Bulletin for May 30, 2019-06-02

 

Guests  Bruce Hillyer, new member being inducted today; Nila Mohibi, guest of Sheila Welham; Sean Tomkins, outbound exchange student to Peru; Julie Brown, guest speaker; Anel and Mana, our two great exchange students from Estonia and Japan respectively.

 

Sean Tomkins was wearing a bright red blazer which was given to him at a Rotary training session for exchange students this past weekend in Kitchener.  He went on to explain that normally Rotary provides only Blue Blazers to their exchange students but in Canada, Rotary provides red ones. At this training session he was able to practice his Spanish with another exchange student from Peru.  He also reported that he watched Anel’s play.

 

Anel reported that she was in 3 different plays where one was a solo.  On the one play she described an embarrassing event where she fell over some drums set up for musical support for the play. She also went to the training session that Sean described and also visited a Mennonite Community and on Sunday attended the wrap-up of the Session.  On Monday she went to hear Sally Armstrong speak on investigative journalism.  Tuesday she had Japanese food with Mana.

 

Mana reported that she went to Church and had Nepalese food at Owen’s home where she is hosted.  She also had afternoon tea in the back yard, made home-bread and played games. She saw her first chipmunk which she found quite interesting.  She also attended the Niagara-on-the-Lake Rotary meeting which was held on the US side of the border as the club is a shared country club with both Canadian and American members. She said the meal was huge – enough for a family. She also attended a Rotary meeting at an Oakville club – her 27^th Rotary club!

 

New Member Induction   Bruce Hillyer was proposed by Bob Martin who introduced Bruce to the club and to us today. They both met at Queens University in Law School. They developed an unique friendship and became business partners.  Bruce is considered 1 of the top 10 litigation lawyers in Canada. He described Bruce as a great fit for our club as his interest is to help people in need and in so doing will provide service above self. Your scribe, Bruce’s designated Mentor, pinned the Rotary pin on Bruce.  Bruce gave a brief outline of himself and thanked Bob for introducing him to Rotary.

 

 

Sergeant At Arms – Mae Radford     Mae warned everyone that she wanted all members at the next Rotary meeting to stand up and report what acts of kindness they awarded to fellow Rotarians during the past week.  Happy dollars will be expected in this reporting.  While I didn’t think of it at the time, the question becomes – what if they weren’t able to award any acts of kindness during the week?? Do they get off Scott free??

 

I don’t usually report happy dollars but I will report on one today.  Randy Reeve announced that he met up with Abraham during a trip to the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu. Abraham is working on getting his engineering degree and plans to use that training back on his island in Peru upon graduation.

 

Rotarian of the Week was Leslie Allison. Leslie was picked based on her willingness to help out in Rotary.  She does a lot to help Sheila in the Student Exchange Program.  She also initiated a lot of great ideas while being Director of Membership a year or two ago.  Leslie mentioned that her father joined Rotary when they moved to Burlington when she was young.  Leslie moved to Mississauga several years ago and has spent much of her life there.  She joined Rotary here at our club and has moved back to Burlington.

 

Julie was introduced by Johanna Haan who mentioned that Julie always had a great interest in and has spent the bulk of her employment supporting the health and well being of families and children.  This interest evolved further when she became Director of Philanthropy at Pancreatic Cancer Canada.

 

 

Julie gave a series of statements on Pancreatic Cancer (PC) as follows:

For more information, go to:  https://pancreaticcancercanada.ca/

 

Bruce Leggatt thanked the speaker and presented the usual Certificate relating to the donation of 120 doses of polio vaccine.