President Janet Canavan presiding.

 

Visitors. Abraham Borda and Natalie Michlewicz, our guest speaker.

 

Announcements. On November 8 a reminder of the 4 Club event. Randy Reeves announced the Liberty for Youth fundraising gala on the same day at Carmens between 6:30 and 9 PM. We are invited to join Randy and Denise at this worthwhile event.

 

Harbour Town Sound Concert at the BPAC. We are aiming now for 200 tickets. Some 148 have been sold. The more we sell the greater the percentage of the takings that will go to our club. Remember Joe Watson’s challenge to be the one to sell the most tickets and the wonderful bottle of 2007 Amarone that he is today placing in the safekeeping of Pres. Janet.

 

Bryce Leggatt spent several hours spinning in favour of Ride to Provide, a fundraiser for the Food Bank of Burlington, along with Rod Collard, Andrew Gaydon, and David Roscoe, they made $2820. $72,000 was made by the whole team in one afternoon!

 

The Burlington Music Festival starts this week. There is still a need for volunteers to drive, to be secretary, and to be registrar.  Scholarships are still being requested. For those volunteering, there will be a an orientation this Saturday at 4:30.  See the Festival web site.

 

Volunteers are needed for the Seniors Breakfast on December 9th . Rene Papin will welcome any offers of help.

 

Two Saturdays before Christmas will be the Kettle Drive for the Salvation Army; please connect with Barb Hislop for details.

 

On World Polio Day, 52 Rotarians took part locally and $300 was collected which became $1500 with matching grants.

 

Remembrance Day is to be commemorated in the Naval Hall on November 8 with tickets available now.

 

We received a email from the mayor about the seniors housing workshop at the Art Gallery of Burlington open to Rotarians and to the public who wish to contribute to planning. Please link with Janet Canavan for more details.

The Lakeside a la Carte process has started looking for sponsors and restaurants and wineries and breweries.

 

The Nomination Committee will be meeting this week and if there are any further thoughts of potential nominees please contact Janet Canavan.

 

On November 30 the AGM will be held here and there will be talks on individual areas of responsibility to give better understanding of the running of the club.

 

Poinsettia sales are really gearing up. It’s a huge potential for really good return on this excellent program run with a lot of hard work by Andrew Gaydon and Peter Thoem among others, (may I be forgiven for missing those names).

 

Christmas events are being considered: the possibility of an evening social, whether it will be at a restaurant or at somebody's house or party room still remains to be determined.

Dave Beckett gave tickets for Abraham to attend a concert by the Bare Naked Ladies. His interest was piqued immediately but it was obviously particularly difficult for them to understand the connection between the naked ladies and rock music!

 

A shout out to Randy Smallbone who will be 63 tomorrow 27 October. Unfortunately he wasn't present to receive the club’s congratulations; it's not all impossible that he will be email bombed.

Abraham prepared, an excellent report, as usual, of his week. It appears that he did a great deal of eating and now realizes that he will need to spend more time in the gym. As ever he gave his gracious thanks to all of his many hosts.

 

Alan Ramsey was Sgt. at Arms and came duly prepared only to he frustrated that his proposed victims were not present today. Our new guest Rotarian from Calgary, Carlos Alvarez, was to discover that he was not immune to being fined for being late even if his battery was dead.

 

Abraham will be participating in a fundraiser next Sunday will he will be walking or running 5 or 10 K with a number of other inbound students; the event is called the Rotary Haunted Hill and you're invited to donate to his cause at www.RotaryhauntedHill.com. Select "donate" and search for "Abraham".

 

Our guest speaker was Natalie Michlewicz,  manager of communications of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Hamilton and Burlington. René Papin introduced her. He spilled the beans of a previously secret recent proposal to amalgamate Hamilton Billington with Halton. Natalie told us that this was done to combine their individual strengths as there is already a good bit of overlap. This will occur in April 2018. She's been five years with the agency and is manager of communications. She sees every day the direct impact of mentoring programs for young children. They are admitted from 6 to 16 and "age out" by 18. The program is supported by volunteers and the generosity of the community and fundraisers, such as we have done in the past. Many will remember the excellent bowling events.

The value of mentoring is hard to overstate. In a child's formative years we can probably all remember some of the mentors we had, our network of supports; what if we hadn't have them? Things might've turned out differently in our lives. Many of the children who come through the program meet societal barriers, home issues, all of which are out of the control: bullying, mental health problems, violence at home, these cannot be controlled by the child. Sadly many of them will go on to repeat that cycle of violence or poverty unless they receive help from the outside. Adversity in childhood, also known as ACEs, Adverse Childhood Events, lead to developmental issues, impediments to personal development. With the mentoring intervention, matching programs of big Brothers and sisters with the little brothers and sisters can be achieved with wonderful results. 

 

A study looked at the social return on investment: 500 young people who have been through the program were compared with 500 controls in adulthood who had not receive mentorship during their childhood. There was a substantially increased number of individuals giving back to the community, engaging in philanthropy, a clear correlation with their mentored childhood. The benefits of mentorship to increase confidence and self-esteem reduce likelihood of bullying or being bullied, kinder individuals, increasing involvement with extracurricular activities, better work at school, and generally greater pride in themselves and in their lives.

 

There's a program for refugees in the last few years helping them to become more connected with the community. This has lead to more friends, greater confidence, and learning about Canada. 

An adolescent program was established to help young people to eat better, to develop better body image, to be more confident. 

 

Last month there was a scholarship program with 12 youth receiving scholarships that will help them and their journey into adulthood.

 

Volunteers are always needed to help to reduce the sadly excessive waiting list of 170 kids. We are asked to think about friends, colleagues and acquaintances who might be interested in this type of mentorship program and to refer them to Big Brothers Big Sisters. The age group that is involved in this program is from 18 up. A question was asked from the floor whether this extended to parents of "grandparent age" and indeed this is possible. Matches are made on the basis of interest interests and proximity. Volunteers are chosen, and monitored for suitability by the caseworker and stuff. Obviously there's strictly regimented process going through the volunteer application, police checks one-to-one casework interviews and child safety training.

 

On November 22 IKEA will be having their annual Christmas tree lot in their parking lot and this will be run by Big Brothers and Sisters. Last year they made $17,000. It's a huge commitment to have somebody managing the lot throughout that period, whenever the store is open, and volunteers from other organizations such as ours are eagerly requested for this very fun and worthwhile activity.

There are other community supports: 120 tickets were donated by Theatre Aquarius, and tickets for Ti Cat Games have been given for the Big Brothers and Sisters to take the children.

 

Criteria for being a little brother or sister no longer require that the child come from a single-parent family. Any adult who recognizes the need for mentorship in any child can refer them to the program. Anything that will help children who have social or cultural isolation need help with integration can be a candidate. There is a partnership with Wesley urban ministries.  Corporate volunteerism has much potential for an organization like Big brothers and sisters. If members’ places of work are prepared to allow employees to take an hour a week to do some mentorship during work time in the schools with whom the organization has a relationship, this would be an excellent opportunity.

 

Natalie was thanked for her informative session with our usual certificate from Polio Plus, a donation of 120 doses of polio vaccine in the speaker's name.

Anthony Ford-Jones