With the Land Acknowledgement Statement and the singing of O Canada taken care of, Acting President Glenn moved into the next task – Rotary Moments.

ROTARY MOMENTS

May is Youth Service Month in Rotary. Throughout the month of May, members of Rotary clubs, Rotaract, Interact, and those involved in Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) and Rotary Youth Exchange celebrate the opportunities that Rotary provides to connect, grow through service, develop leadership skills, mentor or be mentored, and have fun. Our club can be proud of its youth projects including our scholarships, sponsorship of students attending programs in the District and beyond, and our support of Westgrove School, Urban Stable and more. Let us use this month to celebrate youth programs and to reflect on what more we can do to enhance youth opportunities in our Club and District.

Lobsterfest - Cathy is in charge of selling the paper Lobsterfest tickets (Glenn is in charge of online sales). This year’s Lobsterfest (taking place Friday, June 17th) will be a repeat of the curb-side pickup at Varsity View Community Club as was done last year. Each member picking up tickets to sell will get a sheet of paper on which to record the ticket number and its purchaser. There will be a sheet for lobster tickets (pink, $60 each) and another sheet for chicken tickets (yellow, $50 each). There will be no door prizes this year and the last date to submit ticket orders (with the cash) is June 7th.

Ukraine project - Mandy reported that Dima and his family have submitted their applications and are anxiously looking forward to come to Canada. Ukraine t-shirt sales at the Bridge of Hope Ukraine event sold all the black t-shirts, but few of the white ones, of which there are around 40 left. Mandy asked for a volunteer to sell the remaining t-shirts (possibly online). Ed Toews offered to help with this and Glenn agreed to take on the on-line aspects of the t-shirt sales.

Assiniboine Forest – Jack reported on the new sign that was to be set up at the entrance to the Forest. At the request of a Winnipeg City councillor, a change had to be made to move the Charleswood Rotary Club name to a separate panel on the (about 60 square foot) sign. This will require a change in the price from the sign company. The sign should likely be up by this fall. Jack also got the paperwork from Trails Manitoba regarding an application for a grant where they will match up to $50,000 for trail improvements.

Acting President Glenn reported that about 30 Girl Guides came to the forest clean-up on Wednesday, April 27th. To begin with, Jack provided them with the history of the forest and history of the Charleswood Rotary Club as stewards of the forest. Cam from the City of Winnipeg talked to them about the natural aspects of the forest.

Chase the Ace: PDG Nancy was the winner again of the weekly draw of the lottery - $32 this time. It was the Ace of Diamonds, which means that the Ace of Spades is still there! Glenn reported that with all her winnings, Nancy plans a trip to Portage la Prairie!

Roberta was trained as a journalist and she applied those skill for more than 20 years at the University of Manitoba, at CancerCare Manitoba and currently at Transplant Manitoba – Gift of Life, where she is a Communications Specialist. She works with one of five teams that deal with persons waiting for a life-saving transplant and, comforting those who have given a transplant.

One can donate a kidney, a portion of one’s liver and the lower part of a lung. In Manitoba, the only transplant that can take place is that of a kidney. If other transplants are needed (heart, lung or liver), these are done in a different province. Transplants were initially undertaken in the 1930s and rejections were a concern. In the 1960s transplant rejections were overcome to the point that 80-95% of the transplant recipients are doing well one year after the transplant.

Although many individuals have signed an organ donor card, it is important to register this information online (at SIGNUPFORLIFE.CA) and to have this conversation with family members because they are consulted before the organ - or organs - are removed. In Canada, organ transplants are a GIFT from the donor but 54% of the family members say “no” because they never had that discussion with the donor and do not feel they can make that decision on behalf of the donor. The donor registry has been online since 2012 and by 2015 there were already 10,000 registrants. Current registrant number is just over 60,000.

It’s not the age but the health of the donor that determines whether a donation is acceptable. Typically, acceptable donations come from a person that has had a catastrophic injury (like brain death) and is no longer able to breathe on their own (i.e. people on life-support systems).

Currently there are about 4000 Canadians waiting for a transplant – typically 250 of them will die before the organ needed becomes available. One donor can save up to 8 lives and enhance the lives of another 75 through tissue donations.

Where the conditions are right for a donation and the family says “Yes” to the organ or tissue donation, an incredible process begins – a hundred phone calls, a lot of testing, and matching of blood and tissue types, donor and acceptor size (no adult to child transfers) – a process that can take up to 48 hours or more.

Because Winnipeg is centrally located, teams can be coming from east to west for the donated organs and/or tissues. A recent procedure has included a moment of silence before the surgery to retrieve the donated items starts, in order to recognize and honour the donor.

The National Donor program matches mixed-match pairs where if you have a donor that is not a match for you, they run an algorithm that they run for three months for those pairs, then make a match. So if there’s a match in Newfoundland, for example, the donor goes to Newfoundland, the other donor comes to Manitoba and each recipient gets the kidney that they need but not from the person they were expecting to get it from. The program has logged over a thousand matches so far.

The oldest organ donor in Canada was 92 – that was for a liver donation.

All religions have worked around the “It’s against my religion” idea as a reason for not making or accepting an organ donation.

Things we learned from the Q& A that followed the presentation:

• While there are countries that have the “opt out” model of donor registration, in Canada, only Nova Scotia has the opt-out model. In the rest of the country, donors have to “opt-in” to the donor registry. In either system, family consent is still required.
• After a young Bronco’s hockey player killed in the bus-truck incident had been identified as an organ donor, over 150,000 Canadians registered as organ donors (over 7000 people in Manitoba registered in April 2018).
• The match-up between-family members is not necessarily more common.
• While matching an organ age to recipient age may take place, it is up to the recipient to decide on whether or not to accept the donated organ. The organ needs to be healthy enough to be offered as a donation in the first place.
• “Matching” includes blood typing and tissue typing.

Acting President Glenn thanked Roberta for her presentation, which he said had two “take-aways” – register online for making organ donations and talk to your family members about your decision to make the organ donations.

Sarge Mike welcomed our guest, Roberta Koscielny, Communications Specialist with Transplant Manitoba – Gift of Life. Then he asked for Happy Bucks.

Happy Bucks

Lloyd recently got a picture of a road full of potholes from a Facebook friend who referred to it as the new street golf course. She also referred to the potholes as having “calming” purposes.

Jagdish was “happy to be here in one piece”

Nancy had a happy buck for a Charleswood Safeway cashier who has been ill with polycystic kidney disorder for a while and recently, as a result of getting a new kidney, she looks “totally different” and “It’s a miracle!”

Ed Toews was happy with all the employment he got – working till midnight three days in a row - replacing the wet drywall in his home as a result of the damage done to it by the recent rains.

John just got a rural call on his cell phone from someone selling building products and although he was sure that if he wasn’t interested, he could have given the caller Dave’s phone number.

Chuck was delighted to actually see the grass on Breezy Bend’s golf course. It means summer is coming!

Birthdays and Anniversaries

Dave recently had a birthday on April 27th and he donated $5 to hear the club members sing “Happy Birthday to You”. He also donated $80 to the Ukrainian Relief fund - one dollar for each of his 80 years.

Nancy and Dave celebrated their 53rd wedding Anniversary on Dave’s birthday as well, but Nancy did not ask to hear the club members sing “Happy Anniversary to You”.

Fines

Sarge Mike fined Wendy and Nancy Hansen for chatting online while Roberta was making her presentation.

50-50 Draw

Sarge Mike asked Roberta to draw the ticket with the number that would provide the owner of that ticket the chance to draw the lucky blue marble and win the 50-50 Draw. When Mike announced the number of the ticket that Roberta had drawn, it turned out to be the number of HER ticket. She was aghast, but was persuaded to draw one marble from the bag. Alas, the marble in her hand was not the lucky blue marble. Roberta appeared to be relieved.