Guests were John Bonis – Special Olympics; Ann Birmingham – Rotary Club of Hamilton A.M. and Guest Speaker; Joe Watson, guest of Rod Collard and Fred Sweeney, Privileged Visitor.
Announcements:
Condolences were expressed about the passing of Kathy Thomas’s father – Memorial set for Saturday.
Catherine Brady who lost her father recently was welcomed back to the club.
Sheila Welham, Ron Lambert and Gerry Willard all spoke to the upcoming Lakeside event and raffle.
District Governor will be attending our meeting on the 25th.
Our new Rotary Exchange Student arrives from Poland on the 25th as well. Hosts still needed. Anyone interested in meeting him at the airport should contact Sheila.
Bar B Q at Jamie’s place next Thursday. No meeting in the morning. Let Jamie know if you are coming.
Club Board Meetings are to be held at the Salvation Army on Prospect Street.
Further to Mike Molloy’s weight loss challenge, Rene has pledged $2/lb and Wayne Gowan $1/lb.
Sassa (former exchange student from Germany) and her sister are in town and will be helping out at Lakeside.
Guest Speaker – Ann Birmingham
Introduced by Peter Thoem – Ann was instrumental in assisting us with development of the Club’s Strategic Plan.
Spoke on a subject we know well – Telling Tales Festival – Sept 18th, Westfield Heritage Village, Rockton, On. – where stories come to life.
Vision of the Festival is to be the best Children’s Literacy Festival in Canada.
Started by Ann’s sister who was the vision and force behind the idea of such a festival. She was involved in the publishing of children’s books and was also in Rotary. She thought that if she could get Rotary Clubs to work together, she could make it work. Involves at least 2 Rotary Districts.
Over 1000 children are bussed to the festival from high priority (low income areas) schools.
Rotary Clubs are very involved (22 of them) – leadership, sponsors, volunteers, publicity, donations of books, etc.
Publishers use the festival to launch some children’s books.
Some authors are teenagers.
Kids come and bring books to the book swap.
Ann asked us to help promote the Festival – have the whole community including the Rotary Community come together to sponsor the festival.
Jim Brindle thanked Ann and presented the usual Certificate.
