Bulletin for October 11th, 2018

Gossip Columnist at work here.

Do you remember how daily newspapers used to have a society gossip columnist?  Judith Tenenbaum, for one, I remember her from some decades ago.  Judith could spend an afternoon in the company of a group of more or less unknown people gathered to review the entries in a design competition for a goblet to celebrate the opening of a subway station, just as an example, and make it sound as though she was at a Winter Olympics Gala.  Well if she could do that, I figure I can make the today’s meeting of the Rotary Club of Burlington Central sound pretty darn good. Let’s see how it goes

 

Perhaps – certainly not a proven fact, there’s an inverse relationship between attendance and

meeting quality.  Today attendance was low (again - only 28) but the meeting was one of the best in a long while.  From the stellar lead of the anthem by Bob Martin, the origami squirrel placed on each table by Mara and even the anointment of Eric Anderson as Rotarian of the Week, it was all good, worth getting up early for.

 

Our guests were Stephanie Christensen from Shelterbox (our guest speaker and more about her later); Farine Samji just visiting from RCBN, Mana Sawamori (lots more about her later); Marni Alexander guest of Jamie Edwards and Sean Thomson also a guest of Jamie Edwards.

 

President Lawrence, always one to break new technological ground, an early adopter you might say, presented his routine ‘Here’s-what’s-going-on” announcements using the wonders of Powerpoint.  It should be easier for the scribe to catch them displayed thus, but somehow no. Still, I caught that October 21^st is World Polio day and that on October 31^st we’re helping out at Social Space again. Let’s hope more information will follow through more reliable channels.

And Oh yes. Instead of a regular club meeting on November 8^th, there will be a 4-club Remembrance day meeting at the Navy Club on Industrial Street. More info to come – but mark your calendar, No Meeting on Nov’ 8.

 

As a general statement I’d say there’s nothing all that funny about Joe Watson’s shoes. But leave them in a car, for a couple of days, sun-warmed and they’re sure to attract attention, or attract something anyway.  Left in their car was what happened to Rod and Arlene Collard. Unsaid was how Joe’s shoes got there, under the driver’s seat.  That’s a Collard Household secret, but it was worth some money, J. Watson to Sergeant at Arms.  It was one of those stories that just worked; all in the timing I suppose. I watched our guests creased with laughter too and knew we were on the right track this morning.

 

Then Mana. I’ve met a few Japanese exchange students over the years and they seem to fall into two general categories, either painfully shy or unshakeably confident. Mana is one of the latter. Despite her butterfly-like demeanour she takes the podium without hesitation and tells us just a few things we should know about her from the week past.

 

 

This week she confided that she really enjoyed Thanksgiving but she’d never seen a turkey as big as the one on the Thanksgiving table. Small wonder, those things are not far off the size of a small Nissan. She also shared her three-part goal for this year away from home: Make 100 friends, read 10 books and visit 25 Rotary Clubs.

 

I had the pleasure of driving her to school and can share a few more conversational insights: At Central High she is, understandably, in English as a Second Language and while the other students are nice enough, she is not finding Canadian friends. But she’s not complaining, in fact she is so very happy that she doesn’t want to go home next summer.  We talked about the winter ahead and she is apprehensive about clothing.  What kind of clothes will I need?  She came here with the idea (from goodness knows where) that our climate is, you know, on the benign side. Consequently, she doesn’t have warm clothing suitable for anything winter might throw our way. More to the point she’s afraid of the cost of buying adequate clothing. Well I seem to recall that’s her natural parents’ responsibility, but I wonder whether they fully understand it.

Mana likes everything here. When pressed for what in particular, she finds that everybody is very kind and everything is so very big; in Japan it’s so small. That observation came as we were making our way along Northshore Blvd.

 

 

Well then it was Nancy Penney introducing Stephanie Christensen from Shelterbox. I remember reading about Shelterbox in its early days , about how it was a project of a small Rotary Club in Cornwall, England. It was of course a great idea: accumulate and package supplies such as might be needed in the days immediately following a natural disaster.  Accumulate them in the good days ready to go in the bad, each package the same: tent, bedding, water purifier, stove, that sort of thing.

It was such a good idea that it quickly outgrew that small Rotary Club. Shelterbox is now a self-sufficient international aid agency active around the world wherever disaster or war displaces families.

You can find almost everything about Shelterbox on line, all the who-we-are, what-we-do stuff.

Stephanie made it more real in a way. Last year she said 19.5 Million(!!) people lost their homes to natural disasters and 59.5 million lost their homes to conflict. Combined, nearly 80,000,000, a bit more than twice the population of Canada. How can you possibly keep up?

I always pictured a Shelterbox tent as rather like a 4-man family tent such as you’d see in the more comfortable zones of Algonquin Park. But the reality is that they have four models, all built to last and provide a decent level of comfort for a long time:  The standard tent is UV-protected and because of its dome construction it can withstand extreme temperatures, high winds (up to 100 kmh) and heavy rainfall.

For cold areas the Flex 3 Tent includes heavy inner insulation, extra ground sheets and a chimney to accommodate an in-tent stove for winter use. It can withstand extreme temperatures, up to -30 degrees.

And then for the world’s hot places The OASE tent is a fully geodesic family tent with great ventilation, high stability and has the ability for two fully closed bedrooms for privacy.

The inner lining comes already attached in this tent and the large front porch provides ample shade to protect families from the beating sun.

Stephanie recounted her own experience helping out in Fiji after a Category 5 cyclone flattened a village (Categories are the same as for hurricanes, so a brute). The village was used to the ground being wet every day at high tide but a mom told her that during the cyclone everyone was huddled in the community centre hearing trees falling all around, then the storm surge followed and they all stood for hours up to their armpits in water, holding their babies overhead. After the storm they all lived in the community centre for a week until Shelterbox arrived and provided what they needed to get re-started.

At the scene of a major disaster the UN takes a lead role and allocates various aid agencies to clusters such as shelter, education, health, and food. Each day a plan of attack is drawn and Shelterbox, in this case, goes to work knowing what its housing goals and objectives are in the context of the overall rescue plan.

 

Well, I took three pages of notes at the meeting. That usually means a marathon of self-taught three-finger typing lies ahead. And it was just that, but it was such a meeting that I gladly offer the forgoing for your enjoyment.

 

And finally if it should rain or for some other reason you have time on your hands, here, from Ontario Public School arithmetic published in 1910, is what we used to call ‘A Problem” – to be solved without benefit of any electronic aid.  (Addition, subtraction, multiplication, long division etc.)

 

FYI, I spent at least 30 minutes to get the first answer, but was then completely stumped..

 

P. Scribe.