With a call to order by President Doug, the ringing of PDG Nancy’s bell, and the reading of the District’s Land Acknowledgment statement, the meeting participants were treated to a video of the Winnipeg Boys Choir singing O Canada. This was followed by a Thought of the Week as delivered by Rotary founder Paul Harris to Rotarians attending the 4th Goodwill Weekend that was held in Winnipeg: “Happiness is one of the attributes of man which eludes the most determined search, and comes – if it does – unsought, and in the most unsuspected places. He who has failed in his efforts to find happiness in a palace may find it in a humble cottage where love reigns.”

ROTARY MOMENTS

From The Last Club’s Board Meeting

• The club will be supporting RYLA with the purchase of a virtual banner for $100.00. This will display our club’s name and a set message of encouragement and support. An option of a custom message also exists. The Youth Services Committee will determine this.

• The Board voted to match an anonymous donation of $500 directed to Urban Stable. This donation of $1,000 to Urban Stable is on top of the budgeted $1,500 that was previously sent to Urban Stable.

• Assiniboine Forest Committee has finalized the documents for a $150,000 grant from the City of Winnipeg to be used for forest enhancement.

• The Assiniboine Forest Enhancement’s Q & A document respecting the forest project is nearing final edit. It will soon be sent out to all club members. www.fundourforest.org

• Club Year End Report will be presented at our last meeting for the 2020/2021 Rotary Year on June 28th. Committee and program chairs are requested to submit a short summary report to President Doug (dgmckenz@gmail.com) by Saturday June 12th (including any financial details).

Assiniboine Forest’s Chase the Ace (CtA) Committee

An email was sent out to members by President Doug on Saturday about having club members (or a member of the Assiniboine Forest’s Chase the Ace committee) approach local business owners in Charleswood, Tuxedo and the greater Winnipeg area to organize a mutually beneficial arrangement to engage the community in the planned enhancement of Assiniboine Forest. This would be in the form of exchange of service and/or advertising, not a request for cash donations.

The committee needs member input for the contact names of owners. If you feel comfortable making the contact, then go ahead and direct them to Mike, Glenn, Jack or President Doug. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, then forward the contact information and committee members will do the cold call.

Chase the Ace (CtA) Raffle Week 8 Draw winner on Thursday June 3rd was Muir Sutherland whose 10 of spades in Envelope: #49 yielded a weekly jackpot of $36. There are 44 envelopes left. Buy your tickets for the Week 9 Draw early in the week. The higher the weekly sales indicated, potentially the more additional sales can be expected. So, buy early and do this routinely!

**Please ‘Post’ and ‘SHARE’ in your personal social media about CtA and Assiniboine Forest & Friends of the Forest. This will keep the club activities high up in your site and help to elevate them in Google searches. Do everything you can to get the word out. Talk about them.

Rotary International Virtual Convention takes place June 12-16, 2021. If you wish to attend, go online and register soon. The site is https://convention.rotary.org/en for information and registration.

Planting at Westgrove School and Assiniboine Forest

Jack indicated that there are about 60 plants to be placed into the raised beds at Westgrove School and that weatherwise, Friday morning around 9 or 9:30 AM would be a good time to do this – it will likely take about an hour. Volunteers for this planting included PDG Nancy, Ruth Kristjanson, Bob Eilers and Greg Fraser.

The date and time for planting of the approximately 150 flowers at the Assiniboine Forest depended on the weather and availability of Cam Ruml, of Winnipeg’s forestry department. Once date and time are confirmed, Jack will contact volunteers Glenn Campbell, PDG Ed and Lyle Miller.

PDG Ed conducted the virtual induction ceremony of Cathy Skene (sponsored by Rotarian Rod Delisle) into membership of the Rotary Club of Winnipeg-Charleswood. The ceremony included a brief explanation of what Rotary is, (one becomes a member of a huge world-wide family), the object of Rotary, what Rotary stands for (including the Four Way Test), the expectation of attending the weekly meetings, and Rotary mottos. He congratulated and welcomed Cathy to our club and informed her that at this moment, she is the newest Rotarian in the world! He informed Cathy that Lloyd will deliver her Rotary pin.

Cathy responded that she first encountered the Four Way Test in the ethics part of an accounting text book written by a Rotarian. She has moved back to Charleswood from St James – she missed the deer – had a fawn sleeping in her back yard recently as well – which she took as a sign that she “was supposed to be here”.

StoveTeam International is a non-profit organization founded by a Rotarian in Eugene, Oregon in 2008 that provides improved cook stoves to people in developing nations in Latin America. Forest Resener is the Operations Director for StoveTeam International, an organization based in Portland, Oregon that has provided over 76,000 improved cookstoves for families in Latin America. Right now StoveTeam is working on a new project in Guatemala, a stove that is built in place and includes a chimney, completely eliminating smoke inside the home. 

Founder Nancy Sanford Hughes witnessed the health effects of open-fire cooking firsthand while volunteering with medical missions in Guatemala. Open-fire cooking affects half of the world’s homes (~4 billion people, mainly women and children, who are exposed to the equivalent of smoking 3 packs of cigarettes every day) and kills more people than AIDS, emits black carbon (more than all the cars and trucks in the world) and strips forest reserve. In response, Hughes gathered support from her local Rotary club and contacted experts in the field of improved cook stoves to design the Ecocina, a stove specifically designed to be produced and used in Latin America. The Ecocina stove saves up to 60 percent of the wood used by a traditional fire, reduces particulate matter and carbon emissions by more than 70 percent and -- except for the cooking surface -- stays cool to the touch. 

StoveTeam assists local entrepreneurs in Latin America to start their own projects to build and distribute Ecocina and Justa cook stoves. StoveTeam has started projects in Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

As of Jan 02, 2011, local projects started by StoveTeam in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Mexico had produced more than 78,000 stoves, improving the lives of more than half a million people and preventing nearly one million tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.

A new stove model (Justa) is made out of bricks and mortar and includes a chimney, resulting in no smoke in the home. It uses half as much wood and costs $100 to build. StoveTeam is currently focusing on the Justa stove project in Guatemala. The goal is to install 5,000 cookstoves into homes in the next 3 years. They are working on gathering club and district support to fund these efforts and would welcome any support from clubs or advice on approaching districts. Every stove is supplied by donations (stoveteam.org). Stove Team relies on each municipality to choose who gets the stove.

Sarge Mike welcomed Cathy Skene to our meeting, then asked for –

HAPPY BUCKS

PDG Nancy was pleased that a sweet young fawn (which had come into the Morris back yard through their new “deer-resistant fence” with a 2-foot gap at the bottom around 2 PM) had reunited with its mother after dusk. Because she had enjoyed watching the fawn in the afternoon, she decided to contribute two happy bucks.

Dave had a Happy Buck for the work that member Bob Eilers did by gathering empty beer containers from neighbours on his bay and refunding them for cash to donate to Polio Plus.

Lloyd had a “kind of sad buck” for a couple of trees he was trying to revive – they were ready to go – but last night the top of one of them had been chewed off by one of the neighbourhood deer.

President Doug was pleased to report that his son (currently in Borden where he recently graduated from a police course at the top of his platoon as a military police combat engineer parachute jumper) has been posted to Winnipeg and will get home in about 4 days – he and his packed-up truck were already “on the road” home to Winnipeg.

Sarge Mike has been putting in his vegetable garden and really appreciated the recent rain we enjoyed on Saturday.

BIRTHDAYS AND ANNIVERSARIES

President Doug indicated that he has a birthday coming up on June 10th.

NEXT WEEK

Jana Brunel from Efficiency Manitoba – will talk about energy efficiency, programs and rebates.