A lot happened at today’s meeting – have lots of notes – going to abbreviate to keep this a reasonable length.
GUESTS Fareem Sanji, visiting Rotarian from Burlington North; Ron Faubert, visiting Rotarian from Burlington North; Larry Armatage, visiting Rotarian from Burlington; Abraham, our exchange student from Peru.
Fareem Sanji gave a fast,rapid-fire, energetic promotion for the upcoming Python’s Pit Series sponsored by the 4 Burlington Rotary Clubs. Pythons Pit is a smaller version of CBC’s Dragon’s Den and features high school students pitching their proposals for a business investment in their small business venture. It is meant to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. Each episode is 15 minutes long and is featured on U-Tube. Fareem was asking for Rotarians to step up as advisors, mentors, leadership and sponsors.
Larry Armatage was on hand to promote an upcoming concert on Nov 26th at 2 PM featuring the “Harbourtown Sound” at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre in support of Polio-Plus. Tickets are $50 pp. This is a Christmas Concert set up as a multi fundraiser among all the participating Rotary Clubs. Of the $50 cost, half will go to the club whose member sells the ticket plus the club will get a percentage of the sponsorship funds. The goal is to raise $42,000 from the concert which will be matched by the Gov’t of Canada and that total further matched by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation towards a total of perhaps $150,000 towards Polio-Plus. The Aristocrats will also be performing at this event. Larry was looking for at least 5 Elite Sponsors at $5000 plus club members to go out and sell, sell, tickets. Glenn Warnica is our club’s rep to obtain tickets from. Joe Watson started off the ticket sales with a challenge to donate a $300 bottle of wine if anyone sells more tickets to this event than he does. He announced that he was taking Abraham and Sheila Welham as his guests.
Abraham gave his report in great English. He attended the District Conference which he enjoyed but “some words, I did not understand”. He also went to “Mr. Karmel’s place” where he met his family. He also went to a horse farm, a gym, and to the beach at Lake Ontario where the water was “very cold”.
Rod Collard was our Sergeant today and he centered out Jamie, Ron and Glenn for their impersonative abilities. Richard Pass acknowledged the club members who helped out at the John Sauvage Leadership Camp a couple of weeks ago where 30 young people attended.
Director’s Reports
Janet Canavan introduced the Club Directors and they gave their reports as follows;
Alan Ramsay – Director of Club Administration. Alan thanked Scribes and members responsible for the speakers. He asked for thoughts and ideas on how to refresh the Christmas Party.
Rod Collard – Director of Fundraising/Development. Rod acknowledged the many sponsors but I will only name 2 who donated the most in terms of money – Dave Beckett and Bernie Hanna. Others donated money, time and supported the club in other ways. On fundraising, Partnership Golf made $55K; Lakeside made $54K; Poinsettias Sales made $9.6K; Beer Festival made $400; Memorial Tree Planting made 0.9K.
Barb Hislop – Director of Communications. On committees, there are 2; one at the District level and one involving the 4 clubs where the focus has gone away from print media or other advertising to social media and a Face book page has been developed. Support is given to the Membership Committee where again social media is used to promote new members. Jim Brindle is our resource on our website. In a survey, it was found that 1/3 of our membership use our web site a lot, 1/3 use it maybe once a year and 1/3 not at all - hmmmm.
Karmel Sakran – Director of Youth Services. Karmel made a request for host families and asked members to share their time with Abraham including their religion, work experience, sports or hobbies, etc. Karmel is responsible for Camp Enterprise, John Sauvage leadership Camp, Rotaract and RYLA.
Owen McElhinney – Director of International Service. In the past, the Club has made direct donations in support of the earthquake in Nepal and aid to the people of Uganda. More recently, most of the effort has been directed towards the Milton, Oakville Burlington Rotary Cluster where work has been directed towards Global projects in Bangladesh and Guatemala. At present, our interest is towards assisting people in the Dominican Republic where we can continue the work that Cam Rothwell started there. On October 12 is a meeting at Owen’s home to vote on Global Projects where we can identify projects such as the one in the DR. The club donates $5000 to Global Projects annually.
Sheila Welham – Director of Community Service. Sheila is responsible for the following programs: Breakfast, Telling Tales/literacy, Donations, Breakfast at the Bistro, Music Festival, Community Service 4-Club Event, Continuing Education Bursary, Syrian Refugee Committee, Community Restaurant Socials, First Nations Initiative and Highway Clean Up. Sheila is looking for new ideas for our community to continue support of the Community.
Sheila Welham – RI Convention, June 23 – 27, 2018. Sheila is our rep on the 7080 Committee. She is also involved in the Pre –Convention of Rotaract and Youth Exchange Programs on June 22-23. Also, she is responsible for the Home Hospitality segment on Monday June 25th which is part of the Convention. Rotarians from all over the world can register to attend small group or large group hospitality venues around Toronto, including the Burlington area and beyond. Sheila is looking for volunteers to help with all facets of the RI Convention. You can sign up at rotary2018.org/volunteer.
As time was running out President Janet Canavan announced that Lesley Allison would report on Membership next week and that Janet herself would give a District Report.