Rotary Club of Burlington Central  -  27th of September 2018

Lawrence Leung presiding

Guests 

Craig McPherson from Rotary Club of Burlington North

Sean Thomson  

Fred Lawlor, Guest speaker

Alex Warne, Guest of Bernard Scrivener

Anel Neumann Exchange Student

Mana Sawamori Exchange Student

There were numerous announcements from the chair. The Mystery Tour will be taking place soon and so far only 19 have signed up. There is a minimum number required to make it worthwhile so members are urged to apply. 

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Burlington Music Festival. Our club has made donations each year. Appeal is made for individual donations of any amount, but there are $100 scholarships available to be made to give that the participants at the end of the Festival.

The Bill Fleming Scholarship has been active for many years and has provided around $500 for each or four students each year but this year our Rotary club has stepped up to top that sum up to make it possible to give bursaries to nine students this year. Please make any contributions to Wayne Gowan. Wayne has been doing extraordinary work in pulling all of the financial aspects of the Rotary Burlington Music Festival and he is only too happy to take your money.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation have given a certificate of appreciation for Burlington Central's participation in the Big Bike Ride.

Thanks especially to Nancy Penny, Jerry Willard, and Kathleen O'Connor for their work for the Telling Tales Festival this year. There were 6000 participants. 3000 children went home with a new book. 7000 books changed hands in the book swap. Although selling new books is not the purpose of the festival, it was telling that $11,000 worth of new books were sold by Burlington's own independent bookstore, Different Drummer Books, quite an achievement. 

On September 11 there was a celebration of a highly successful Hospital Foundation Drive to get $60 million for the completion of the new hospital build, and at the end of the campaign more than that was raised. The foundation have given Randy Reeve a picture to present to the club.

On December 2 all four clubs are committed to entering the Santa Claus Parade.

On October 24 World Polio Day will be marked by a social at 5 West to which all Rotarians are invited. The Harbour town Sound will be doing their annual fundraising concert for the End Polio campaign on November 25 at 2 PM. Rotarians can attend that and still get to the Grey Cup celebrations. Tickets which are partially tax receipted are $55. Last year $10,000 was donated to End Polio by the club who sold most tickets.

Last week there was a get-together with the exchange students and their families, a very successful event. Next year the exchange program will happen again and they will be a planning meeting on October 1.

On Thursday October 25 Burlington Rotary Central will be having an out side meeting at ROCK at 471 Pearl Street.

Nominations for District Governor for the years 2021- 2022 are called for and anyone can be nominated including one's self.

A $500 scholarship was awarded to a Robert Bateman student Liam Wiebe.

Volunteers are being sought for the Next-Door Social Space; volunteers will be needed to prepare lunch starting on October 29 and monthly thereafter. The process will start at 9 AM. Information can be obtained from Rod Collard. This is an excellent alternative to attending the breakfast program for those who cannot.

This week Mae Radford is away and our Sgt. at Arms is Kathleen O’Connor. She started with fines for people not wearing pins and failing to remember to bring food bank donations. Kathleen had an interesting quiz on various aspects of cannabis. Randy Reeve won the round showing a considerable knowledge of the subject!

Gerry Willard was celebrating his 200th donation of blood to the Canadian Red Cross. 

Wayne Gowan is anticipating his forthcoming surgery for bilateral cataracts and was happy to receive words of encouragement from members who have experience this.

Kathleen O'Connor was very sad to have had a crash of her office computer which compelled her to stop mid surgery.  It erased all the information for her office visits this week.

Exchange students’ Week. It is one month since Manna came to the club and she has learned a great deal about Canada. She has joined 4 clubs at her high school including the Year Book club, basketball and the “World Club”. This is a particularly difficult word to pronounce for a Japanese speaking person and Mana told us she practised for an hour to say it! She has learned that a great deal was needed from us to change our world. Mana provided origami frogs for each table. She's quite skilled in this art.

Anel attended the Shaw Festival last week and highly recommends the Hound of the Baskervilles. She is learning new things about Canada every day including how easy it is to catch viruses at this time of the year in Canada and had to take three days off school.

Craig McPherson from the Rotary Club of Burlington North presented briefly the Indigenous Hockey Equipment Drive where gently used hockey equipment is to be delivered to Northern First Nations communities. It's the second year for the Burlington North club and it's been taken up by all four clubs. The Drive will be October 26-28. Members could bring in gently used equipment for this drive, it will be greatly appreciated. Craig recommends that we see the YouTube video Rotary Hockey Equipment Drive a very informative piece on the extraordinary benefits of this drive to indigenous communities.

Joe Watson introduced Fred Lawlor, today's guest speaker. Fred is the director of the HIP, Honouring Indigenous Peoples, through the education of and by indigenous peoples and the creation of awareness amongst all Canadians of the history, issues and cultures of the indigenous peoples of Canada. understanding the past, moving forward together. Fred used to be a director in the Royal York hotel and the Hotel Vancouver in the Fairmont chain. Joe had been part of the builds for these hotels and sincerely hopes that his company had done a good enough job for them. Fred, an Irishman, greeted the club with “the top of the morning to you”, to which the response should be “sure, and the best of the day to you sir!”. 

Education used to be on "our terms" and the first thing to do was to kill a language in order to gain control. This led to a loss of connection between indigenous peoples and the loss of understanding of who they are.
 
The residential schools were, current thought would have it, an abomination, but it's very clear from history that they were not all bad; many indigenous people would agree with this. It's essential that we not wallow in the guilt of the preponderance of badness in that system. The 60s scoop destroyed family ties and this led to a whole range of problems that came from that due to the loss of grounding of the children and, most telling, a general mistrust which of course makes it much more difficult to establish a relationship.
 
When the nonindigenous wish to help indigenous peoples it's essential that they not forced themselves without invitation or consultation as this can lead to much resentment. It often makes a proud people feel more inadequate, something that they've already had a lot of practice at.
 
3% of Toronto is indigenous but 23% of that population is unemployed. If we as Rotarians follow a careful path towards true reconciliation it can be done as long as we stick to that path. Indigenous spirituality is strong and it is possible to "bring back the old ways in a new way”. Great care has to be taken on how either side thinks. Love emanates but Hate emanates too. We are all one on this earth.
 
There are many success stories from various indigenous communities in cities. The Scarborough Child and Family Life centre on Galloway Road is one example. There is a school that learned in their own language and yet when he went to a spelling bee in another city that was held in English they won the competition, a remarkable achievement. There are many organizations working towards support and reconciliation including Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. Siemens have taken their old laptops, refurbished them and provided them to communities to allow them to communicate and to connect through the internet. The project called Canoeing with the Cree allows nonindigenous to go canoe trips with indigenous Cree to gain a great deal of knowledge of their traditional ways.
 
With consideration of the Rotary Hockey Equipment Drive, Fred reminded us that any gifts in kind should always be something that the donor would be prepared to wear or use themselves.
 
Fred had numerous organizations he would like to have told us about in greater detail including the Queen and the Broadway indigenous school where drumming ceremonies, smudging ceremonies are part of their School experience. In that school the teachers are a combination of indigenous and white. In that school the teachers can and do hug their kids!
 
The Aboriginal Canadian Council is thriving and supporting progressive aboriginal relationships in business.
 
“We can align our strength and remain open to change while acknowledging our history”.
 
A book to read is 1491 by Mann which describes the pre-Columbian status of indigenous people, a good read. Iron Horse a new movie is excellent.
 
The speaker received the club’s thanks and the meeting was adjourned.

Anthony Ford-Jones