To acquaint Gailmarie better with our club, Doug presented an overview of our membership and our activities. The Rotary Club of Winnipeg-Charleswood has 39 members on record. The club membership is a well-balanced mix of males and females and range in age from 30’s to 70’s.
Our club members come from a wide range of vocational backgrounds including medical, legal, education, financial, engineers, contractors, administration and many more. On occasion we have off site meetings and try to ensure physical accessibility to ensure all members can attend.
When Covid-19 closed down in-person meetings, we went online with Zoom meetings very quickly. The Zoom meetings were well attended with very few technology issues. Just recently, at the end of June, we were able to start having socially distanced, in person meetings again, at our usual location at Breezy Bend Country Club.
Child Poverty Reduction: Our club works closely with a local lower income, Manitoba Housing community, called Westgrove. The community school, also called Westgrove School, is a K to grade 5 elementary school. The Charleswood R.C. has supported this school for years in the area of: Literacy; School branded Clothing; running shoes for each child to be kept at the school; and a nutrition program.
Westgrove Family Resource Centre is for tenants of the local Manitoba Housing complex. Programming
includes parental programs, sewing circle, card making, family fun evenings, laundry facilities, meetings, community store and food bank. During the COVID 19 crisis, the centre is focused on its community store and food bank. It is working in collaboration with other community agencies to fill gaps for Westgrove families. Our club has supported this effort by collecting supplies and food. Club member, Paul Brault, is working closely with Westgrove to deliver supplies and food and using cash donations to purchase more. We have increased food support into the Westgrove community by way of weekly food hampers. The hamper program has now reverted to a child nutrition program to support the children through the summer until the regular school-based nutrition program starts again.
All these actions help to provide the students with a strong relationship to the school and a solid feeling of self worth.
We have also supported an innovative program in our area called Urban Stable. This program helps kids with social interaction difficulties improve their communication skills and learning abilities, through horse and stable care as well as riding skills. This program gives them confidence to engage.
Charleswood Rotary has supported Habitat for Humanity for a number of years through cash donations. Members have also assisted with the groups cycling fundraisers as support staff.
Our Membership Chair, Ed Thompson has been developing contacts with the local Toastmasters Club. We have had Toastmaster members attend a few of our meetings in the past. We believe this connection will grow in the future.
We have a very capable Membership Chair in Ed Thompson. He is constantly working on connections and advising the rest of the club about his techniques to get new people out to meetings. A wide range of members have introduced many prospective members to the club over the years. This is an ongoing activity in the club, while also a concern, as it is in all Rotary clubs - as we age and require new, younger members to join Rotary.
Our club does have a series of membership options available beyond the regular membership in Rotary;
- Corporate or Family membership: Results in reduced or eliminated membership costs to the new members.
- Rotary Associate: Each club member can name an individual that would attend regular meetings when the club member cannot. This creates greater exposure of Rotary to more people.
- Friends of Rotary: For $50 the individual can get access to two dinner meetings, the minutes from all regular meetings and the Rotarian magazine.
These options all result in greater exposure of Rotary into the community.
The use of online sites for meetings and promotion of Rotary is strong in our club. As mentioned earlier, Zoom is well used in our club for regular meetings when needed, Executive meetings and committee meetings as well.
We have a couple members, Peter Tonge and Mandy Kwasnica, who are busy developing a Rotary focused podcast. Peter is working on ways to fund some start-up costs for the production. This podcast has the potential of having a global reach. This is great PR and Rotary image exposure at the club, district and international level.
We use all the current Rotary image and branding for our social media pages. Our Public Relations Chair and committee are working on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as our ClubRunner home page with updates all the time using text, pictures and video.
At our last meeting the club presented a Paul Harris Fellowship to a long-time Charleswood resident and WWII veteran. He has been a community booster for decades. A wonderful man with a fantastic life story. We had a local newspaper representative in attendance for media exposure as well as the usual posting that our PR committee did.
Another prominent area of Rotary exposure and identity is our club’s responsibility as the ‘Custodians
of the Assiniboine Forest’. An urban forest of 700 acres with well used walking trails. We organize improvements and ongoing care of the signage and trails. We are in the early stages of planning for a multi-year and multi-phase upgrade of some major signage and physical amenities, that will be accessible for all in the forest, all using current Rotary branding.
There is significant community usage of the forest. This project will lead to further Rotary exposure through fundraising. Possible new volunteers leading to new members. Positive media exposure will occur as the project advances.
Our Club Service Chairs keep members up to date with all new and relevant information from all sources. Members are well versed in the use of ClubRunner at the club and district level as well as RI sites. We have had presentations on the use of all Rotary web-based sites and continue to hold meetings with tech learning as the goal.
The best thing to come out of the last 4 to 5 months is the familiarity with the ZOOM app. Meetings going online. A quick committee meeting can occur with little disruption of the rest of your day.
Major Rotary events in the future should be planned as hybrid events. In-person and online at the same time. This could be district learning & development all the way up to the district convention.
The Charleswood Rotary Club has supported Polio Plus, Shelterbox, Ripple Effect & Rotary Peace Scholars through our budgeting and fundraising for many years. In 2019/2020 we donated to a Global Grant to support a 5-day intensive training program for 25 Nepali leaders working to end violence against women in Nepal. The program will use a train-the-trainer model so they can bring the information back to their communities. Our $500 turned into $2,000 of support with various matching funds.
President Doug then asked DG Gailmarie to address the club.
DG Gailmarie asked Doug to share the presentation with her as she was very interested in our activities, especially the Nepal project. She took the opportunity to introduce the DG Team: PDG Fred Wright from the Rotary Club of Kenora; DGElect Dan Sutton from the Winnipeg West Club; DGNominee Jean Marc Nadeau from Regina Eastview; and Assistant DG Len Klassen from the Steinbach Club. She said they all operate as a team and that she encouraged the team concept throughout the district.
She thanked us for the invitation to the meeting, even though the meeting is on Zoom, she felt we can still enjoy good fellowship. DG Gailmarie noted that she knows several of our members and would like to get to know us all.
DG Gailmarie started with a brief introduction to this year’s RI theme. She said the RI President this year is Holger Knaack from Germany, a dynamic down to earth Rotarian leader with great vision. He will lead us to positive change. When he introduced his theme “Rotary Opens Opportunities” he said “We believe that our acts of service, big and small, create opportunities for people who need our help. Everything we do opens another opportunity for someone, somewhere.” Gailmarie said this is certainly true during this pandemic, as we are presented with opportunities such as using Zoom to conduct our meetings.
Along with RIP Holger’s theme RI has put out a five-year action plan. She said the 5550 District Strategic plan is a living document that aligns very well with the RI plan because it focuses on RI’s seven areas of focus.
We are all aware she said that the primary goal is to eliminate child poverty by increasing access for every child in our district to good food, shelter and education. She said it is important that we grow and engage membership especially young people. Since retention is as important as recruitment, we must engage our current members too. The DG said we must try to be consistent with our public image; we now have a PR committee in the district, and they are putting out a newsletter, the first issue this month. We have to let people in our communities know the wonderful things we’re doing because then they will join us and give us the funds to do more.
An important goal, said Gailmarie, is to develop effective team leadership. She noted that four PDGs were on this call: Jim, Ed, Nancy and Elaine. She said of course we are all leaders. She thanked the club too for our efforts in International Service.
DG Gailmarie then shared her hopes and dreams for this Rotary year. She said she hopes to support positive change in D5550 and to encourage everyone to be part of the leadership. She intends to reach out to youth in many ways and to find ways to share our best practises. She wants to meet as many Rotarians as possible because she believes that fellowship and fun are important aspects of Rotary
With that Gailmarie said she would like to keep the meeting informal and invited members to ask questions.
Nancy Morris wondered how the Rotaract clubs are doing. DG Gailmarie said there are two clubs functioning, one in Brandon and one at the U of M. Patti Vann is the district representative for youth activities. The clubs are having difficulty due to the pandemic. There is also a young satellite club in Saskatoon.
Jim asked how RI is doing with finances during the Covid crisis; do we have enough money? Gailmarie said they are probably saving some money but they are looking long-term and don’t want to decrease dues because they know we are going to need the funds. She said the Foundation grants for this year have all been expended due to the pandemic and we will need to build up the reserves again. Travel has been cancelled for everyone until next January.
Bob asked whether the Polioplus program has been impacted? What has been impacted is the ability to do immunizations; none have been possible for the last few months. The DG said they will be back on track as soon as possible.
Glenn wondered if any new and innovative fund-raising initiatives have come up in our district. Gailmarie reported that the Thompson club is trying a virtual golf tournament and some clubs are doing virtual bingos. Fred added that the Dryden Club has made around $5000 on a drive through breakfast. She said we need to share best practises and we should look at the DG Newsletter. It will be important to simplify and concentrate on quality. Ed Thompson added that Dauphin has raised around $6000 on a “tag team” golf tournament. Dave said our club is looking at 3 or 4 small events to replace this year’s lobster dinner, and we are asking our regular sponsors for that event to consider donating anyway.
Gailmarie closed by reminding us that her first newsletter would be out in August; it is being edited by Ron Nordstrom in Neepawa. He welcomes any and all suggestions and inputs.
The next district conference will be a hybrid in Melfort, from May 14-16, 2021. Gailmarie invited all of us to participate in it.
President Doug thanked Gailmarie for joining us, as well as Fred and Len. He said he would be making a personal donation to a charity or cause of the DG’s choice. Gailmarie said her choice would be Shelterbox.
