too in the meeting. (Arleen)

Three Vocational Tours on Second Day. Our second day, as expected, was indeed fruitful. Our first stop was at De Lorenzo production site for hair style products in Silverwater. Together with the Taiwan GSE team, our mind was enriched by the information about the operation of the company that the General Manager himself and other staff of the company shared to us. Our body was nourished by the food they have prepared for lunch. Our team was even more glad as we happened to met four Filipinos working in the company.

From De Lorenzo, we dropped by the Olympic Center for some photo taking and proceeded right away to the Court House of Burwood where we had a chance to witness a judicial hearing and luckily heard the judge laying down his decision on one case. The team couldn’t help but get amazed with the high technology security measures of the court house.

We finally headed to the Bank of Queensland managed and owned by Mr. David Kwong. Our team leader, Arleen and one of the members, Chris had an insightful exchange of ideas in the field of banking and finance with Mr. Kwong. After the long day of highly educational visits to the three vocational areas, we went home to our respective host families with satisfaction. And I should say for the second day, we have filled-in one of our bags of knowledge. (Ben)

March 11 - Friday. At 7AM, all our bags were packed and the team members were all ready. Graciously ushered by Mary, Shirley and Lorice, we all took a train from Strathfield to Circular Quay and boarded a ferry to Taronga Zoo. On our way, we enjoyed the beauty of the Opera House and Harbour Bride which we only saw in postcards. We took a lot of shots and after 15 mins, we reached the fantastic zoo. It is located on the edge of scenic Sydney harbor in a natural bushland setting. It is a home to almost 3, 000 animals. We entered the zoo via sky safari. At around 9.30 AM we met the GSE Taiwan Team along with our tour guide, Ben and immediately started to explore the beautiful place. We all had a great time to encounter several fauna like emus, wallabies, kangaroos, wombat, platypus, bilbies, penquins, woodpecker, tazmanian devil and of course, koalas. We learned that koalas sleep 18 to 20 hours per day. So the group teased one another calling a team member koala when they are sleepy. The elephant and seal shows were too fantastic. We had a whole day of fun and learning; went home in Burwood at around 4pm; took some rest and at 6PM we all proceeded to a Lebanese restaurant (organized by Fuad and Lorice) for a dinner. Everyone enjoyed the generous serving and sumptuous dishes from salads, fruits, meat, seafoods with delicious garlic sauce. After an evening of fellowship, some Rotarians with their spouses went to Jaafar’s place for a cup of coffee/tea. Everyone went home with a smile. (Lorna)

March 12, Saturday. Strathfield “SES”. We were privileged to have been invited to witness Strathfield’s State Emergency Service (SES) Training Exercise. SES is an all-around rescue unit funded by the government but ran entirely by great volunteers. Started in 1955, there are at present 11,000 volunteers, 25 of whom are in-charge of the Strathfield area. Equipped with modern rescue and response equipment, their methods are efficient and assuring, all the while, taking into consideration, each individual victim’s circumstances. Led by the 15-year veteran, Local Controller Darrin Parkin, Strathfield’s SES are off to do great things for the community. This can be liken to our Disaster Coordinating Council and Central 911.

Shopping. We reached Paddy’s Market around 2:30 PM for our souvenir shopping spree. You see, we heard that if we’re shopping around for mementos, we can get better bargains there. And they were right! Keychains, refrigerator magnets, and little stuffed koalas for less than a dollar each! 3 baseball caps for 5$! 3 shirts for $20! Authentic Australian boomerangs for $2! And there’s a lot, lot more to see and buy.

It was very gracious of Lea Sereno, a long time friend of Arleen, to accompany us in Paddy’s, then walked at Hyde Park before hearing the 6 PM Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

After another long walk along the boulevard, we reached Opera House and Harbour Bridge. What a sight, really. Light effects of the place were amazing. We went home around 8:30 PM.

March 13, Sunday. Change-over of hosts. We were brought by our respective hosts to McDonalds at corner Hassall and James Ruse Drive, Rosehill and met up with our host families from Penrith. After some huggings and bye byes, off we drove to Penrith. GSE Chairman Graham was Arleen’s host. (Chris)