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"The Friendly Club"
Tuesdays at 12:15 PM
Woodvale Facility and Golf Clubhouse
4540 - 50 Street NW
Edmonton, AB T6L 6B6 Canada
Our Club meets every week with a twist. The first three weeks of each month on Tuesday at the Woodvale Club and the last week for a meeting and social at a location, date and time to be determined. Members will be notified by email of the details.
This week we were pleased to hear from our newest member Laura Brown. Laura told us that she became a Financial Adviser many years ago and worked for CIBC Wood Gundy for ten years as part of a large team in eastern Canada before deciding to set up her own practice here in Edmonton with Edward Jones Financial. She said that she enjoys being able to run her business the way that works best for her. She told us that a big part of that means an emphasis on socially responsible investing. She said that running her own business has been quite a change from working with a large team, but she truly enjoys the challenge of learning what types of investments work best for her clients.
Laura told us that she went through a rough period as a teenager and young woman but came out of it with an entirely new perspective on life and now realizes that sharing her experiences and giving back to the community is something that she needs to be part of her life.
Laura also told us that she is very lucky to have an amazing supportive family in her partner, Guillaume and two young children. She also told us that she has a family connection to Rotary as her mother is a Rotarian, so she knows something of what it means to be a Rotarian. Service and helping others has been part of her life and always will be.
We would like to thank Laura for telling us something about herself and look forward to getting to know her better.
We can meet near the entrance around 7:00 pm, but you can arrive later and join us as well.
Cost is $12.95 per person
Includes:
Entry to the Mazes and Brain Games Exhibit only with over 60 puzzling experiences to solve
Enigma Bar (Cash bar) where you can purchase alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks and snacks
If you wish to attend you may purchase tickets in advance, on-line from the Telus World of Science website, Experiences, Events, Sip and Solve and Select the Jan 18 event.
These events have sold out in the past, so don’t dawdle!
Nelson Sanchez with our club Community Chair Carin Jansen van Vuuren
This week we welcomed Nelson Gomez to tell us about the programs at Prosper Place. Prosper Place is a program of the Canadian Mental Health Association. They have a building in the west end of Edmonton (10455-172 St) with a Café, meeting and program rooms. Members can join at no cost and are welcome to take part in any of the programs offered.
They have a cafe which offers subsidized daily meals to members for four dollars each. They currently have about eight hundred members with about thirty to forty people taking part in daily activities. They are open five days a week and offer programs to encourage skills building, personal growth, socialization, or simply a space to connect with others. Some of their current programs include Adjusting to Life in Canada, Parenting, Anger Management, Anxiety and Depression, Grief and Loss, Balancing Work and Family and many other topics. In addition, they have a small food and clothing bank on site. They offer drop-in professional psychiatric help every Tuesday which is open to the general public. They also sponsor a party for their members once a month with a meal and entertainment provided at a very minimal cost. Their members come from all walks of life and they are tied in to the 211 Help Line, local Hospitals, the Food Bank, Probation Officers, Group homes and many other agencies although referrals are not needed to become a member.
They have a very small number of paid staff and many of their programs are run by volunteer peer members. They receive funding for some programs through Canadian Mental Health but are also a registered Charity and rely on private donations for many of their additional programs. We would like to thank Nelson for his very interesting talk. More information on their programs can be found at www.prosperplace.org.
New Member Laura Brown with Membership committee members Stefan Jansen van Vuuren and Sean Murphy
This Tuesday Sean Murphy, from our Membership Committee welcomed Laura Brown as the latest member of our club. Laura’s classification is Financial Adviser. We would like to warmly welcome Laura to our club and look forward to getting to know her better.
Ben Gomez and Rhonda Smith from our club Community Services Committee approached the Edmonton Crisis Unit and volunteered to provide gifts and hampers to two single parent families with multiple children recommended by them. We asked for cash donations at our Christmas Party and combined these with community funds to collect one thousand dollars. This was then used to purchase and wrap one hundred and twenty Christmas gifts and two hampers that were delivered to Mill Woods Social Services on the Friday before Christmas. They in turn delivered them to the two families. Social Services later told us that both families were greatly appreciative of our donations.
We have recently received updates from Mondesa Youth Opportunies (MYO) on each of the five students that we have sponsored, Frans, Naambo, Romance, Fransina and Tangeni, in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Edmonton Riverview.
MYO is a well-known and intensive after-school education program located in Mondesa Township, Swakopmund, Namibia. It is the flagship project for the Rotary Club of Swakopmund, Namibia.
All five of our students are doing well in their studies. The detailed reports can be seen in our Club Documents section of our Website.
We have recently received a letter from Nasima. a mother/teacher with the Amarok Program in Khulna, Bangladesh, whom we have sponsored. You can read her update in the Photo Album section at left.
The Group Study Exchange Program was (and still is) a Rotary Foundation educational program that provides funding for the exchange of small teams of (non-Rotarian) young business and professional people between paired districts in different countries. The goals were to enable them to learn about the corresponding businesses and culture of another country for a four to six week study period. Their travel costs were covered by the Foundation and the hosting district/s provided accommodation, meals and arranged business meetings, tours, discussions and cultural events. The sending Rotary districts provided a Rotarian team leader responsible for organizing and leading each team. As can be seen, providing this type of experience requires a very large effort on the part of both the sending and receiving Districts, the District Governors and their committees in terms of logistics and planning. Visiting teams would meet with local people and tour offices and places of business that corresponded to the interests of the team members. In return the other district would send a team to visit our District and we would do the same for them. At the end of the exchange each team was expected to provide a detailed report of their experiences and what they had learned from that experience to their sponsoring District. This Foundation program still exists today with some changes, team members are now all from the same profession and there are some changes to funding.
In the spring of 1991, our District 5360 (Alberta, Northern BC, Northwestern Saskatchewan and NWT) sent a team of five young professional women along with their Rotarian Team Leader, Hans Granholm from our club to a district in southern Sweden. The team was comprised of a constitutional Lawyer from Yellowknife, a Family Medical Doctor from Calgary, an Accountant from Calgary, a Graphic Artist from Spruce Grove and a YMCA Program Director from Edmonton.
The teams were expected to represent Rotary wherever they went so they all wore matching jackets in public. Their red La Fleche Tailor jackets were custom embroidered with the Rotary Wheel. Hans said that they looked quite sharp when travelling together.
The district in Sweden that they visited had recently been assigned by Rotary International to support the redistricting of Rotary clubs in Poland. The fall of the Berlin wall in Nov 1989 had opened up many countries, who at one time prior to WW II had had many active Rotary clubs. The district in Sweden had recently sponsored the opening of two clubs in Warsaw, Poland. Shortly after our Exchange team arrived in Sweden, they were asked if they would like to spend part of their time visiting with these clubs in Poland. Hans asked the team if they would like to do this and they subsequently spent three weeks in Sweden and two more in Poland.
Rotary would normally provide language training prior to departure but this was not possible due to the timing. Hans could get by in Swedish but not in Polish. As it turned out it was not a problem as almost all they came in contact with in Poland spoke very good English.
They visited clubs and places of business in Malmo, Eslov, the southern coast and Helsingborg as well as a few other areas in Sweden. In Poland they stayed with a very welcoming and wealthy businessman who had armed guards on the grounds of his home in Warsaw and visited with clubs in Warsaw and Krakow, Poland.
Hans said that they were very well treated by their hosts both in Sweden and in Poland. They were especially impressed by the living conditions in Poland being much better than they had expected. He also said that organizing the air travel was tricky as air travel in Europe was restricted due to trouble in the Middle East and they had to spend more time travelling than originally hoped. Overall they had a very informative and memorable time together.
In spring of 1992 another member of our club, Ron McCullough led a team from District 5360 (Alberta, Northern BC, Northwestern Saskatchewan and NWT) to District 9790 in Victoria, Australia. His team consisted of five men, a Lawyer from Grande Prairie, a Public Utility Public Relations Officer from Calgary, a District Agriculturist and Regional Crop Specialist from Stettler, an Office Manager from Grande Prairie, and a Supervisor of Technical Services for Edmonton Power.
Their tour was seven weeks visiting clubs in the State of Victoria in south-eastern Australia- Melbourne, Albury-Wodonga, Corryong, Bright, Beechworth, Wangaratta and Euroa. They travelled from one area to the next staying in the homes of local Rotarians and visiting many different types of local businesses. These included a utility company, a cheese factory, a law office, cattle and dairy farms, sheep farms, a woolen mill, an oil seed mill, local hospital management and many more. They were given a good overall picture of the local businesses and how they were run, which in some cases was quite different from the way the same business operates in Canada. They became somewhat local celebrities in articles featured in several local newspapers. They also gained contacts and made friends with people they otherwise would never have met.
Ron stated in his final report that they truly appreciated all of the work that went into organizing their travel and time in Australia. It was a very valuable experience of a lifetime for the young business people who took part in the exchange.
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