Posted by Margaret Mason on Nov 03, 2021
The meeting was held on Zoom.
22 members participated. There were 2 apologies.
The guest speaker was Anna Pylkkanen and the chair was Linda O’Brien.

Anna was introduced by Tim Lynch, as she works as a property manager at Ray White in Moorabbin. Anna was a Rotary Youth Exchange  (RYE) student in 2009/2010 and was hosted by a club in the Mornington Peninsula.Anna talked about her background and her experiences as an exchange student in Victoria. She comes from a small town in Finland of 3,000 population, 2 hours from Helsinki . She has a brother who had also been an exchange student.
During her year in Victoria, Anna was hosted by 5 families in the club. This meant that she had to pack her suitcase very often. However, she regarded all her experiences as very positive and she said that she knew that she wanted to return at some stage and make Australia her home. Anna fulfilled her objective by returning to Melbourne to live some years later. She initially worked in the hospitality industry but had a career change to real estate. Anna spoke very highly of the RYE programme and all her positive experiences during her year here. Discussion and question time was followed by the sergeant’s session completed the meeting.
All members were reminded that the meeting, Wednesday 10th November at 7am for 7:10 AM, will be a face to face meeting at the Royal Brighton Yatch Club.