February 13, 2020 

Rotary Club of Burlington Central 

presiding: David Roscoe.

 

Honoured guests: Ryan Kaupert  to-day’s speaker

Yahel, our exchange student.

 

We learned of the death of John Routledge last week fondly remembered as a long-time member of Rotary. It was his hope that any donations in his name be made to Rotary International.

 

We are reminded that next week the breakfast meeting will take place at the Joseph Brant Museum. Please see attached a diagram of available parking in the area as parking on-site is minimal at best.  There will be a catered breakfast and a brief presentation after which there will be a tour of the museum.

 

Gerry Willard reminds us that we're getting close to the Men and Women as Career Coaches event on March 25 and April 23. A number of Rotary members have signed up to be mentors for this valuable event.  If anybody wishes to be involved please email Gerry.

 

Yahel presented her weeks activity in which she went to Niagara Falls with Mae and Bert Radford to see their granddaughter Hayley in the national competition in trampoline and tumbling. They had an overnight stay and dinner with friends. She then had an overnight stay with Karmel Sakran. They went to see A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in Oakville. They spent an evening baking peanut butter Valentine's Day cookies and met with Will Pugh.

 

Master at Arms Rod Collard was extremely lenient and presented no fines today. He was lucky this morning to get away with his life when he addressed Catherine Brady as Kathleen.

 

There will be a monthly local restaurant dinner at Saving Thyme on Tuesday February 25 and there was a good show of hands of people interested in attending. Anthony Ford-Jones informed everyone that they will be hard pressed to find better deserts anywhere else in the area.

 

Bryce Leggatt who is away in Florida at present is very keen for the club to throw its weight enthusiastically behind the upcoming Rotary Rides Event on Friday, April 17, between 2 PM and 4 PM when there will be four separate half-hour rides to be done at whatever pace the participants wish to take, the idea being to have fun and camaraderie and to make as much money as possible for the Burlington Food Bank who will will be awarded half of the proceeds. There will be a number of teams who can ride at the same time - 24 riders at a time. We are encouraged to bring family members including children, as long as they can reach the pedals! And to make up as many teams as possible. There will be 24 saddles to be filled four times over. Anyone can sponsor the riders and the sponsorship sheets will be available online. Check out Rotaryrides.com “Enter a team of riders, build your leads list of donors, and make a difference in your community." The event is hosted by Cedar Springs Health Racquet and Sports Club, Access Storage, JM Edwards Associates Inc Real Estate, Rock and Road Cycle. The Burlington Food Bank is the primary charity though there will be other charities supported.

 

Snacks and treats, a T-shirt, grab bag will be offered to participants. Thanks go to Jim Brindle for setting up the webpage.  Please build a team of family, friends, employees, all are eligible.

 

Jim Brindle introduced Speaker Ryan Kaupert who has been an active Toastmaster for five years and is currently the area director. For 20 years the Toastmaster organisation has been active in Burlington, a non-profit organisation with volunteer boards that extends locally and nationally. They are an educational program that aims to produced distinguished Toastmasters. Since 1924 Toastmasters International have been dedicated to improving communication and leadership development and there is a quarter of a million members. They engage every level of society, ethnicity and economic level teaching people to learn to listen, to answer, to tell stories, all with the goal of leadership, the ability to provide and to accept feedback.

 

 

Of importance to us was the Rotary and Toastmasters Alliance given our mutual values of integrity and finding opportunities to serve. Ryan is here to help build and foster that alliance.

 

The speeches are project based, some teaching humour, persuasion, communication, and the ability effectively to evaluate speeches via feedback. Mentorship is encouraged. Part of the fun is to have impromptu speeches, which they do regularly, and today we had five individuals who were pre-warned that they would have a "table topic" to present in one minute. Their performance would be followed by the grammarian who would sift out how many Ums and Ahs there were. The word of the day, “shenanigans” is today's word, is to be used as many times as possible during the speech at which time the audience, in order to prove that they are awake, should make some noise. After the events, appreciation and clapping is encouraged as well as feedback on the style of the presentations. There were some nervous people around the tables not realising that the topics had already been distributed, thinking that they might be in the line of fire.

 

Glenn Warnica, René Papin, Mae Radford, Sheila Welham, Johanna Hahn, were selected to speak for one minute on the subject “Save the date" each one created their own talk around that subject. It is legitimate to do a segue if the individual doesn't happen to like the topic and this was done in some degree by each of the speakers. At the end, the volume of clapping signified the winner who in this case was Johanna Hahn who gave a very fluent presentation that happened also to present a topic which she wanted us to be aware of, namely the Presidential Changeover dinner on June 25.

 

A ribbon was presented to Johanna. Ryan mentioned the presenters workshop at the Hamilton Central Library between 10 o'clock and 12 noon on March 28 where a TED talk expert Roger Caesar will be helping people to hone their skills. Ryan will provide some handouts and emails for those interested at the next meeting.

 

Gerry Willard thanked Ryan for his presentation and for the entertainment.

 

Before the end Nancy Penny revealed a part of the theme of the forthcoming induction of our President-elect, Owen McElhinney, that promises to be some good fun.

 

 

 

The meeting was adjourned.

Anthony Ford-Jones