PDG Nancy rang the Bell at 5:45pm to get everyone’s attention.  There were 19 Rotarians and guests present for this Monday evening meeting. 

    President Doug opened the meeting with a reading of the Land Acknowledgement Statement and a Rock & Roll version of O Canada. 

Thought of the Week

There can be no better introduction to the life of a community than one that comes through the local Rotary club.

Paul Harris book, My Road to Rotary, 

Sarge Mike then introduced our guests for the evening: 

Ed Werbowski Scholarship recipient

Our club’s Youth Services Chair | President-Elect Glenn introduced the scholarship recipient from Shaftesbury High School, Blair Hamilton. A few of Blair’s accomplishments follow:

Blair thanked the club for funding and selecting him to receive the ed Werbowski Memorial Scholarship. He noted that his grandfather was a long-time, highly active Rotarian in Campbell River, B.C. before passing. He would have been immensely proud of Blair receiving this award from Rotary.

Blair will be attending Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. living in residence. He will be studying Engineering. All his classes will be in-person.

Rotary Moments

1.> The 12th Annual-Rotary Motorcycle Ride in support of the Rotary District 5550 - Ripple Effect Program on Saturday,August 21, 2021. This is a Rotary sponsored program that builds schools, provides scholarships and works with the Department of Education in Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere,

This year’s ride will be The Floyd Manz Memorial Ride in honour of Floyd Manz who passed away as the result a motorcycle accident on June 18, 2021. Floyd was a member of the Rotary Club of Regina and rode in the Ripple Effect Ride for 6 years.

​Since 1999, over $3 million has been invested in education through this program.

*Please send your donation to:

Doug Mortin Phone: 306-596-3076 Email: dougmortin@myaccess.ca

                                     391 Habkirk Dr., Regina SK S4S 6A9.

Peter Neufeldt Phone: 306-535-8526 Email: pwneufeldt@accesscomm.ca

                                        4532 England Rd, Regina SK S4R 4P5

2.> The ‘Train a Trainer’ Global Grant 2098538 contact: Erin Thomas, has provided an update. 

She is now located in Ghent, Belgium instead of Oregon.  This is the program that we helped fund with a $500.00 donation to be matched by David Newman of the Winnipeg-Downtown Club.

The Global Grant was approved and funded on 1/13/2021. They requested that the grant be funded in two phases, with the first phase centered on planning that could be done without travel. The second phase will take place mostly in Nepal, with the training workshop and violence prevention education sessions located throughout the country.

As soon as the COVID situation in Nepal stabilizes and there is a view to when most restrictions will be lifted, the grant partners will be able to plan the in-person training. They hope to be able to select training dates by August and implement training before the end of 2021.

3.> Chase the Ace:  Thursday was the draw for Raffle Week Fourteen (14):  Peter Tonge won with ticket # 99000184021.

♥ 7  Hearts                                        in Envelope: #39                        Weekly Jackpot: $24

Remember to buy tickets, post the winners on your social pages. Promote the raffle.

4.> The City of Winnipeg has finalized the LDR (Land Dedication Reserve Fund) Grant contract. This now gives the Assiniboine Forest Committee access to $150,000.00 for the Enhancement Initiative project.

       The city has also approved the Forest Committee moving forward with Public City Architecture providing concept plans for the project. 

5.> Jack Wilson is developing a schedule for volunteers to be at Assiniboine Forest in the capacity as ambassadors. The schedule will be for various times and days during the coming weeks. You would be ambassadors for the Assiniboine Forest Enhancement Initiative project. This would involve walking the paths in the forest and answering any questions that forest visitors may have about our plans.

        Please consult the Q/A sheet (43 questions) that was sent out previously covering most questions that would arise during visitor interactions in the forest. The committee is looking for volunteers to offer a couple hours at a time to cover the schedule during the week. The plan is to promote the work we are doing and to find out what people are still interested in for enhancement to the forest.

   Due to a delay with the city regarding the LDR grant, the timing is about a month behind what was originally thought for the forest project. The LDR grant is secured, and we are proceeding. The plans from Public City Architecture (PCA) should be in the committee’s possession by some time in September. That plan from PCA will be presented to the club showing how the forest project will look based on the information that was provided to PCA.

    Mike and Jack have prepared a schedule that needs to be filled by club volunteers and Lloyd has prepared a questionnaire that can be used while in the forest to elicit answers / information from forest visitors. The goal of this questionnaire isto provide data for a bit of a study to get some new ideas that could possibly be used. 

6.> PDG Nancy advised that Margaret H. is looking for people to help with cooking or providing food items for a family members future wedding party. The wedding will be planned quickly due to a sudden medical diagnosis that is very concerning. If you can help Margaret and her family in any way, please contact her.

7.> Nancy Hansen thanked PDG Nancy, Dave Morris and the entire group of stamp and tab collectors for all their work getting the tabs for wheelchairs. The stamps collected have already been sent to the Rotary Club in Australia for their various projects.

Dr. Rhoda Ansah Quaigrain

Introduced by PDG Nancy. 

      Dr. Quaigrain holds a PhD from the Department of Civil Engineering, U of Manitoba. She is currently working as a Research Associate in the department. Eight years of extensive research experience in Performance Benchmarking, Health and Safety, and Disability Management. Her current project is in partnership with the Construction Safety Association of Manitoba, Manitoba Heavy Construction Association, Manitoba Federation of Labour, Construction Association of Rural Manitoba, and the Manitoba Homebuilders Association.

        Dr. Quaigrain was also a member of the Senate Committee on Curriculum Changes at the U of Manitoba for three years during her PhD and the Events and Planning Committee. She also, collaboratively, started the Ghana Students Union at the U of Manitoba and led the group for three consecutive years. 

        She has also acted as a consultant on Occupational Health and Safety projects in Manitoba. Through her established networks with key institutions in Manitoba, she was recommended to consult on a research project with four key safety institutions in the province of Manitoba on standardizing Workplace Health and Safety training policies in the province. Organizational partners on the project included the Manitoba Building Trades, Safe Work Manitoba, Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba, Construction Safety Association of Manitoba, and the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology. 

       Additionally, she has nine years of teaching supervisory experience gained from varying positions as sessional lecturer and teaching assistant in Construction Engineering and Infrastructure Management, Engineering Economics, Engineering Communication at the U of Manitoba and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology in Ghana. 

Dr. Quaigrain has developed an online Return to Work Benchmarking Tool. Her presentation described the reasons for the development of the Tool as well as some insight into how the Tool works in a real-world setting.

​The construction industry is among the most hazardous industries, it is a main contributor of workplace accidents. Due to this fact, Health and Safety is paramount in construction. The primary focus is on injury prevention and education.

​What happens when prevention fails? If a worker does not return to the workplace within 6 months of an injury, the probability of returning to work reduces by about 80%.  The area of Disability Management (DM) / Return to Work (RTW) evolved out of a need to address discrimination against disabled people and ensure a timely and safe return of injured workers. RTW programs are based on a workplace prevention and remediation strategy that seeks to prevent disability from occurring or, lacking that, to intervene early following the onset of disability.

​Most construction workplaces seem unwilling or unable to implement RTW. There must be a change in perception and a focus on employees to drive change.  Less than 1/3 of construction companies had a RTW program. The online Tool allows companies to assess their performance and provides a blueprint for those companies to draw up their own RTW plan. The online Tool aims to address the lack of free, accessible web-based tools that construction workplaces can use to benchmark their DM and RTW programs. The development of this online Tool also aims to address the limited adoption of these tools by construction companies in Manitoba. Reaching these goals will address the lack of empirical evidence on the actual DM and RTW performance of the construction industry in Manitoba.

The Purpose of the Benchmarking Tool:

All information in the Benchmarking Tool is anonymous. There are two streams in the make-up of the Tool. 

​1. DM/TRW Survey > 11 indicators > 91 Practices (Building Industry Construction) 

                                                                           > 75 Practices (Heavy Industry Construction)

​2. DM/RTW Metrics > 25 Metrics (Building Industry Construction)

                                                 > 15 Metrics (Heavy Industry Construction)

This will provide an immediate assessment of where they are with their current programs. They can also compare how they stand versus other companies in Manitoba. They will get recommendations on how to improve their performance. 

The different versions of the tool reflect the unique characteristics of each construction industry.

Building Version:  https://www.constructionsafety.ca/csam-return-to-work-benchmarking-tool/

Heavy Version:      https://mhcaworksafely.ca/resources/return-to-work-tool/

The Benefits of the Benchmarking Tool:

For more details, please contact Dr. Quaigrain directly. Rhoda.Quaigrain@umanitoba.ca  or

To learn more about this survey, how it works, and how it can help you manage and improve your return-to-work program, join CSAM and the University of Manitoba for a lunch and learn via Zoom on July 26 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. You will also have the opportunity to interact with the research team and ask questions about this new resource.

Click here to register. 

Q/A.

Q. PDG Nancy M. How many companies involve themselves in this process? Is it compulsory?

A. This is all voluntary. The use of this Tool is not a requirement in the construction industry. Workers Compensation Board (WCB) has an incentive program for companies to develop a RTW program. They are able to access a rebate on their WCB premiums. 

Q. Nancy H. Please speak about some of the positive feedback you have received from early adopters of the Benchmarking Tool. How they have talked positively about having disabled workers.

A. Recruitment Practices is a good example of this. They opened up their hiring practices to include people with learning disabilities. The productivity of these employees has outweighed the level of other workers. If it wasn’t for this project, these individuals would not have received this opportunity of employment.  The cost of accommodation for the disabled employee is exaggerated a lot of the time. This is usually just based on assumption. 

Q. Lloyd T.  This question most likely just applies to Heavy Industry: rail line, Hydro projects.  Did you draw any comparison regarding uptake of the survey for rural vs. urban companies?

A. This direct comparison was not completed. Hopefully in this phase this will be able to be accomplished. From analysis of the first phase of this project, her PhD study, she was able to determine that smaller companies actually had a higher performance than medium and larger companies. Smaller companies were very proactive with their RTW programs. Smaller companies tend to be more family based. They were willing to go through the extra process to get people back to work.

Q. Jagdish K.  How is this program funded? Is it industry and government or industry itself? 

A. The WCB is trying to answer this itself. One way of cutting the cost for companies is the WCB incentive program. Companies that prove that they have an ongoing program can receive a premium rebate. Setting up a RTW program: a significant number of the programs are incorporated under Health and Safety. The cost of uptake is not as significant as originally thought. WCB has consultants available as well as workshops, all part of the WCB premiums. This is a way to promote the DM/ RTW programs and also reduce overall the costs for companies.

          Nancy H. thanked Dr. Rhoda Quaigrain for addressing the club tonight. Nancy pointed out that the presentation helped to make us aware of a population and employment base that has not really been considered in the construction industry in the past. Nancy hopes that anyone in the club that is in the construction industry can get involved in this project. Thank you for making us aware of this worthwhile research. 

Note: Dr. Quaigrain is originally from Ghana. Of interest here is that Jagdish was in Kpando, Ghana for 3.5 years developing schools from 1965 to 1968 before he came to Canada. One of his students was a graduate from McMaster University and worked with Jagdish at the U of Manitoba for 12 years.

Jagdish also recalled being asked to be a keynote speaker for the Ghana@60 Celebrations (2017). He was presented a Certificate of Appreciation at that golden anniversary of Ghana’s independence.