Hello Rotaractors!
While it may seem like Rotaract world has been a little quiet since our busy fall of fundraising, a lot of work has been happening in the background.
First, thank you to everyone who completed our member survey. The results have given us some great insight and there are lots of ideas floating through my head on ways we can improve. I'll touch on these briefly at Wednesday's meeting and the Board will be reviewing in more detail at our next meeting.
Secondly, our Christmas social is planned and we're excited to have an ugly Christmas sweater dinner on December 21st. A huge thank you to Sarah for hosting. This is a great opportunity to introduce others to Rotaract so please consider bringing a guest. It'll be a fun night of food, fun and festive attire. Please RSVP to me by Friday, December 15th so I can confirm numbers with the cater.
.png)
Third, our next meeting is this Wednesday. This will be our last meeting at the University, but no fear - we have a new location! Details will be announced at the meeting.
This meeting will act as our annual brain storm session where we evaluate what we've done in the past year and decide what to do differently next year. Sarah will be leading us through some exercises similar to last year and in preparation, I'd ask you give some thought to the following:
-What Rotaract events are you really passionate about and would like to see continue?
-What Rotaract events don't interest you?
-Outside of Rotaract, what events have you attended that were really fun?
-What events do you travel out of town for because they don't exist in Stratford?
-Do we want to do several small events or focus all our energy on a few big ones?
-How can we optimize fundraising at our events?
-Where would you like to volunteer? (what organizations and/or what type of activities)
Thanks everyone. Hope you can make it out on Wednesday.
Laurie
Stratford Rotaract Meeting
Thursday, November 16, 2017 @ 6:30pm
University of Waterloo, Stratford
Members in Attendance: Laurie, Kelly, Jonathan, April, Lauren, Katelyn
Guests: Michael (from St. Mike’s Interact Club), Dan Kane from Thurs afternoon Rotary Club
Regrets: Cate, Sarah
Agenda Item | Follow up: |
1. Welcome, Introductions & What Went Wells | |
2. Guest Speaker Dan Kane – Aqua Box Program -Aquabox gets fresh drinking water to people in natural disasters such as emergencies such as hurricane, earthquake, etc. It is a gravity ceramic water filter. -The box is a gravity fed system with 2 separate buckets. The one at top is for dirty water and contains a filter system. (No pump or electricity, so it takes about 5 hours for 1 bucket to go through…so it needs to be fed constantly). -The capacity of the system is that it will give a family of 5 fresh drinking water for a year. This will vary depending on the condition of the water going in. -The filters are cleanable and reusable. There is a measurement gauge that will determine when you reach the end of the life of the filter. -Goal is to be on the ground as quickly as possible. -Boxes are distributed via global medic (volunteers) out of Toronto. (They have a bigger purification system that they will bring in a few weeks later) -$50 for kit (roughly). The ceramic filters make up $30 of that cost. -Try to source everything as locally as possible. Buckets are out of Goderich, Filters are out of Richmond Hill; the builds are at the Stratford Festival scene shop. -50 or 60 volunteers can make 500 kits in under 2 hours. -Rotary has also started putting together hygiene kits (soap, toothpaste, tooth brushes) -When collapsed, the buckets all fit into a medium sized box (smaller than a recycle bin) -When shipped out, the goal is to have them as small and compact as possible because the biggest expense is actually transportation of the boxes. -The project started with a club in England in the early 1990’s. -Some Stratford Rotarians learned about it at an International conference and started in the mid 1990’s. -Now Stratford Rotary’s system is completely different -When the Earthquake hit Quebec, the Aquaboxes were on the ground within 72 hours -They have been stored her and they are sometimes stored in Toronto -$23000 - $25000 is needed to do the next build. Rotary would appreciate Rotaract’s support in getting the word out. -We discussed making a movie of someone drinking Avon river water that has been filtered through it. -Since 2006, Rotary has built almost 8000 boxes, providing over 30 million litres of drinking water -The kits cost $50 but any donation is helpful. Tax receipts are available -The next build will be in the spring | . |
3. Previous Minutes No amendments to previous meeting minutes | |
4. New Business & Idea Sharing 6.1 New Member Inductions (none) - | |
5. Announcements
| |
6. Next Meeting and Location Wednesday, December 6th at 6:30pm UW Campus | |
7. Meeting Adjourned PARKING LOT Tree planting –spring 2018. Start planning early in the new year |