Charlene Gordon and Elaine Clark from L’Arche Stratford. The mission statement for L’Arche Stratford is to:
- Make known the gifts of people with intellectual disabilities, revealed through mutually transforming relationships
- Foster an environment in community that responds to the changing needs of our members whilst being faithful to the core values or their founding story
- Engage is diverse cultures working together toward a more human society
L’Arche Stratford purchased the former Montessori School at 426 Britannia Street in 2017. They offered 20,000 sf of space over three levels, when renovated, L’Arche Stratford will be able to provide 6 accessible suites for individuals with and without intellectual disabilities who will follow the L’Arche model of inclusive living. This location will provide them with badly needed activity and programming spaces for disabled individuals seeking to use passport dolars for training and social interaciton. The building will addressed L’Arche Stratford’s currently cramped administrative office needs. They will be able to lease office and meeting rooms to other not-for-profit groups - which will provide a service to them while creating an income stream to assist L’Arche Stratford’s sustainability.
They consider this project to be sustainable. They provided the following comments on sustainability:
- For the community by the community
- Increase re venue potential through rental suites
- Turning rents into capital
- New revenue opportunities through activity fees and welcoming people with intellectual disabilities through funded sources
- Business Model - working with experts in social enterprise
- Capital Campaign maximizes local and national networks
This is a $4.2 million campaign. They are currently in the quiet phase where they are building partnerships and doing a donor recognition program. They currently have someone in Vancouver who has agreed to math donations up to a total of $100,000. This is fantastic news. They are now looking to service clubs, including Stratford Rotaract to help financially support this project. Donations can be made as a one time donation, or they can be spread out over a period of 5 years if that is more realistic for our club. They are happy to have us come for a tour of the building should anyone be interested.
Club Question: Are there individual and group opportunities to volunteer with L’Arche.
Presenter Answer: If interested you can contact L’Arche for more information on what opportunities are available and how to start this process.
Trivia Committee Update:
This months trivia night was pushed back a week as Molly Blooms has a new owner and is undergoing renovations during our regular trivia night. We will be back to our regular night the following month.
Our February trivia night raised an amazing $550 that was directed to the Stratford Hospice and was the largest donation from a trivia night!
The trivia committee is in need of new members. We are mostly in need of people to be available to help out at the trivia night event. This includes helping with registration, collecting score sheets, and dividing up the money appropriately. The night has been made significantly easier with our new electronic scoring system. If interested, please contact the Trivia Committee.
JobSite Trivia Committee Update:
The committee will be connecting with Job Site Brewing in the next couple of weeks to discuss who the costs are going to. The committee anticipates to host the event on the typical first Wednesday club meeting of the month in place of a Rotaract meeting. We can use the front part of the venue as a social area and the back area for trivia night. We are looking at charging a higher ticket price but including a pint and/or a pizza bar and perhaps a swag bag. A tentative date of the first Wednesday in May has been set. Stay tuned on confirmed details coming soon.
Club Updates :
The “Serves you Right” volleyball tournament was held on Saturday, February 29th and was a success. Thank you to the volunteers that helped throughout the day. We raised $800.00 for the Matilda Street Beach Court improvements. The winning team “Beach Please” donated their winnings back to the club. We unfortunately had teams that had to cancel last minute because of the weather but it was a fun day for those who were able to make it out.
Venue Update:
We have continued to go back and forth between whether we switch venues or not. We have space tentatively booked at Zehrs. This will cost us $35 per meeting (this is a reduced cost as we are a service club).
Ideas brainstormed:
- Continue to have Wednesday meetings at JobSite because it is not as busy on Wednesdays. Jobsite has seen an increased in business on Thursdays due to promotions and the venue appears to provide decreased ability to hear a speaker and have club conversation.. We could then do complete service meetings on our scheduled Thursdays or alternatively host our meeting at Zehrs.
- Test out our new speaker system
Board Updates:
Rebecca to provide correspondence regarding board positions. We are looking at recruiting new members for our next fiscal year, starting July 1, 2020. Stay tuned for an e-mail from Rebecca. Reach out if you have any questions
Open Club Conversation:
L’Arche Presentation: As a club we discussed giving a donation to L’Arche. We wondered about doing a $10,000.00 donation over a pre-determined amount of time. This would get our name on one of the rooms in the building which is great recognition to the club. We could also look at negotiating using that as our meeting space if the space is of adequate size. The building is accessible and in a great location to host meetings. Nick is going to reach out to them to talk about whether or not it would be a good space for us to host meetings, if we would be able to host meetings there, etc.
Additionally, Rotaract will reach out to L'Arche for more information regarding volunteer opportunity as this would be a great partnership.
PETS: This is coming up April 3rd and 4th and will be taking place in Sarnia. Registration fees are free for Rotaracters and accommodations are being covered as well for people who need to head down on the Friday night. There is going to be a huge focus on Rotaract this year.
Dis-Con: This takes place on June 19-21st. A full agenda is available on the website - Rotaract specific break out sessions are to be all encompassing; they want us to get full benefit from them. They are going to be on networking and one other undecided topic. Accommodation on site is available. There is a social on the Friday night and a full agenda on Saturday. Registration fees are covered but accommodation fees are not.
As always, keep being great everyone and
