On Tuesday, September 15, Rotarians from our club attended (or will attend... I don't know what time you're reading this!) the world's oldest Rotary Club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, founded by Paul Harris, Gus Loehr, Sylvester Schiele, and Hiram Shorey in 1905. With that first virtual pilgrimage complete, I thought it would be fitting to have us visit the club that put the "I" in "RI" (Rotary International). All you Manitobans may know that the Rotary Club of Winnipeg became the first Rotary club to charter outside the United States of America on November 3, 1910. Fast forward 110 years, and on Wednesday, October 7 at 11:15 AM Mountain Daylight Time, President Brent Jorowski will welcome the contingent of "travelling" Spruce Grove Rotarians. Darlene Ronald, the guest speaker that day, will give us "A Look Behind the Curtain at Manitoba Opera". President Brent wants to be able to introduce us personally, so please email me at brad.mastaler@gmail.com to let me know if you plan to attend. I'll send you the Zoom link when I receive it.
Future visits may not all be of historical significance to our club, but there are really good reasons to understand where we, as Rotarians, came from and where we find ourselves today. With that in mind, I am making arrangements with President Bill Stumbaugh to visit the Rotary Club of Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador, a city where our club has worked for many years on a variety of projects, including recently bringing clean drinking water to about 750 people in two area villages. I'm finding out that even virtual visits to an Ecuadorian club require formalities to mark the occasion... they're not content to just let us "pop in". Stay tuned for us to nail down a date for that in October.
I want to space out visits every couple of weeks so as not to crowd your schedules. Future stops on this tour may include...
- the Rotary E-Club of Canada One, the home club of our current District Governor, Jim Ferguson, and a club that's no stranger to meeting online because that's the way they've always done it.
- the Rotary Club of Edmonton Mayfield, the club that sponsored our charter into Rotary International in 1993.
- the Rotary Club of Whitehorse and/or Whitehorse Rendezvous, two new clubs to join our District 5370 on July 1, making our geographically huge district even larger.
- the Rotary Clubs of Stony Plain and Parkland After Dark, just to say "hi".
- the Rotary Club of Windsor-Roseland, Ontario, the home club of Rotary International's first woman to be selected as President-Nominee, Jennifer Jones.
- and more... I'd love your suggestions!