Dee Mason chaired today's club meeting at Cilantro. Charles joined via Zoom, and guests included Nicky Chung, Gary Ramage, and our guest speaker - Grant Holland. GUEST SPEAKER - Grant Holland of the Holland Foundation
Grant is founder and director of the Holland Foundation, a registered not-for-profit charity, based in Centre Road, Bentleigh.
It was established with the goal of continuing the charitable work and in memory of Grant's grandparents, Sir George and (Lady) May Holland who were instrumental in developing programs to support returned servicemen following WW1. The Holland Foundation commenced in 2004, and its focus has been to provide training programs for the unemployed, particularly long term unemployed with the aim of providing work experience and skills to reenter the employment market. Programs are available for a wide and diverse group of people - older, younger, and people in employment transition. Grant advises that in the past 13 years, over 1030 people have gained employment since participating in their programs. Grant broached on AI, and how AI is impacting our lives. AI has come to prominence in recent years, and its use has become more extensive in general and within the work space to the degree many feel it will take over jobs and affect our daily lives. AI has good and poor applications depending on its use. To illustrate the possible influence of AI, Grant referred to a recent article broadcast by finance counsellor Scott Pape for the Herald Sun newspaper, that outlined how AI could be used to the extreme and influence human behaviour. Grant advises to keep an open mind in the use of AI, and treat it as a tool to assist us, not take over. Thank you Grant for your very informative presentation. A copy of Grant's presentation is available.
CLUB ANNOUNCEMENTS
Annual Holland Foundation event - club members are invited to attend A Night In Hollywood dinner on Friday 17/10/25 at the Sandringham Yacht Club - bookings via www.trybooking.com/DDABE.
RYDA - volunteers are sought for the RYDA event on August 25/8 9am - 3pm for Cheltenham Secondary College. Refer the Youth Committee for details.
Cheltenham Junior Football Club Golf Day - participants are sought for the CJFC Golf Day on Friday 8 August. Contact Ron for details.
Ron mentions he will attend a fellowship event at the Cheltenham Junior Football Club on Friday 1 August, and is seeking another club member to attend.
ROSTERS - were announced
MEETING CLOSE
Grant announced the following before closing the meeting.
BMC Board Meeting - the next board meeting will be held on Monday 4/8, with a call for board reports by Friday 1/8.
Next Week's meeting on Wednesday 6/8 - will include information on next year's district Conference in Hobart.
