What the Pride of Workmanship Award is really about

The elections are getting closer – in two weeks’ time we will know if our club member, John Alexander will be the new member for Bennelong. I bumped into him on Friday morning at Ryde Council’s Community Prayer Breakfast. He was quietly confident, and has door knocked most of the electorate, as well as visiting shopping centre and railway stations. He certainly has stamina: it must be all that tennis…

Our last meeting was one of the most enjoyable meetings so far in my short presidency.  Our club presented a Pride of Workmanship award. Credit for organising the morning goes to both Mihai Costache and Trina Mosley. Mihai was running Vocational Service last year, and Trina is running it this year. Our awardee could not attend last year, so we had a special presentation for her. Thanks to Trina for presenting the award in Mihai’s absence.

Our Pride of Workmanship award was presented to Deborah Chrystal from Eastwood Police Station. Deborah is the youth liaison officer at the station. She was introduced at our meeting by her superior Peter Marcon who spoke of her enthusiasm in working with young kids at schools and in the local area. Because she has connected with the youth community, juvenile crime in Eastwood has been falling year after year and is now at very low levels.

Also at the presentation was Rowland Chrystal, Deborah’s husband, who is also a police officer working with the Highway Patrol, and Wendy Au, multicultural liaison officer from Eastwood Police who also received a Pride of Workmanship award last year from our club.

 It was a great feeling to have these four professional officers at our club and to hear first hand the love of their job. The Police Force is often complained about in the media: to be able to say thanks and well done to the people behind the scenes, doing their job day in and out is vitally important for a healthy community.

This week we hear from a fellow Rotarian, Steve Cartland, who will report to us with progress on the organisation of next year’s District Conference in Canberra.

See you all then,

Ross