Here is a sample of the many pieces of artwork that will feature in an art exhibition at the Events Centre from 18-24 April.

Our guest speaker was Christine Harrison who is the General Manager of the Dax Centre which houses a unique collection of artwork called the Cunningham Dax Art Collection. 

The Cunningham Dax Collection consists of more than 15,000 artworks created by people who have experienced mental illness or psychological trauma.  The Collection includes works on paper and canvas, photographs, textiles, sculptures, installations, artists’ books and diaries, digital media and films.

The Collection is named after its founder Dr Eric Cunningham Dax (1908 – 2008).

Dr. Dax was an English psychiatrist who moved to Melbourne when he was appointed as the Chairman of the Mental Hygiene Authority in 1952.  In this role, Dr. Dax made many positive changes to Victoria’s mental health services.  One such change was to introduce an art therapy program into Victorian psychiatric hospitals.

Victoria’s psychiatric hospitals began to be closed down in the 1980's and the thousands of artworks that had been created in the art therapy programs may have been destroyed.  However, Dr. Dax believed that these were very valuable as educative tools.  So he salvaged around 8000 of these works, which is how the Cunningham Dax Collection began.

In the early 2000's, the Collection expanded to include artworks made by people who have experienced trauma.  This expansion led to a number of group donations, including the Childhood Trauma Collection, the Holocaust Collection, the Tsunami Collection and the Bushfire Collection.

The Cunningham Dax Collection is the only one of its type and size in Australia and only one of three such collections in the world.

It was decided to bring the collection to Wyndham because they have very few visitors from the west to their centre in Carlton and there are many people afflicted with mental health issues in our community who might benefit from seeing the exhibition and participating in the workshops.

Click here to see a video about the Dax Centre.

Click here to see details of the Giving Voice Exhibition at the Events Centre.

The Rotary clubs in the Chirnside Cluster are organising an event at the Encore Events Centre on Sunday 6th May from 10AM to 12PM to hear about how Rotary is taking action to make a positive difference in supporting communities around the world and to celebrate diversity in Wyndham.

If you would like to be part of this great joint initiative, click here to visit the website and to register. The cost is only $25 per person.

Click here to view a flyer of the event.

1. In excess of 1000 sausages were cooked at our Bunnings BBQ on Easter Saturday which realised a net profit of $1,900. This must be some sort of record. It was extremely busy and our hard-working volunteers didn't have time to scratch themselves. Thanks to everyone who helped out. 

2. There will be another mid-week BBQ at Bunnings on Thursday 12th April which is during the school holidays. Members and Friends of Rotary are invited to help out on this day if possible. Please email Jason Daddy if you can help.

3. There will be more mid-week Bunnings BBQ's on Thursday 17th May and Thursday 14th June.

4. We have also been asked to cook sausages at the Werribee Mansion Fun Run on Sunday 22nd April from 8:30-11:30am for 1,500 participants. The event is in aid of the Leukemia Foundation. Send an email to Jason if you are available for this.

Rotary International President Ian Riseley has set down the challenge to Rotary clubs around the world to plant one tree for each member during this Rotary year.

Our Community Committee is planning to do better than that. In conjunction with Wyndham Council, we will be having a working bee on Sunday 29th April to plant one tree for each year of membership in our club. The total number of years of membership is 750 (give or take a few years), so we will be planting 750 trees along the Werribee River near the Shaws Rd bridge. And we will need all hands on deck to get the job. 

• Last week's speaker, Dennis Shore, has sent us a copy of the January edition of the Rotary South Pacific Region Information Bulletin that features Werribee Rotary's water bore project in Uganda. Click here to see the newsletter. Our article is on Page 5.

• Graham Roper is supposedly relaxing on holiday in faraway Scotland. Let's hope he has some money left over when he returns because he will need to pay a hefty fine for not only selecting against his beloved Tigers in the footy tipping but also picking them to lose by 36 points which was the correct margin.

• Talking of footy tipping, Marty Vaina was on top of the world and on top of the tipping ladder after the first round when he picked 9 out of 9 winners. He came down to earth with a thud after the second round when he selected only 1 out of 9. Talk about going from chocolates to boiled lollies!

• Ian Knight has become a radio star. But not as a rockin' disc jockey. He was recently a guest of the Rotary Radio Show on community radio 94.1FM. Ian talked about his role as District Governor and his long-standing involvement in Rotary. We are endeavouring to obtain an audio copy of the interview for publication in a future edition of the Bulletin.