Guests
Britta Martin-Miles – guest speaker – Lighthouse For Grieving Children
David Woods – guest of Anthony Ford-Jones
Charlene Thomas – host parent
Augustina – our exchange student
Terry Hepburn – Visiting Rotarian - Burlington North
Hayley Welham – guest of Sheila Welham
Announcements
Augustina gave a brief summary of her week’s activities. Unfortunately, there was a scribe mixup and yours truly wasn’t quite up to speed by this time.
The sendoff for Dan Kalmats, a former member of our club and previous Assistant District Governor is to be held at Emma’s Back Porch on Oct 15th at 6 PM. Let Lawrence Leung know if you plan to attend. $20 lets you wish Dan the best and there are items like chicken wings to nibble on.
The Polio Plus Day is Friday October 23rd at the Burlington Go Station from 7:30 – 9 AM. More volunteers are needed. Let Catherine Brady know if you can help out.
The breakfast program is all set & ready to go – starting in November.
Gerry Willard announced that the clean up at the Appleby Line & QEW interchange is scheduled for Saturday Oct 24th with a rain date of Sunday Oct 25th. Volunteers are still needed. Contact Gerry & let him know you will help out. Meet at Paletta Court which is on the South Service Road, just east of Dave Beckett’s office or near a green office building just west of Appleby Line.
Members are asked to step up to help with the Music Festival as several people are needed to be volunteers over the duration of the program. Jim Brindle will be sending out an email on this. Lawrence is taking sponsor donations for the Music Festival so help Lawrence and Jim out in this regard folks. (see below to register)
Terry Hepburn was on hand to publicize Burlington North’s Turkey Trot fundraiser. Sun Oct 18
th at Bronte Provincial Park – 5 and 10K runs + 5K walk. Signup online
www.rotaryturkeytrot.ca .
Hayley Welham – requested support for Lifeline Syria (lifelinesyria.ca) – support groups of 5 people to help resettle Syrian Refugees – need volunteers and donations – Rotary maybe?
Bill Myles is now home from the hospital and progressing;
Next week’s meeting – full agenda - classification talk with Mike Torsney plus Ron Lambert and Sheila speaking on fundraising.
Sergeant at Arms
Ron Lambert filled in today. While several people got fined and gave happy/sad dollars, Ron clarified the rant dollars announced last week where members could rant on a “speaker’s box” about a subject of their choice – whatever was bothering them or what they wanted to get off their chest. It will now be called “Rotary Ramble” in light of the fact that members like to ramble on. $5 will give you a 60 second rant. Anyone can give a rebuttal - $2 for 30 seconds. Further rebuttals can be made. An initial go at this went into the subject of hockey vs baseball vs rugby.
Guest Speaker – Britta Martin-Miles
Introduced by Mae Radford. The Lighthouse For Grieving Children provides support for children who have lost one or both parents through death.
-
support is provided by association with other kids who are going through the same thing;
-
started 16 years ago;
-
centered in Oakville but coverage ranges from Hamilton to Markham;
-
next closest centre is Barrie;
-
participants range in age from 3 to teens;
-
separate groups for each age range;
-
parent in separate group from their children;
-
participants only pay if able to do so – most aren’t in a position to do so;
-
sessions last around 1 ½ hours;
-
participation lasts from 12-18 months on average;
-
program typically offered after school during the week;
-
cost per participant is $1700 – support is largely through the United Way;
-
wide variation in support by area – Oakville $50,000.Burlington $500;
-
participation is Oakville 60, Burlington 36, Peel 56, Milton 11;
-
new building – former church will allow doubling of capacity;
-
don’t want to grow bigger – want to train other centres that are starting up;
-
biggest problem is getting United Way and other organizations outside of Oakville to contribute.
Roy Cooper thanked the speaker for Britta outlining this program to us that we were aware of but knew little about.
