Another sparse crowd as only a couple of the river cruisers were back with us even though the plane came in the day before. The meeting opened with the usual except that the 4 way test was given by Lawrence Leung and answered by Mae Radford who had just returned from the cruise. She gave her answers relating to the cruise experience.
Guests
Natasha Davies – visiting Rotarian from Burlington North
Alex Kobiloff – Guest Speaker
Matty Kasinger – guest of Kathy Thomas
Announcements
Our new exchange student, Augustina coming from Argentina – that rhymes, will be arriving on the 15th of this month.
A goodbye for Dan Kalmats is being held on October 16th.
Volunteers are needed for the breakfast program. Contact Jim Brindle if you can help out.
The controversy about the ribfest and Rotary’s exclusion of ribbers who get involved in the private enterprise ribfest was briefly discussed and it was suggested that we say that we aren’t involved and we should talk about the good things Rotary does.
If anyone is interested in getting involved in the Leadership Training Programs, they should let Bryce know.
Mike Molloy, our Communications Director, is organizing a joint committee with the other 3 clubs in Burlington.
Natasha Davies was on hand to outline Burlington North’s Turkey Trot – a program to support literacy (I guess Joe Richardson was on holidays). This event is being held on Sunday, October 18th at Bronte Creek Provincial Park and features 5K and 10K runs along with a 5K walk.
Bryce announced that the Rotary Sgambati Golf Tournament is being held on Oct 5th and there is also one that the Brampton rotary Club is organizing. Contact Bryce if interested.
Nancy Brady sent out by email, the Board Minutes as well as an update on the Jo Brant Hospital fundraising and construction.
Sergeant at Arms
Ron Lambert filled in for Bernie Hanna and I will only mention a couple of items. Glenn Warnica gave a quick synopsis of the river cruise which had 5 Rotary Past Presidents on board. He told the story of the pool on the top deck of the ship where there were 2 people in the pool and they complained that no one ever came in the pool so Glenn walked in with clothes, shoes and all. Problem was, his wallet was in his pants pocket which got wet and caused the parking ticket at Toronto airport to be unreadable so he got charged the max to get his car out of the lot.
Guest Speaker – Alex Kobiloff
David Roscoe introduced our speaker for today, a Certified Hypnotist. I had visions of a bunch of us being hypnotized and doing all sorts of foolish things while the others laughed their heads off but no, this fellow works in medical hypnosis. What is that you ask? Well it is best explained by saying that he works on the subconscious mind. These are the things you do automatically – say from muscle memory or repetitious routine. For example, you might drive several miles while thinking about something else and you don’t realize where you are exactly – your subconscious mind has been doing the driving while you were deep in thought.
Most problems he works with involve some event when the person is young that transpires into the problem they have.
Alex used a couple of examples, one where a fellow was afraid to fly on airplanes. He was able to trace the problem back to a childhood event which caused his fear of flying. Another example related to a person who had problems with authoritative figures and this related back to a very domineering father. He works on the causes of these problems in helping clients overcome their fears.
He mentioned that his work is not always successful. This happens if a person does not have the willpower or willingness to overcome the problem. For example, if someone has surgery to cut down on what they eat, they have to overcome the eating habit or the surgery and corresponding hypnosis is ineffective.
Randy Reeve thanked Alex and presented him with the usual Certificate making a donation on his behalf to the Rotary Foundation.
