By Dongyun Kwon
Rotary Club of Healesville and Lions Club of Healesville had a joint meeting on Thursday 8 February.
Eight lions attended the Rotary Club’s regular Thursday meeting at Sanctuary House Restaurant in Badger Creek.
Healesville Rotary Club president Vinay Kumar said the meeting marked the beginning of the new chapter.
“They [Healesville Lions Club] are doing a lot of projects for the community and we are doing different projects for the same community, so we’re going to cover a broader area for the community,” he said.
“The meeting was for sharing general information about what they’re doing and what we’re doing and see what we can do together for the community.”
Healesville Lions Club president Steve Bryson is an ex-rotarian and his relationship with the Rotary Club enabled the beginning of the cooperation.
Mr Bryson said the meeting was originally to help out CHILL, a kids program designed to unify and bring together primary and early high school-aged kids from schools across the Yarra Valley.
“Vinay and myself had conversations and Vinay suggested ‘Maybe we could do some of the programs as joint projects.’,” he said.
“And this particular CHILL program came up and I spoke to Vinay ‘Let’s have a joint meeting between Rotary and Lions, getting people from CHILL to explain their situation.’.”
Healesville Rotary Club treasurer Michael Hardinge said both clubs have already worked together.
“For example, one of our joint projects is the main street Christmas decorations that go up every year with the Lions Club and they also helped us on some recent fundraising projects,” he said.
The next joint meeting will be held in Healesville Lions Club’s premises but the date hasn’t been confirmed yet.
