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President Elect Todd introduced our speakers, coming to us from the Rotary Club of Mississauga. Timothy Whitehead joined Winnepeg Rotary Club in 1979. He has been a club president twice and has chaired 5 District 7080 Conferences. Kathi Dick is known to a lot of us having been a member of Cambridge North and District Governor in 2017-2018. She is now chair of the Mississauga Rotary Peace and Environment committee. Kathi talked about Peace and Peace building. Rotary was behind the scenes with the formation of the United Nations after WW2. World Peace has been one of the seven goals of Rotary since 1917. Timothy spoke about how the health of the environment is closely linked to the peace process. Climatic catastrophe provokes migration of people and violence. War increases green house gases. Kathi said that Rotary created 8 Rotary Peace Centres in 1999. The first 'Peace Fellows' graduated in 2002. Both U of Waterloo and Laurier have peace study departments. Rotary has tools that we can use. We can take a course on the RI website. The District 7080 peace committee has a goal for all the clubs to participate . We can become a ' peacebuilder club' by doing one project / year. Timothy read a poem by Chief Tracy Laflamme. Tom Everett asked what Rotary was doing specifically about the War in the Ukraine. There is a specific disaster relief fund and the shelter box programme. What else? Our former UN Peacekeeper, Paul McMenemy, thanked Kathi and Timothy. So, bring a guest to Rotary. And if you are already a member, please come to a meeting. Don't be shy! See ya next week. |
