Next Talk: 

Speaker: Rosalie Horner - Waltzing Mathilde: Letters to a Little Girl

Born in Sydney, Rosalie graduated in Fine Arts from Melbourne University. After becoming a presenter on ABC TV Melbourne, she subsequently moved to London where she worked for many years as a Fleet Street journalist and as a panelist on popular TV shows. Before returning to live permanently in Mosman in 2018, Rosalie graduated in Italian from University College, London. This is her first historical novel.

Past Talks:

2025

July:  Speaker: Ann Marie Kimber - Mayor of Mosman

Mayor Kimber commenced her talk by saying that she would initially reflect on the many things that her life experiences had taught her in her journey to leadership and then explain how she had become Mayor of Mosman despite not having worked in government previously.
The Mayor’s first overhead illustrated the complexity of the many different factors that she considered can contribute to effective leadership. These include intense motivation and a strong sense of responsibility, both combined with firm discipline, sensitive people management and effective
teamwork.
This overhead also coupled these determinants with additional factors, such as support, vision, influence, mentoring, inspiration and communication. In her personal journey to leadership, Ann Marie felt that what was most important were her values: these led her to make effective choices, as well as to accept challenges and changes, and to serve with courage, resilience and integrity.
Mayor Kimber stressed the importance of ‘followship’. Followship replaces leadership when the leader moves away from a traditional directive approach and leads as a follower. In followship, the leader adopts the role of listening to group members, communicating directly with each one and treating each member with kindness. Teamwork can be more successful than independent individuals when all the voices of the team are heard.
The Mayor made mention in passing of the book Who Moved My Cheese? by Dr Spencer Johnson, one of the most successful US business books of all time. It recounts a simple yet profound fable that describes four different reactions to change. The story teaches that those who embrace change and adapt to it quickly will thrive while those who resist change will usually struggle. 7 In introducing herself, Anne Marie said that she is the daughter of a Scottish immigrant. As Mayor, she is delighted now to be able to care for Mosman’s Scottish cairn, which was a Bicentennial gift to Australia from the people of Scotland (see photo right). The cairn's stones were gathered by the ministers of each Scottish parish to represent the diversity of Scotland’s geology. There are also stones from Scottish cathedrals.
The Mayor went on to say that conducting citizenship ceremonies was a special joy for her not just because of her immigrant father but because she herself had lived in many parts of the world. She noted that in 2024, almost 9 million of Australia’s 27 million population (about one third) had been born overseas, indicating Australia’s very diverse demographics.
The Mayor’s professional career has spanned sport, global experience, business (both large and small) and deep community involvement. Her list of previous employers included Glenridge Ambulance (US), Genea, Capitan, Overlay Technology, Rhône-Poulenc Rorer and currently, Daisee.
Daisee is an Australian start-up software company that her husband, Richard (a former Google regional MD) formed 8 years ago. It builds cutting edge AI applications for business. These have to-date spanned banking and financial services, healthcare, tele-medicine, and government and digital commerce markets.
Sport has been an essential learning experience for Ann Marie. Her main sport has been basketball. From basketball, she has learnt the critical importance of teamwork, especially in her role first, as a team captain and then as a coach. She has also learnt that it is the journey that is usually remembered, not the result of a specific game, even if that game is a final.
As a generalisation, the Mayor said that she has learnt from business that it is critical for the customer’s needs to be satisfied. She now intends to do the same for Mosman ratepayers by addressing key community concerns such as the rising cost of living, traffic congestion and environmental sustainability. She has also learnt that it can be the little things that may ultimately give rise to success.
Ann Marie’s path to mayoralty began when she was invited to coffee by the previous Mayor of Mosman, Carolyn Corrigan. To Ann Marie’s surprise, Carolyn asked her to consider joining Mosman Council. This was an unexpected challenge which Anne Marie immediately stepped up to, despite the lack of previous experience in government. Carolyn made it clear that she wished to step down after 12 years on Council, including 6 years as the first popularly elected female Mayor of Mosman. Carolyn said that she wanted Ann Marie to take over as leader, which is what happened when Ann Marie was elected Mayor of Mosman in September 2024 as part of the independent Serving Mosman team.
With insights from a career that now spans from big business to local government, Ann Marie’s personal story is a reminder that leadership is not about title or power, but about purpose, persistence, and lifting others along the way.

June: Speaker: Steven Alderton - Mosman: The Front Door to Art Steven Alderton is the Director of Mosman Art Gallery.

Steven spoke about the artists’ historic Curlew Camp at Sirius Cove where important Australian painters, such as Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton, pioneered the Australian impressionist style. Steve’s presentation covered Mosman’s continuing role in leading Australian art intothe future, given the long history of indigenous art in the Mosman area in the past.

May: Speaker: Adam Donnelley- The Missing Middle

Adam Donnelley, Ausgrid’s Partnerships Manager, will discuss how Ausgrid, which owns the Sydney electricity distribution network, aims to make electricity accessible to all. He will highlight the role that can be played by distribution networks in the current energy transition, focusing on delivering electricity faster and cheaper during a time of heightened energy awareness and electricity usage.

April

 This month’s meeting will set a new foundation for our shared understanding through participation in a Club Survey and Forum. We’d like to know your preferences on some key elements of our existing Activities program – Tours and Lunches - and also some of the things that you might bring to enhance the Club.

March 

Christian Janson: Christian is a Mosman Rotary Exchange student from Germany, who is spending one year living in Sydney. He gave an interesting talk in impeccable English using colourful overheads, commencing with some of his own family. His family had recently hosted an Australian Rotary Exchange student from Maclean, NSW.

Christian is very enthusiastic about the Olympic team sport of Handball, which dates back to Ancient Greece. He said that he has played Handball since the age of 4 and is a goalkeeper. He enjoys the sport because it has enabled him to make so many good friends since he commenced playing it.

As part of his Rotary Australia and Australian high school experience, Christian travelled to Timor-Leste with Mosman Rotary. This, he said, was one of the highlights of his visit to Australia because there was such a stark contrast between Germany, a developed country, and Timor-Leste, a relatively-poor developing country. He found the Timorese students and all of the Timorese people with whom he interacted to be both friendly and delightful. Christian said that he took part in two Rotary programs with Timorese participants while in Timor-Leste: RYPEN and RYLA. The former, the Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment, is focussed on youths aged 14-16, aiming to improve all aspects of their life’s journey while the latter, the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, is designed to develop leadership skills in somewhat older participants. He also attended the opening ceremony of a highly-regarded Timorese preschool that had been sponsored by the Mosman Rotary Club and cofounded by Barry Starr.

Second Talk: Cara Ghassemian: Cara said that her Aussies in Morocco Tours (AIMTours) company has offered tours in Morocco (and Sicily) since 2019. AIMTours offers six different signature tours in Morocco but Cara only had time to speak about two: one that tours the Imperial Cities of Morrocco (Casablanca, Marrakech, Rabat, Fez, etc) while the other, which tours the Desert Patterns of Morocco (this tour starts and finishes in Marrakech and visits ancient bazaars and traditional markets). AIMTours are of 4, 7 or 10 days duration. Further details from aissiesin m oroccotours.com.au/tours/.

February 26 - Mercy Ships Hospitals. - Monica Prugue Mercy Ships is an international non-governmental charity that operates the largest hospital ships in the world to provide surgical care and medical education in Africa. This presentation will outline the history of Mercy Ships and highlight the urgent need for surgical and medical care in Africa. 

January 22: Dr Peter Abelson – The Mosman Story

2024

November 27: The Voice of White Xmas

October 24:  Iconic Inventions of our Time:  Ian Thompson

September 25  Alcohol - I'll drink to that:  Dr Rosemarie Einstein

August 28  Advances in Physiotherapy:  Winsome Baker

July 24  Sleeping and Your Wellbeing:  Gayle Nelson   

June 26  Living in Retirement:  Cameron Kirby

May 22  Travelling in Japan:  Jeff Burgess

April 24  The Barn Whaling Station:  Colleen Godsell AM