Bulletin, August 23, 2018
Guests: D.M. Ravindran – Rotary Club in District 3202 India; Sean Thompson from Smiths Funeral Homes and a prospective new member; Dave Kendall, Guest of Jamie Edwards; Anel Neumann, our new exchange student from Estonia who just arrived two days ago.
Announcements: Joe Watson gave a report on Lakeside which, as everyone who was there knows, was extremely successful. He stated that he and Terry Sedore were on board to co-chair the event for another year but that they were looking for a couple of club members to step up and volunteer to be apprentices for future years.
Lawrence Leung reported on The Big Bike Ride fundraiser for the Heart & Stroke Foundation. He thanked Jamie Edwards for being the Captain of the event and that $2000 had been raised by their group of riders.
Lawrence formally thanked Jamie and Sherry for hosting the Bar B Q and organizing the food and beverages for the event. Bob Martin reported that we had more than broke even on the financing of the event and that he would supply a more detailed account later.
There is a breakfast at Next Door Social Space next Wednesday and volunteers are needed to help out.
On Oct 13th, a busy day is planned with breakfast at Next Door Social Space and at 12:30 -8:30 PM a “Mystery Tour” is being organized by Bryce Leggatt. Details are still a mystery to the scribe but the cost is $60 to participate.
A few weeks ago there was a presentation to the club by a gentleman from the Main Street Ministry who is running a clothing program for men and women. Catherine Brady is collecting clothes for this agency so bring any clothes to the next club meeting and she will get them to the Ministry.
D.M. Ravindran gave us a brief welcome from his home club in the south of India which is an old club with 160 projects on the go. They run a school for low income kids and do a lot of literacy training among other things. They got the “Best Club Award” in their District and possibly in all of India – I wasn’t clear which. He has a business exporting garments and he was in Ontario making sales.
Owen reported that he got an email from Abraham who went back to his island for a very short time but is now in Lima going to school where he is taking preliminary courses which will allow him to enter Engineering School. At the moment he is also an assistant to the English Teacher.
Sergeant at Arms: Mae Radford was back with us after her trip overseas and she quickly caught up on some fines. She visited Scotland on her trip and auctioned off two small bottles of Glenfiddich Scotch for $30 which was purchased by our visiting Rotarian from India. Jamie Edwards was named Rotarian of the Week for the many ways he has contributed to the Club’s success and to Rotary. Naturally his award was timed in keeping with his hosting of the Bar B Q.
Anel Neumann – Exchange Student: Anel gave us a rundown of the various languages she speaks beside excellent English – Estonian, Russian and German. She does have a slight British accent – maybe taught by a UK type or maybe her teacher was?? She is going to be able to quickly fit in at our Rotary Club.
Guest Speaker – Keith Williams: Keith was introduced by Joe Watson as they have worked together at PCL (Construction Company) together for a number of years.
Keith grew up in North Wales along the Sea and has always lived near water except for his time in Saudi Arabia. He has a sister who works for the EU and a brother who imports Pineapples into the UK and EU.
He was sent to boarding school in Liverpool as a youngster and graduated from University in Liverpool in 1979 as a Civil Engineer. He moved to Canada in 1990, living in the Beaches are of Toronto and in 1991 moved to Burlington – (Aldershot).
His work has always involved projects and he measures his life by which project he was working on at the time. His first job was in Newcastle, England where he worked in a coke works factory making briquettes used in Bar B Cuing using coal. He went on to work at a sewage treatment plant, 3M plant, steel works plant, shopping Centre and a Coast Guard Station. In 1982, he was transferred to Saudi Arabia for 2 years. Here he learned to fix his own problems. He was also 30 km from Mecca. He was quite interested in travel and it was in Saudi Arabia that he met his wife who was also interested in travel so they used their travel home time and allowances to travel to various places using Saudi Arabia as a base.
In May 1984 he was transferred back to the UK – Birmingham where he was married and remained for 5 years. He came to Canada for a month in 1988 and applied for a job which he was offered but didn’t materialize until he returned and confronted the chap who made him the offer. He was able to get the formal offer but basically told the fellow to stick it as he couldn’t work for someone whose word couldn’t be trusted. He was able to get another offer and immigrated to Canada in 1990. He worked in estimating which he calls banishment in terms of job interest and later in Preconstruction. Some of us met his son Callum at Lakeside.
Keith was thanked by Catherine Brady for sharing his life journey with those present.