Rotary Club Highlights - May 19, 2016 - #43
Posted by Lenore Klassen
on May 27, 2016
Grace By: Margaret Jarrell
O Canada Lead By: Rick Evans
Head Table Consisted of :
George Darte
Harry Schlange Chief Administrative Officer of the Niagara Region
President Cindy Mewhinney
SGT at Arms Rick Radowsky
Intro Of Guests Terry Romaniuk
Head Table Guest Anne Atkinson
Terry Romanuik introduced our guests:
Karen and Dave Morgan - guess of Dave Stevenson
Joscelyn Laing - Breakfast Voluneer
Diane Alton - Breakfast Volunteer
Carol Merritt - Breakfast Volunteer
Nancy Schappert - Breakfast Volunteer
Brian Baranoski - Lincoln Centennial School Principal
Rod Hollick - guest of Art Wing
Emily Goertzen - guest of Anne Atkinson
Angie DiCarlo - guest of Anne Atkinson
Daun Lagesten - guest of Anne Atkinson
Janet Allen - Rotary Club of St. Catharines Lakeshore
Pia Zimmerman - Youth Exchange Student
Anne Atkinson Introduced and Thanked the Volunteers of the Lincoln Centennial School Breakfast Program by Day of the week that they serve:
Grilled Cheese and Fruit Monday> Emily, Ralph, Jean and Steve
Scrambled Eggs Tuesday> Diane, Carol, Rick, April, Heather
Pancake Wednesdays> George, Nancy, Scott and the KPMG Group
Scrambled Egg Thursday> Jocelyn and Anne
Brian Baranoski, Principle from Lincoln Centennial School thanked Rotary for the support of the over 10,000 Breakfasts that they have served over the last 6/7 years. The students truly feel that the city of St. Catharines care for them. Anywhere from 20-60 students are served each day.
An Increase in Educational Scores is evident. Anne Atkinson accepted an award on behalf of Rotary and the Volunteers presented by the DSBN.
George Darte introduced Harry Schlange Chief Administrative Officer of the Niagara Region, Board Member of the United Way, Local Soccer Coach and the best thing this Region has experienced in a long time. He will be greatly missed.
Harry, provided an informative and captivating presentation. I know I for one am excited to see where the Niagara Region will be in 2020! He provided a bit of background to the state that our Region was in prior to his arrival, with 12 communities to serve, 430,000 People, 1800 SQ KM with very distinct business units, 26 in total. Niagara needed to get on the map and we need to stop thinking small. Over the last 10 years we have only grown by 6000 people. Our neighboring Municipality, Hamilton grew by 40,000 people. Everyone is growing on a faster pace than we are and we need to make significant changes to stop this.
In 2014 Niagara Region went under Structural Changes, Cultural Changes and Leadership Changes. Finance and Strategy Consolidated. Teamwork became a focus with 110 new leaders in the last 1.5 years. Good Enough is not Enough. Getting involved in the community became a focus. We went from a dysfunctional Approach to a United Approach.
Focus that needs to be maintained: Fostering an Environment for Economic Prosperity. Cant just do it like before, we need to do things differently. We are 15 years behind, we need to LEAPFROG the competition. What are we doing now to make the difference in the future.
The GO Train will be coming to Niagara Falls by 2020, through a concentrated effort by the Region. We need to change our Urban Footprint to attract the Young.
Future Direction:
2021 Games
More Infrastructure Money brought to Niagara
Vineland Research
Continue to Chase some International Companies to come to Niagara
Leadership is Critical, Be Bold Not Boring!
A fantastic Video was shared that will be going viral to show the world Niagara IS the Place to be.
Name of the Video is The World is Coming to Niagara Beat the Rush.
http://www.niagaracanada.com/Ecdev/Home.aspx
Betty-Lou Souter thank our speaker: for an engaging presentation. We are extremely Grateful but also extremely sad that you are leaving. We wish you well, our loose is Brampton's gain.
Announcements:
George asked that we complete the survey that he sent out
Chris reminded us of the Save the Date for Thanking our President on June 28th
Cindy informed the group that May 26th meeting with be as regular as the Tour at Marilyn Walker School is postponed to the fall.
Ted Usick introduced and award a Paul Harris Fellowship to Karen Morgan.
"Karen was born in St. Catharines and went through our local elementary and secondary school. She has been married to her husband Dave for 40 years. Her work experience includes records management in the public sector, public accounting, beginning as a secretary and progressing to a book keeper. She has owned a private book keeping practice as well. Her volunteer work includes Taking part in a literacy program, helping children learn to read. As a Big Sister she took part in a mentoring program visiting children in schools, where she worked in an advisory and problem solving capacity.
However her biggest contributions have come with her involvement with Sleeping Children Around the World. Karen has signed on for a 6th distribution journey to place in early 2017. The last trip she acted as a team leader and will again in 2017. As a team leader she is responsible for coordinating all aspects of distribution with the overseas partner. In 2016 and again in 2017 the partner is the Rotary Club of Pune Cantonement.
SCAW holds fund raising events to cover all of its administrative cost. Therefore 100% of all donations to SCAW are spent on their charitable program.
It gives me great pleasure as Foundation Chair for The Rotary Club of St. Catharines to present a PHF to Karen Morgan on behalf of our club and our members. Please join me in welcoming our newest PHF Karen Morgan."
Due to time we skipped Happy Dollars.
Ticket 7052636 was pulled but April did not pull an Ace.
President Cindy's final Be a Gift to the world Challenge of the week:
Go Out of your way to help Out an animal.