After reading the Land Acknowledgement Statement, President Doug asked Dave to lead the members in singing O Canada, which was followed by this Thought of the Week, which is a Rotary International statement related to February being Black History Month:

“At Rotary, we have no tolerance for racism. Promoting respect, celebrating diversity, demanding ethical leadership, and working tirelessly to advance peace are central tenets of our work. We have more work to do to create more just, open and welcoming communities for all people. We know there are no easy fixes and that challenging conversations and work lie before all of us. Rotary’s strength has long been our ability and commitment to bringing people together. We will tap into that strength now as we stand with those who are working for peace and justice. Rotary will do our part to listen, learn and take action to ensure that we continue to contribute to making positive change.”

ROTARY MOMENTS

1. The club received an email from Carla Bergen, the Head Instructor at Urban Stable, indicating the need for a ‘Driver’ of the mini-van to transport students to and from their lessons at Urban Stable. For anyone who is interested, Chuck and President Doug have the details of this part time/paid position or one can contact Urban Stable directly.
2. Grant Eligibility: The club’s Annual Fund-SHARE contributions sits at $1,694.00 USD. ($1,750.00 required) or $2168.32 CDN. With a club membership of 35 on July 1st, 2021, we are short $1.60 USD ($2.05 CDN)/ capita. We must reach the minimum $50.00 USD by March 31, 2022. Grant applications have to be submitted by April 15th.
3. The 75 Day Challenge – raising funds for the Rotary International Foundation is still on. Active participants have covered over 10,000 km and raised $7,620 to date.
4. The next scheduled D5550 ‘Talk Show’ will take place March 3rd, 2022 starting @ 06:30 PM CDT. Guest speaker PDG Peter Schultz from Rotary District 5060 will speak on the topic of Effective Hybrid Meeting Technology starting at 7:00pm CDT. You must pre-register through the link sent out this past Friday by DG-Elect Fred Wright.
5. D5550 Conference (online)> will take place on May 5th 7:00pm to 9:40pm and May 12th 7:30pm to 9:40pm
6. D5550 AGM will take place online May 14th 9:00am to 1:00pm
7. Chase the Ace raffle:
   Series #2: Week# 12 (Feb 10th) Winner was Mur Sutherland ($26)
   Series #2: Week # 13 (Feb 17th) Winner was Nancy Morris ($18)
8. ‘Zoom Improvement moment courtesy of Lyle Miller:
   If during a Zoom meeting you wish to quickly respond to a question or make a comment and you are currently muted, just press and hold the ‘space bar’ on your keyboard. When you release the space bar you will be muted again.

PDG Nancy introduced Brooklyn Piasta, a 16 year old Grade 11 Sanford Collegiate student that our club had sponsored to attend the virtual version of RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Award) in the summer of 2021. At Sanford Collegiate, she is a member of the volleyball team, curling team, yearbook committee and president of the Student Council. She is also the president of the LaSalle 4-H Club.

Brooklyn indicated that she would be talking about the speech competitions that she has taken part in as well as her experience in the RYLA program.

As a member of her local 4H Club for the past 11 years, Brooklyn has taken part in its annual public speaking competition each year. Winners of the club level proceed to compete at the area level, whose winners compete at the provincial area. Last year, after winning her first speaking competition at the provincial level, she was nominated to enter the Canadian Young Speakers for Agriculture national competition, where she spoke on the effects of climate change on Canadian agriculture. Her presentation was awarded first place in the senior category of challengers aged 16-25. Rotary Club members were then treated to Brooklyn’s award winning virtual presentation which discussed the positive and negative aspects of climate change on agriculture and came to the conclusion that more extreme weather conditions producing floods, drought, fires, freezing temperatures and extreme heat waves result in more headaches (like destroying an entire crop or having a crop not fully develop) than opportunities to Canadian agriculture. According to Canada’s Changing Climate Report, the amount of precipitation in the winter months (i.e. snowfall) will be increasing everywhere in Canada in the 21st century (hence delaying seeding time in the spring) while the amount of precipitation in the summer months will be decreasing over southern Canada – although this did not preclude heavy rainfall for hours at a time which will stress many crops. Extremely hot temperatures in the summer months also stress crops by causing a decrease in photosynthesis, pollen viability and pollen production, which results in smaller grain number, grain yield and lower yield. These conditions will affect the types of crops that can be successfully grown in Canada and increase grocery costs. Research to develop crops that can thrive in hot weather & dry soil conditions and to develop new equipment for these new crops will increase the number of job opportunities. However, these opportunities are greatly overshadowed by the headaches caused by needing to adapt to climate change faced by the agriculture industry.

Discussion that followed included a comment that planting wildflowers in gardens produces a wonderful crop of blooms.

On the subject of RYLA, Brooklyn thanked the club for sponsoring her and informed us that it was an amazing experience even though it was an entirely virtual event. It started with a session using WOVA (World of Video & Audio) which is a resource for event technology services. During the month of August there were several 2 hour meetings throughout the course of two weeks which were filled with team bonding, keynote speakers and presentations from RYLA alumni. A writing workshop, presentations about pursuing your passion, and about opportunities through RYLA and Rotary. All the sessions were engaging. Her favourites in the program were the Friday team (themed?) nights where the teams got together and competed against each other in an online game – the first one was “Trivia Night”, the second was “Murder Mysteries” and the final night was a “RYLA Talent Show” where all participants got a chance to showcase their talents. These nights helped Brooklyn connect with her teammates and create life-long friendships.

She added that RYLA was the most engaging and fun virtual program that she has participated in within the past few years.

Two club members expressed their pleasure at learning how well the virtual RYLA program of 2021 had turned out. Glenn thanked Brooklyn for her presentation tonight and suggested that she might want to check out getting involved with the Virtual Model United Nations Assembly (MUNA) taking place April 28-29, 2022. Glenn also reminded us that Brooklyn’s older sister Haley participated in Rotary’s Adventures in Agriculture (pre-COVID, included a trip to Regina) and with MUNA and thanked the parents, Gene and Judy Piasta, for having given us their daughters to represent our club so well.

Sarge Mike welcomed tonight’s speaker, Brooklyn Piasta, and her parents Judy and Gene to the meeting, then asked for Happy Bucks.

Cathy had ordered herself a stressless recliner and she was delighted when it came a month before it had been expected.

Lloyd was very happy that his son had survived the “Battle of Billings Bridge” (located on Banks Street in Ottawa) where he participated in a counter-protest with about 150 other people, blocking off access to the bridge for the truckers coming in on February 21st.

PDG Nancy was pleased to discover, upon checking her calendar, that the first day of spring was one month away from today. She hoped it would mean the end of all the snow we’ve been getting.

Jagdish was pleased that the Canadian Men’s curling team won a Bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Chuck was glad that his 11 year old granddaughter “had a blast” playing volleyball with an under 13 team this weekend at the University of Manitoba, Her team finished second in the tournament.

PDG Ed was glad to have survived another tour around the sun.

Glenn also indicated that he had celebrated a birthday last week and made a donation to the club in his cheque. Asked if he wanted the members to sing for him, Glenn consulted with PDG Ed and it was a done deal. We all sang Happy Birthday to Ed and Glenn.

Sarge Mike had two fines tonight – one for himself (for failing to remember Brooklyn’s name) and one for President Doug (for making the Sarge go last for supper). PDG Ed offered to pay President Doug’s fine because he felt that President Doug had done a really good job!

Sarge Mike asked Brooklyn to draw the winning ticket for the 50-50 draw. She picked the number that was on her ticket! However, she did not draw the lucky blue marble from the bag of marbles.

ENDING NOTES

Dave mentioned that “we’re still looking for beer bottles and cans” to raise funds for Polio eradication.

PDG Nancy asked about empty containers with screw tops (like from Vitamins or aspirins) for the people at Agape Table Inc (an independent charitable program).

President Doug reported that Greg Fraser decided not to attend tonight’s meeting because he was in contact with COVID, which his wife had acquired while in hospital for three weeks (for another matter).

Iain indicated that Caroline had picked up three free COVID tests at the site of the former Hydro parking lot on Taylor Avenue. (820 Taylor Ave. Rapid antigen test pickup by appointment only. Call 1-855-268-4318 (toll-free) to make an appointment.)

Iain also reported that member Kristy’s husband Trevor, injured in a traffic accident while in the US, will eventually be transferred by air ambulance to the Health Science Centre to continue his treatment “when he is ready”.

Gene Piasta thanked the Charleswood Rotary Club for supporting his and Judy’s two daughters participation in Rotary programs in the last couple of years.

NEXT MEETING

The next club meeting will take place at Breezy Bend on Monday, February 28th. The Guest speaker will be Andre Sheppard and the topic will be Black History Month. Mr. Sheppard is a member of Black History Manitoba’s celebration committee. He retired from the Royal Canadian Navy after 36 years of service.

The next club Board Meeting will take place March 1st @ 4:30pm. An invitation will be sent out in the next couple of days. Agenda will be sent out on Saturday, Feb 26th. Please send any Agenda items before that date.