Agenda Item

Follow Up

1. Welcome & Introductions
 

Rebecca

2. Guest Speaker

• Children’s Health - Cheque Presentation

• Rotaract club of Stratford presented a cheque of $2,766.76 to Emily from Children’s Health Foundation.

• Diane Chantler – Book Drive Presentation

• The Global Literacy Project started with a retired teacher, Helen’s idea of collecting school supplies that were being thrown out, packing them up and sending them to schools in need overseas with the help of the Rotary club. The containers get packaged in Exeter, London, and Cambridge and then are sent over to Africa. Once they arrive, a rotary club there sorts the containers and divides them out to locations in need. They believe over 315 schools have received the benefit of these containers being shipped over. All of these containers would not have been sent without one person, Helen’s, idea.

• In May 2019 Diane and her husband Bill travelled to Africa with other Rotarians.

• One of the stops was at an orphanage with 248 children. These children were there because their parents had given them away or because they were HIV positive. This orphanage only received funding for 50 children. Diane shared pictures of the living spaces and common areas. The water in this community had been turned off while Diane and Bill were there. They met families that had to walk 5km in 40-degree weather to get clean water for themselves and their families. Diane explained that despite their living conditions, every child she met was happy.

• Diane talked about visiting the schools. The shelves in the schools were bare. These are the shelves that we will be filling through the book drive.

• She showed pictures of a middle school and shared that the average class size is over 90 children. This middle school has 680 children. They all wear uniforms that are provided to them. The school kitchen is an outdoor cemented area where they cook lunch for 680 children in a large pot over top of a fire.

• To do homework, the students used mandala desks which is a hard surface that the children can place on their laps to write on.

• Diane and Bill visited Cape Town where there were 1.5 million refugees living in the refugee camps. The living conditions were poor. These families live in shacks here with no sanitation system, only dirt, and very little electricity. There are no schools here.

Rebecca

3. Adoption of Agenda
          

Rebecca

3. Previous Minutes

• None

Rebecca

4. Standing Items

• 4.1 Club Kudos

• Kudos was given to April for running the book drive

• Kudos was given to Laurie and Kelly for training Rebecca and Nick during the board transition period

• Kudos was given to Rebecca for running the meeting

• 4.2 Book Drive

• Plan is to load them on April 25th at MTE at 7:00pm. We will need computer paper boxes or boxes with flaps. Please write “books” on the box

• 4.3 Social Media Committee

• Still looking for social media committee members

• 4.3 Club Direction

Rebecca

5. Business Arising

• 5.1 Club Direction

• Looking for ideas on how to grow our club and what direction to take our club. All suggestions can be sent to Nick.

• 5.2 Board Update

• New board members will be announced after our next meeting. We may be looking at growing the board by adding one extra position.

• 5.3 Review time and location of club meeting

• Meeting Times: We like the 7:00 time but when we have to start at 6:30 people have more conflicts.

• Meeting Space: Currently, our home space is MTE but when the warmer weather comes, we are looking at going to the golf course. We are also looking at switching spaces every few months. Sarah proposed we look at using schools as a meeting space. Sarah wondered about the first meeting of the month being our “home base (library)” and then the second meeting of the month being our “floating” location.

• 5.4 Club member
   

Rebecca

6. New Business & Idea Sharing

• 6.1 New Member Inductions

• No new member inductions

• 6.2 Upcoming Rotary Events

• Saturday, May 11th – The Aqua Box build will be taking place from 9:00-11:00 at the Festival Scene Shop on Duro street. When you drive there you have to park at the side and entre through the side entrance. Rebecca will follow up with whoever is organizing that event so she can get clear direction on that. It is a great event because there are always so many people there working really hard.

• June 1st – The Rotaract club of Goderich is running an event to raise money for One Care.

• June 2nd – Stratford Rotary club is hosting a “Hike for Hospice” event

• July 13th – the Rotary Club of Walkerton is hosting a garage tour. It will include a private collection of various cars and a pub and smoked pork chop dinner. Rebecca will follow up with them to get more details.

• Stratford Summer Music Festival is fast approaching. We have yet again been approached by the festival to speak at our meeting, details will be provided at a later date.

7. Next Meeting and Location

May 1st 2019 @ 6:30 – MTE

8. Meeting Adjourned
 

9. Parking Lot

- Clubrunner tutorial (for all three?) 

- Update Website

- Why I joined Rotaract?

- Rotary Field trips?

- Christopher Leadership Course (Sarah)