Birthdays: Simon Adler, May 5^th

 

Wedding Anniversary: Jack Kinch and Trisha Crawley, May 6^th, 3 years; Ed and Donna Piwowarek, May 9^th, 58 years

 

Club Anniversary: Troy Stuebing, May 5, 7 years; Tom Jeary, May 6^th, 26 years

 

 

The local Volunteer Action Centre held its Volunteer Impact Awards event on Thursday evening and volunteers were recognized in several categories, including Special Event Volunteer.  Rotarian Karin Voisin was recognized for her leadership role with the “Spirit of Giving”.  Congratulations, Karin, on many years of service with this great program.

 

Members are reminded that we are all expected to have 60% attendance.  If you are not able to attend the regular weekly, you have several options for a “make-up”.  You can attend a meeting of another club, you can log in to our meeting using Skype, or if you have attended a committee meeting of club business you can just email Karin Voisin and ask for an attendance credit.

 

 

50/50 – Winner!  John Rose on the first marble.

 

 

 

Dave was elected as Mayor of Waterloo on October 27, 2014.  He represents the City on Regional Council as well as on a number of boards and committees.

 

Dave has lived in Waterloo Region since graduating from the University of Waterloo in 1988.  As a student he chose UW for its strong collaboration with the business community and its focus on co-op programs.  Later in his career, Dave supported that collaboration by contributing to the co-op partnership as an executive at Blackberry.

 

As Mayor, Dave looks forward to fostering prosperity and promoting our vibrant and caring community.  According to Mayor Dave, Waterloo is the best four-season small city in the world (he loves our four seasons!).  He promotes Waterloo as Canada’s education city, similar to other great cities/institutions such as Stanford (Stanford) and Boston (Harvard, MIT).

 

Waterloo rates 10^th of 219 other cities based on quality of life.  That puts us in the top 3 in Ontario, behind Burlington and Oakville (who both have a glorious waterfront).  Waterloo is also number three best cities for new Canadians.

 

Dave likens being Mayor to “everything you see out your window”.  The issues are broad and not always obvious.  But the City does a remarkable job.  In fact, residents pay the City only $115 annually to get a wide range of services.

 

Building upon the many assets in our community, such as Perimeter Institute, CIGI, the universities and college, along with our natural entrepreneurial spirit has helped to create a Vision for Waterloo as a creator of jobs.

 

Mayor Dave continues the tradition of previous Mayors in his support of UpTown Waterloo.  A further reconstruction project north of Erb Street is aimed at improving the streetscape and livability of UpTown.  Council knows the importance of jobs for the UpTown, and Waterloo has been active in economic development agencies to attract companies such as Bosch to Waterloo Region.  Communitech is returning to UpTown Waterloo with a new office.

 

The City, and Dave in particular, is strongly supporting the creation of the new Hospice Waterloo, which is going to be built on land opposite RIM Park.

 

Other initiatives include “putting the water back in Waterloo Park”, a 3-year, $7M program to dredge and improve Silver Lake.  Investment in adult recreation, which is expected to double as the baby-boomers retire.  Supporting multimodal transportation, and linking all of the city’s trail network.  Promoting the environment with programs such as the Environmental Excellence Award for Evolve 1, which is a building in north campus that will generate more energy than it uses.  Or the invention of local businessman, Bernie Melloul, who’s idea to create “poop tanks” is expected to divert 120,000 lbs of dog waste annually from the landfill.

 

Mayor Dave is enjoying his time leading the City, and is especially fond of the students who participate in the “Mayor for a Day” program.  They have so much fun together that it’s hard for them to part ways at the end of a long day!