Local Inspiration

I belong to a Rotary club and unlike many of the public misconceptions about Rotary being a bit stuffy, my club, the Rotary Club of Wallsend-Maryland is lots of fun and its members are great - generous community-minded people with hearts of gold and tremendous senses of humour.

Christmas 2015 meeting

However, we do have a serious side, and some of our projects are based in the local community - graffiti removal, supporting the homeless and needy, the local school's gifted and talented students' program and supporting local charities and other volunteer groups with catering for fundraising.

Some of the catering team enjoying a break....

(We also have other projects we support which are district, national and international)

This week we celebrated the 111th birthday of Rotary International but at a local level. Being a club which enjoys any excuse for a celebration, we are having a whole month of bringing our Rotary club into the community. On Tuesday morning, we had a birthday cake - not unusual for a birthday celebration, but this was with breakfast and at a meeting where we all learnt that you are never too old or decrepit to exercise, even at age 111! Birthday cake, and exercises with beach balls, ribbons on sticks, bean bags and swimming pool noodles, and lots of laughing - that just about sums up a Rotary meeting for our club!

Our birthday celebrations continue with a colourful display at the Wallsend Regional Library about Rotary in general and what our club does.

Library display

Last night, my club hosted the Community Awards which recognizes the achievements of other volunteers who make our community a better place in which to live, work and play. There were sixteen amazing recipients of these awards and each one of them has a story which is inspirational. Congratulations to all of you! I nominated a very special young woman, Sarah, who in three years has raised over $66,000 locally for the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation, after suffering her own personal tragedy of losing her husband to this disease and is also a volunteer with SIDS and KIDS after losing a baby at 32 weeks. I think Sarah epitomises our club's mantra " ordinary people achieving extraordinary things " .... and while I would never take for granted the wonderful work which Sarah does, there are so many "Sarahs" in our community who are, in their own quiet ways, going about supporting and helping others and we don't even know about them. If you know them, please say "thank you".

Sarah (on the right) with her friend another recipient, Kim

It was also wonderful to see my friend, Wendy (a Rotarian from another club) receive an award for putting her creative talent for dressmaking to support others in the community, Wendy is always at the Hunter Homeless Day mending and altering clothes, and she makes tiny baby clothes for Angel Gowns for stillborn infants, reusable sanitary hygiene items for Days for Girls, and "dressy" clothes for Dress for Success, especially for homeless and underprivileged women seeking employment or for appearing in court.

Not all the recipients were individuals. It was great to see a local business, Local Hearing Aid Specialists recognised for their exceptional service and care of their clients , but also for their compassion, empathy and friendship. Great to hear in these days of commercialised health care!

And there's more.... as a final part of the celebration of "Rotary - Serving the Community" , our club will be hosting a free Community Breakfast at the Rotunda in Wallsend (NSW, Australia) on 15 March at 7.15am. Join us for a fun- filled morning. Invitations will soon be in your letterboxes if you live in the Wallsend area. If you would like an invitation, please contact a member, or message via our Facebook page

Happy Birthday, Rotary International and keep celebrating, Rotary Club of Wallsend-Maryland!

Covid Man and Book Print

This is my tag for the current theme at Tag Tuesday - Book Print. I like using text as a background for tags and today, I reduced one of my recent line drawings and printed it on a small book page .... as you can see, the book's chapter is entitled "Of Holy Living and Dying ( from The Book of Books) . I thought this was appropriate as this 'Covid man' drawing depicts Nature happily thriving while man appears to be "unravelling " at the edges of body and mind... Original drawing - Wilma Simmons Silk screen print on fabric : Wilma Simmons Silk screen print on paper : Wilma Simmons And here are some other tags on book print backgrounds - these are free motion stitched "Nature" portraits done earlier in the year.

#the100dayproject : Inspiring Women Days 1 - 4

#The100DayProject is a *free* global art project that takes place online 🎨 E very year, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of creating. Anyone can participate . The idea is simple: choose a creative project, do it every single day for 100 days, and document and share the process online. 2026 is my 8th year of participating. I have stitched daily observations, painted my egg cup collection, collaged postcards and envelopes, written poems, explored colour palettes .... this year I am researching, sketching and stitching 100 inspiring women. Fortunately I purchased a piece of beautiful linen, with preprinted outlines of 100 women ... just one issue - the figures are tiny (height 6cm /2.5 ins) My first week started tentatively ... I thought I would start with Empress Wu, after whom I named my creative activity. This is when I discovered how difficult it is to applique and stitch on these very small figures - I used tweezers to put pieces of fabric down, tried t...

Winter Beach : Tag Tuesday

"Beach" tags for Tag Tuesday Last weekend, I was very privileged to do a workshop with Belgium based artist, Jette Clover. One of Jette's series of small works features postage stamps of famous people, so after the workshop I rediscovered my stash of stamps ( most of them still attached to envelopes). Fortunately for me, this fortnight's Tag Tuesday theme is " The Beach" which seems to be recurring theme for Australian stamps. These collage tags have been assembled from torn bits of painted paper, magazine pages and stamps. I have called these tags "Winter Beach" as the beach still looks as bright and the water as blue even in winter here in Newcastle. Today's winter maximum temperature was 16 degrees C with a clear blue sky and warm sunshine. ...with Jette Clover in fromt of her art work " Lives of Girls and Women" in the STITCHED UP exhibition.

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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