At the sight of a PDG Nancy’s shy bell, the meeting was started at 5:45 with the reading of the District Land Acknowledgement and followed by an Irish version of O Canada sung by Matthew Tran-Adams.

Thought of the Week: “One child, one book and one pen can change the world.”
(Since September is Basic Education and Literacy Month in Rotary, this was a quote from Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai that RI President Shekhar Mehta used in his September message, where he also noted that “Literacy is the first step out of poverty.”)

ROTARY ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. At the recent Board meeting, it was learned that IRCOM (Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba) has a website where online donations can be made in support newly arrived Afghan refugees arriving in Canada: https://interland3.donorperfect.net/weblink/weblink.aspx?name=E346487QE&id=2 Iain mentioned that 
2. In connection with Literacy Month, Nancy Hansen is compiling a collection of children’s and young adult books related to informing youth about disabled people’s Rights Acquisition worldwide. These books will be given to Westgrove School. The District 5550 Literacy Chair has expressed interest in extending this project across the district.
3. The raised garden boxes at Westgrove School need some maintenance work done. Chuck is looking into that – might require some volunteer work.
4. Rotary International has decided to resume their Youth Exchange Program in September 2022.
5. a) PDG Jim, having met with the Lobster Fest committee earlier in the afternoon, reported that up to 571 tickets have been sold so far – our liquor license limits us to selling 600 tickets. A “Sold Out” sign will be placed at the Morris Insurance business on Roblin Blvd  on Thursday. It appears that half or more of the people who have bought tickets have never attended one of our sit-down lobster dinners.
   b) Lobster prices have sky-rocketed from $11 to $14-$15 a pound, which will reduce our net proceeds by about $2,000 to about $10,000 (which is about half of what our previous lobster events produced).
   c) With every meal there will be information related to how to eat the lobster, how to reheat the chicken, what to do with the cooked potato and on the back side of this info there will be a description of all that our Rotary Club does - including the Assiniboine Forest.
6. The Rotary Club of St Boniface-St Vital is having a ShredFest on Saturday, Sept 25th between 11 AM and 3 PM in the parking lot of St Vital Centre. It’s a community service/fundraiser shredding business and personal documents to prevent identity theft. The charge is $10 for shredding a banker’s box of documents.
7. The Rotary Club of Fort Garry will hold its annual running event for September 19th and are looking for volunteers to help run the event (with more than 100 runners)

• Pre-race set-up: (Saturday afternoon Sept 18th and "very" early Sunday morning 19th)
• Race day (Approx 7am - Noon): Food service, Water Stations, Course Marshaling, and event take down.
• Sponsorships are welcomed...but volunteers and spectators cheering for the athletes is what is really needed!
• Contact Barry Hartley directly to confirm your availability to help make this another successful event.  His email is: Barry.Hartley@gmail.com

8. Nancy Hansen has learned that besides collecting tabs for wheelchairs, Western Scrap Metals Inc. in Winnipeg (18 Sutherland Ave.) will accept donations of all sorts of scrap metals (from cans to old refrigerators) to convert into cash for wheelchairs. This year, Western Scrap Metals recycled approximately 400 bags (14,000 lbs. or 20 million tabs) that were turned in.This amount converts to approximately $8,500.
9. Rotarian Margaret Hemphill is hosting a party this Saturday, Sept 18th with an open invitation for all members of the club to attend. The party is in honor of her brother and his fiancée. This is a combination Birthday party/Wedding and Social gathering with a Silent Auction as a fundraiser for them (who will be newlyweds, by the time of the auction). Any donated Silent Auction gifts need to be delivered to Margaret (or picked up by and delivered to Margaret by President Doug) by Wednesday or earlier.  
   Event details: Saturday, September 18 ;

Guest arrival 4 pm; Special show and ceremony at 4:30;
              5:30 dinner, silent auction, music, etc.

              BYOB - mix, coffee, tea provided

RSVP to Margaret or President Doug if attending Margaret's party on Saturday. Please respond by Thursday noon.

10. Chase the Ace   On Sept 2nd, PDG Nancy won $26 and on Sept 9th Chuck Crocker won $36.The URL for the raffle site is www.rotarychasetheace.org

Iain  indicated that Zobair Deen, who was a visitor at several of our meetings, was born in Afghanistan and worked there for 14 years as a NATO advisor. Zobair has been working with IRCOM, helping Afghan refugees arriving in Canada to come to Winnipeg. Since he works downtown, Iain anticipated that Zobair will likely join the Winnipeg Downtown Rotary club when his refugee work calms down.

Shelby Kardas is the Executive Director of Stove Team International. She joined us from Portland, Oregon. She has a background in international business development, fundraising, and non-profit leadership. She spoke about the work that Stove Team International does in Central America, where women cook food over an open fire inside their homes. This practice emits more carbon black than all the world’s factories, and more than all of the cars and trucks in the world and is resulting in the disappearance of forests that are being used to supply the wood for those open fires. The amount of smoke inhaled by a baby accompanying its mother in the home over the open fire is equivalent to the child smoking three packs of cigarettes per day.

A video shared the journey that Nancy Hughes took that led her to start Stove Team International with her Rotary Club in Eugene, Oregon about 13 years ago. The mission of that non-profit organization is to combat the leading cause of death of Latin Americans – the cooking of food over a wood fire burning openly inside their homes. New cookstoves using technology called a “rocket elbow” (designed by Dr. Larry Winiarski – Nancy Hughes’ neighbour) that produce much less smoke and use much less fuel have been developed. There are projects producing these stoves in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador providing local jobs and using locally sourced materials. The role of Stove Team is to provide support in the form of administrative assistance, marketing support, or fundraising for subsidies for stove sales. At the beginning, volunteers were brought in to construct the stove factories, but the volunteer programs have been paused due to COVID and are being re-envisioned for the future (i.e. for after October 2022). Shelby expressed her appreciation of Rotary clubs around the world supporting the work of Stove Team International. Even though cooking over an open fire affects more than half of the world’s population, very few people know about it.

StoveTeam is currently focused on the expansion of the Justa (pronounced “hoo-stuh”) stove project in Guatemala. The Justa cookstove also uses the rocket elbow design developed by Larry Winiarski. It reduces smoke in the home to nearly zero since it is vented (it has a fixed chimney). It uses 59% less fuel than an open fire and is built in place inside the home by local stove technicians trained by a five-member Stove-building Team, which includes two Guatemalan women. Each family is directly involved in building their stove, leading to greater community adoption (which is helped by its larger cooking surface) and project sustainability. The GPS location of each stove is recorded and there are visits by the team members to educate the families on its health benefits and what needs to be done to prolong the life of the stove (like cleaning out the ash and cleaning out the chimney) Data is being collected so that the stove project can be certified so that they may be able to sell some of their carbon offsets in the future to have those funds re-invested in the stoves to keep them in the field for as long as possible. These stoves provide a safe and healthy environment for the families and can be built for about US$100.

In the Q & A session, it was learned that larger sized Justa stoves have been designed for institutions like schools, hospitals and orphanages. In addition, there are after-school programs focussed on the environment and health where students learn about the stoves and about cooking and by participating in that project they could earn a stove for their family and become ambassadors for the stoves in the community. Since COVID has closed schools in Honduras, the program is currently on hold.

Bob Eilers thanked Shelby for her presentation and shared his experience with a similar project in Tanzania about 25 years ago through the Agricultural Institute of Canada – where ladies organizations were taught how to build their own stoves out of local products to make the stoves more fuel efficient and to cut down on the carbon emissions.

Dave Morris also thanked Shelby for her informative presentation.

Acting Sarge Darvin advised members that he would tell a story then ask questions about the story at the end of the meeting to determine who would and would not be fined for their answers. Neither PDG Jim nor Rohit were fined at the end of the meeting, but everyone else was advised to bring a loonie to the next meeting .

Following this, Acting Sarge Darvin welcomed speaker Shelly Kardas (who joined us from Portland, Oregon) and visitor Rohit Goenka (who joined us from Toronto) and then asked for Happy Bucks

Happy Bucks

Dave was delighted with the bag of 100 beer cans that was dropped off at his office by a client wanting to support the eradication of Polio. In addition, he was happy to have already voted in the Advance Poll of the federal election

PDG Nancy was also happy to have already voted at the advance poll.

PDG Jim was quite pleased with how things are going with the Lobster Fest.

Acting Sarge Darvin was glad that we would be able see each other face-to-face at next week’s Rotary Club meeting to be held at Breezy Bend Country Club.

Rod reported that his month-long bike ride fundraiser for the SickKids Foundation (during August) is now DONE!!

Alan was pleased that construction on his apartment site had been completed (as of July 22) and that a security fence has been put around the perimeter of the site this past week.

NEXT MEETING – SEPTEMBER 20

In Person:

Bring Lobster ticket stubs as well as accompanying cash/cheques to the meeting so that door prizes can be awarded

The plan is to meet at Breezy Bend at the usual time -5:30 for socializing; meeting begins at 5:45.

You will need to show your proof of FULL double vaccination. Vaccination - QR Card. This will be checked by Breezy Bend staff

Masks must be worn until you get to your table and anytime you are up from your table.

You MUST register by Saturday if you plan to attend. This is for the meal order.

Cost of the dinner at Breezy Bend is now $22.

Online:

For members attending the meeting online by Zoom:
- There will be NO waiting room security…so please do not share the Zoom Invitation
- Only the guest presentation will be streamed on the Club’s Zoom account.

Expected Speaker Program

Greg Wiens will talk about his eyeglass experience in Malawi.