Announcements

 

1) Congratulations on our club's Charter Week.

2) Mac read a note from member Cathy Brothers regarding her appreciation for how our club members reached out to her after the death of her husband John. 

3) ) Bottle Drive for Rotaract--drop your bottles off to 170 Uplands Drive by March 31

4) David Johnston fundraising event dinner is March 31.  Tickets still on sale.

5) Mac reminded the club of a fundraising Trivia Night coming up Friday, April 25.  

6) The Lease -a- flag promotion may come out of hibernation earlier this year as the tariff war rages 

 

There were no visitors to recognize at this meeting.

 

 

 

The 50-50 pot was $463.50. 

 

In a room full of winners, no one won. Judy Nairn, Todd Aitchison and Everton Wilmot all tried and were left out of the winner's circle.

 

 

 

Our Guest Speaker was Todd Aitchison, our club president in 2013-2014.

 

Todd took us on a journey back in time. Todd provided a great presentation on his eventful and successful year as President.

 

Here is a transcript of Todd's presentation  :

 

• Inducted as President on June 19th, 2013 at President’s Night at Rebel Creek, taking over from Marc Engels year.

 

• At time of induction, I was 36 and had been in the club just shy of 10 years as I was the youngest club member at the time joining at the age of 26.  Gord Ross, who just passed away, opposed me joining saying I was only joining because my Dad was in the club.  I ran into him the summer of 2013 at a Men’s Club BBQ and he asked if I was still in Rotary and I said in fact I was PRESIDENT! 

 

• I served on the board for the first time in 2007-08, got married in 2009 and 8 months before becoming President, became a 1st time father to our oldest daughter Tanner in Oct of 2012

 

• In fact, the Saturday after being sworn in as President, Jen and I and 8-month-old Tanner headed to Lisbon Portugal for the International Convention.  We made a vacation of it doing 4 days in Lisbon and day trip to Sintra and then spent 9 days in Spain, touring Madrid, Barcelona, etc. it was an amazing opportunity for a young family to be able to experience.

 

• Past President Tony Giovinazzo was the one who asked me in 2010 if I’d be willing to become Vice President, then Pres-Elect and then of course President for 2013-2014, I wasn’t sure I could do it, I thought, am I old enough, experienced enough but after talking with my wife Jen and Dad & Mom, I knew I had to say yes.  I surrounded myself with a great Board and help from Past Presidents and started the journey!

 

• My new Board consisted of the following:

  • Pres-Elect John Thompson

  • VP Tim Bradich

  • Troy Stuebing

  • Ed Simon

  • Mark Erb

  • Alison Scott…and

  • Natascha Hranka

  • Co-Treasurers Jerome Freiburger and Judy Nairn (who was a new member in 2012)

  • Board Secretary John Villemaire

  • AND Club Secretary Karin Voisin

 

• At the time I took over, our club was extremely healthy compared to many of the local clubs.  We had 64 Active member and 13 Honourary

• 31% of members were between the ages of 35-49

• 32% were between the ages of 50-64 and

• 8% of the club was even under the age of 35

 

• My goal was to focus on growing the under 35 age group because it was my opinion if you grow WITH Rotary as you mature, Rotary will continue to be part of your life, your social circle as well as that of your spouse.

• 35% of our club members in 2013 had been members for 1-5 years, 29% had been in the club for 10-20 years and only 15% had been in the club 5-10 years which to me reflected the retention gap that clubs worldwide were facing at the time.

 

• The Theme of my Rotary year (as you can see from the Banner) was ENGAGE ROTARY – CHANGE LIVES 

 

• I wanted our club to become MORE ENGAGED and MORE HANDS ON AGAIN as we had been in the past

 

• Ironically, at that time I noted that our donation budget wasn’t what it used to be due to fundraising becoming tougher so that meant we could volunteer our time (not our money) to our community and get out and represent Rotary in our community

 

• The 2nd focus of my year was CHILDREN, having just become a new father.  Finally, my 3rd focus was to leave our club in an even better position that what I inherited, which was the best club in the Region…and here’s how the year unfolded after that!

 

• We grew the club from 64 Active/13 honourary to 67 Active/11 honourary with 3 more new members to be inducted in the weeks after I left office for a total of 70 ACTIVE members.

 

• Much of credit for this was to John Thompson who kept his directorship of Membership focused al growth all year

 

• Troy took on the Club Admin Directorship which involves the heavy job of Club Program but along with Andrew Williams and their committee, they provided OUTSTANDING variety of speakers and I asked Troy (as he noted a few weeks ago) to becoming Vice President

 

• Ed Simon did a terrific Job with the very rewarding Directorship of Donations & PR.  He and his committee selected a plethora of worthwhile recipients all while ensuring the club got good PR and acknowledgement out of each donation.  We need to make sure people know the good we do so they’ll want to donate and be part of our club

 

• Some of the stats from our Foundation at year end June 2014 were…

 

• Alison Scott spearheaded the International & Foundation Directorship and got every matching grant she could to make the most out of their budget.  During the year Alison battled breast cancer and in the final month of the rotary year stepped back due to her illness but she was an inspiration to us all and how happy and lucky are we that 12 years later she’s still healthy and happy.

 

• Natascha Hranka, who’s no longer a member, took on the newest directorship of New Fundraising Initiatives and ran with it.  She and her committee came up with the Giant Garage Sale hosted at KidsAbility to raise awareness for them. That first Saturday morning raised $3,500.

 

• Judy & Jerome transitioned us away from HSBC to BMO, and now I believe we’re leaving BMO as they’ve become difficult to work with! Haha

 

• Some of the highlights of the year were hearing David Chilton speak to us in September at the Home Hardware Fall Market.

 

• In October 2013 Hounourary Member Tom Jeary gave us a presentation on the book he created and wrote “The Chipmunk Fall Fair” photographing Chester the Chipmunk in his backyard in all sorts of fun poses.  That book to date as of June 2014 had raised $10,000 for KidsAbility from the $26,000 of sales.  My kids loved that book.

 

• Also, in October we hosted the 30th Edition of our Oktoberfest Opening Luncheon where we presented long time ambassador Walter Ostanek an honourary Paul Harris Fellowship.  In Honour of Dave & Susan Decker, who had organized that luncheon forever up until Dave’s illness, we surprised them with an impromptu donation request up and down the aisles of the luncheon and on the spot raised $2,500 for ALS and the club matched it to provide $5,000 in Dave & Susan’s name to ALS for their years of commitment to the luncheon.  For those who don’t know why we chose ALS, their Son-in-law battled it and eventually passed away from it.

 

• Our international committee organized a group to head to Guyana and we heard from those that went.  Jack Kinch, Kathy Loveys, Alison Scott etc.

 

• Heading into the 2014 year, the program committee had Sheila Whelan from NASA talking about Space Medicine.  She made us all feel like kids again wanting to be astronauts and we asked questions until well after 1:30pm

 

• Jason Gilham told us about the Salvage of the Costa Concordia ship wreck using his companies Laser Technology.

 

• We had a VERY funny presentation by the 1st female captain of the Great Lakes, telling us about her experiences of being the 1st female in a very male dominated position.

 

• We learned more that we thought we needed to know about BOVINE SEMEN. That was one of the few weeks I missed running the meeting, but heard it was very entertaining! Troy is still trying to figure out how you milk a bull!

 

• In February of 2014 we toured Lutherwoods facility out on Benjamin Road, now called Starling Community Services to see where our donation went to replace the flooring in their residences.  That allowed their funds to be put toward their program for the very important work they do for kids with mental health issues.

 

• One week we had the KW Roller Derby girls tell us about their league and Tony Giovinazzo was going on and on about Skinny Minnie or someone.

 

• We had a young Rubik Cube Prodigy astound us with his puzzle solving skills blind folded among other ways!

 

• In May 2014 we had an extremely successful and emotional night at the Edelweiss honouring Anne Boehm of Children’s Wish, and bringing awareness to the Children’s Wish Foundation.  That evening’s proceeds netted $14,500 and brought great publicity to our club in the media.

 

• May also saw the Vacation Fantasy Lottery fundraiser succeed, selling more tickets than in past years…AND…that brought us back to June 2014 the end.

 

When you go through all those moments you realize how much we jammed into 52 weeks and remember all the fun we had doing it.  

 

• We also had our share of sad news to share this year, with the illnesses of Dave Decker, Mark Hicks, Bob Neibert, Bill Stevens and Alison Scott but their challenges also showed just how close a club we were as we rallied around and supported them throughout their struggles. 
   

• We awarded Kathy Loveys the Rotarian of the Year at Presidents night for all she had done for the club

In June 2013 you’ll recall I urged us to get more engaged and get involved with more hands-on projects.