PDG Nancy rang the bell to start the meeting at 5:48 pm and President Doug followed this up with a video of several indigenous singers, and an English singer - all accompanied by a group of 16 socially distanced youths singing O Canada from their own separate locations. The thought for the week was as follows: “Although we are not together in person, we are together in fellowship and it is that fellowship that makes Rotary a strong force for doing good in the world together.”
ANNOUNCEMENTS
President Doug brought to our attention an RI Foundation fundraising program called “Raise for Rotary”, which uses social media. More info in this link: http://raise.rotary.org . The program allows one to choose the occasion the donations are to celebrate or honour, what activity one wants the RI Foundation to support with the donations and, in the process, inspire one’s community. Peter will provide us with more info on this program at a meeting later this month.
The deadline for Rotary Youth Exchange applications for the 2021-2022 Rotary year is the end of November. Let Youth Services co-chair Glenn or Iain know if you know of any students that would be interested in taking part in such an exchange.
Three members of our club have registered for the Grant Certification Webinars later this month. They are Lloyd, Elaine and Catherine.
The next D5550 Evening Talk Show, taking place on Thursday, Nov 5th, will feature RI President Nominee Jennifer Jones, followed by presentations from D5550 Rotarians Bob Durston and Brenda Banbury – all featuring November as Rotary Foundation Month. Meeting info is in an email from D5550 secretary Cathie McFarlane sent out to all D5550 Rotarians.
Valarie Wafer, the new Director for Rotary Zones 28 & 32, is holding her first “Director Dialogue” on Thursday, Nov 12th at 6:00 pm Central Standard Time. The featured guest speaker will be Past RI President Ian Risely, whose topic will be “How we as Rotarians can protect the environment”. (This is Rotary’s new -7th – “Area of Focus”) No charge to attend. Limited to 500 registrants. Registration link: https:// us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErfigqikpG9O-e-J-VIqq7sAx1Yio_z7M-. There will be a “Director Dialogue” the second Thursday of each month.
Brenda Banbury, member of RC Saskatoon North and past D5550 Polio Chair has issued a challenge to district Rotarians to raise $2500 for Polio Plus. She set herself a goal to walk 250 km during the month of November. If she fails to reach her goal, she will match all donations made to Polio Plus in November. Details are in the November DG Newsletter.
Nancy Hansen reported that stamps sent from Winnipeg to a Rotary district in Australia this year garnered that district a total of $8000.
PDG Jim Forestell shared with fellow Rotarians what activities he has been pursuing over the past 9+ months of the COVID pandemic.
When he hasn’t been laying new floors at home in October and November, Jim has been working in his role as our District’s representative on Rotary’s Council on Legislation (Rotary’s parliament) which he has been doing for the past 3 years. Every year there are about 35 resolutions submitted by Rotary clubs from around the world. However, every 3rd year (when RI dues are also set), when the Council on Legislation meets in person in Chicago, there more than 3 times as many resolutions (117 in 2019 – which was when Rotaract clubs became equal partners with Rotary clubs). Jim sent out this year’s 31 resolutions to all club presidents and secretaries in D5550, but only 3 clubs (including Charleswood) have provided input to help him decide how he should vote on each resolution to best represent the clubs in D5550.
All voting is to be done online by Nov 15th this year. PDG Jim will wait as long as possible to have all the input possible.
Eduardo, a Rotary Peace Fellow from Duke University and Chapel Hill (2010-2012) who is currently a PhD student at the U of Manitoba’s Arthur V Mauro Institute for Peace and Justice, spoke about how the Rotary Foundation sponsors and funds peace studies.
In 1999-2000 a group of Rotarians (mostly from the US), very interested in peace and conflict resolution, toyed with the idea of starting a Rotary University, until a consulting firm determined that such a move would be too expensive. Plan B was to partner with existing universities that already offered programs in peace and conflict resolution.
The 2 year Masters programs began in 2002 with the following universities – Duke & North Carolina-Chapel Hill (US), Science Po (France), Salvador (Argentina), Queensland (Australia), California Berkeley (US), Bradford (UK),and International Christian (Japan). Since then, the universities in France, Argentina and California have parted company with the program while Uppsala in Sweden (2011), Chualalongcorn in Thailand (2006, with its 3 month long program for professionals) and Makarere in Uganda (2020) have now partnered with the Rotary Peace Centre program. Each of these peace centres have different and specific areas of expertise to offer their students. The selection process for peace fellows depends on the applicants’ interests as expressed in their proposals.
More than 1500 alumni have graduated in the 18 years of the Rotary Peace Centres program. Rotary has decided that its members cannot solve all the world’s problems related to peace and conflict resolution (which includes war, poverty, human rights, environmental degradation, discrimination….) but can train people to do this all over the world.
In the discussion that followed Eduardo’s presentation, we learned that
The proposal to establish a peace centre at the University of Manitoba was unsuccessful because North America already has a centre in Duke University and Rotary was looking at other parts of the world.
Mediators Beyond Borders are a great partner of Rotary’s peace program – they are always present in peace-related Rotary International conference programs.
Rotary Peace Fellows (55% of whom are women) are the arms and legs of Rotarians on the ground. They work in UN agencies like UNESCO & UNICEF, in local development and with refugees, not just as diplomats.
