Graeme Blick, Past District Governor (2011-2012), gave a double barrelled talk on the workings of the Rotary Constitution and his experiences in Antarctica. Graeme has just come back from Zooming the Rotary Council of Legislation, and in his other life has had eight working visits to Antarctica since 1984.
Rotary's Council of Legislation has met in Chicago for three days every three years since 1933 to consider remits (94 this year) put forward from the Council of Resolution which meets in the intervening years. The Council of Legislation comprises one representative from each of the 540 districts who generally serve two three-year terms.
The Council tends to be very conservative: in 2022 29 enactment (remits)s were passed but fifty-one were rejected. Examples included rules regarding the naming of satellite clubs, a rule that a member of a club must reside in the area of the club, that subscriptions to Rotary Downunder be voluntary (rejected) and that Rotary International dues be increased (passed).
Questions to Graeme included why each incoming RI President has to come up with a new slogan. This entails new banners and letterheads. (This can be difficult - Cathy Boyd related how her father, when elected R.I. President put up nine slogans which were deemed unacceptable until he came up with "Lead the Way"). Graeme agreed that it is wasteful but it does help new presidents to put their own stamp on the year.
Graeme then switched his talk to Antarctica which he had visited in his work with DSIR/ GNS. He explained how it, the coldest, driest and windiest of the continents, is basically administered by the scientific community under the International Treaty of Co-operation. He showed pictures of Scott Base, close to Mt Erebus (13, 000 feet) with a crater lake 400m across and many other sites. Graeme was particularly fortunate in that whereas most Scott Base personnel rarely left the area, as he was surveying and researching for GNS he travelled extensively by helicopter and Beechcrafts.
He explained how the continent is rising 1cm a year as the weight of the ice burden diminishes with global warming. He explained too how the base at the South Pole is moving laterally 16.5m a year as the ice cover moves. Scott Base can hold up to 80 people while the US base McMurdo holds 1400. It takes 8-11 hours to fly by NZ Hercules from Christchurch to Scott Base, or 5 hours in the US Starlifter.
New Zealand also monitors and maintains Shackleton's Hut. Miscellaneous facts included that a supply ship delivers to Scott Base once a year, that the last huskies left in 1984 but there are vast numbers of penguins, seals and whales and that one gets a spectacular view of the aurora borealis.
(can you spot the deliberate error?)
