President Bryce Leggatt presiding.

 

 

Bernie Hanna offered a toast to the Queen and to Dean.  We welcomed Dean Rutty back from Meaford.  We had an unusually good breakfast thanks to Alan Ramsey who arranged it; this special event is going to happen monthly although we will not know which day of the month it will be! ;-)  Alan was thanked for all of the many roles he plays behind-the-scenes in Rotary.

 

Bruce Maybury and Randy Reeve will be attending the World Championships of Curling in Grand Prairie Alberta in the near future. 

 

The Four Club Social will be held on February 26 at East Side Marios and a response should be given to Ms McNeill of the North Club. Look out for an email message to this effect.

 

Our own social evening will be held on February 9 at Paradiso at 6 PM on and a response should be given to Sheila Welham.

 

Cathy Thomas gave us sad news about Lila Elstone, wife of the late Robert Elstone, one of the founders of our club. Lila has been very ill recently and sadly is in palliative care at the Joseph Brant Hospital. It was hoped that she would be admitted to the Carpenter Hospice but it is full. It seems unlikely that she will make it there. We were reminded that Lila, a music teacher and organist was one of the driving forces behind the development of the Rotary music festival when Bob Elstone was in the club and getting this started. Our thoughts are with Lila and her family at this point.

 

Bryce Leggatt announced that he will be taking one month of holiday but far from leaving us high and dry he has arranged for past presidents to take the helm in his absence starting with Kathie Thomas next week, on February 11 Randy Smallbone, on the 18th David Dean and on 25 February there will be a mystery presider.

 

Augustina told us of her week and appropriately enough, attended the Running and Reading Club event attended by 56 lively kids and it coincided with yesterday's family Literacy Day. This was good news to our club as we are supporting that organisation and other initiatives supporting literacy.

 

 

Our sergeant at arms today was Bernie Hanna. Once again he pointed out that the one table that seems to be disproportionately to be populated by gentlemen of a certain age never has women sitting with them and they were duly fined as they were unable to come up with a joke that was remotely acceptable to the club.

 

There will be a bonspiel in Guelph on February the 24th and new curlers are eagerly sought to join them for two – six end games and lunch.  Contact Bruce Maybury or Randy Reeve.

 

Rob Collard is celebrating his first year in the club.

 

Alan Ramsey thanks what he called the best crew so far for their set up today.

 

 

Rob Sybersma introduced Dean Rutty who professed to miss us more than anything else in his life now he's moved to Meaford!  Wow!   He is now working at Beaver Valley Ski club and because he was able to secure this work far more quickly than expected, he wound down his Graphic Ideas business in Burlington and is living up there full-time. He is the Membership Services person at the Beaver Valley Ski Club. Beth continues with her yoga business and is back and forth to Burlington for this.

 

Dean showed us pictures with stunning views from and around their house, which is on the edge of the Niagara Escarpment and the Bruce Trail. They appear to have more than their fair share of snow in that area. It's clearly a lovely place and they are 15 minutes from the ski hill, 15 minutes from the lake, they have a hot tub, and even a waterfall and a pond. Needless to say the exchange students, when they came to visit, really loved it.

 

Dean and Beth have recently returned from a European trip in which they tried to meet up with as many as possible of their past exchange students for whom, it must be said, Dean and Beth have done so much for so many years. None of them yet has got married so they haven't been invited to any weddings, so they decided that it was time just to go and visit them. They were warmly received and hosted and well fed in Finland and in France.  Their first visit was to Katri and her parents in Finland. Katri is still at school studying physiotherapy. They then went to Strasbourg via Germany to stay with Juliette and her family where they were hugely welcomed and kept very busy. They took a road trip to the Czech Republic, an 11 hour drive via Germany where they went to see Jan, an exchange student from last year. They then went to Prague by train. The visited friends in Germany and did a wine tour in Alsace. They took a train to Paris to visit Faustine whom we met from the Oakville Trafalgar club last year. They had a splendid time there, their first visit to Paris, and were joined by Juliette.  Dean said that he was able to sense how exchange students feel at the start, being entertained and hosted by people whom they cannot remotely understand!

 

Dean is still the vice-chair for the student exchange for the time being and greatly appreciates the help given to him in his absence from this district. He is he was concerned by the difficulty our clubs are having pulling the youth exchange together, two clubs having pulled out altogether. He is looking for a club in the effort area and was talking about possibly arranging a club ski day in Beaver Valley. 

 

Dean was thanked for his talk and the meeting adjourned.

 

Anthony Ford-Jones