Rotary Club of Burlington Central Bulletin 7 November 2019 

David Roscoe President.

The indulgence of the members is requested if I omit the names of the 18 guests whose names were mostly illegible, even to one with medical training.

Gerry Willard introduced the guests in his best Portuguese accident. We had a large contingent of visitors from Mexico, part of the Friendship Program’s return visit. They have been staying with club members from the four clubs and are on their way back home via the UN.

Yahel described her active two weeks including a number of Thanksgiving and Halloween dinners and some of the volunteering activities. She gave big thanks to several members and their families for the hospitality. She thanked Sheila Welham and David Roscoe for the help with the very successful Game Night a couple of weeks ago. For her, the highlight of Thanksgiving was on Monday when she had the opportunity of going for a motor bike ride with Jamie and Sherry and others along very colourful country roads. She also went to Toronto with Sheila to hear Carrie Underwood. She is sad to be leaving Karmel's home where she has had a wonderful time but is very happy to be moving in to stay with Mae and Bert Radford.

Will Pugh addressed the club briefly on behalf of John Givsey and brought news of the Rotary Foundation report on 35,000 clubs. Our club is one of 4000 that has 100% support of the Foundation. We are one of 1500 who consistently place in the top three per capita donations to the Foundation. So much good is being done around the world.

Craig MacPherson from Burlington North Club is once again, for the sixth year in a row, collecting gently used hockey equipment to distribute to remote areas for indigenous teams. Bob Martin clarified that equipment for all ages and sizes was required, boys and girls. The collection will go on until the end of January. We are encouraged to bring equipment in. It will be stored in Milton. There will be a couple of specific days to be set up, one with the Old-Timers hockey club and one at Hometown Hockey Appleby. Eventually the equipment will be trucked to Toronto before being distributed to the North.

Andrew again reminds us that next Friday is the last day for orders for the poinsettias, such a worthwhile and excellent source of revenue for the clubs charitable giving. The delivery dates will be 21 November and 5 December, both Thursdays after the morning meeting. I learned that the Spanish term for poinsettias is Noche Buenas or Good Nights, which in Spanish also means Christmas Eve.

Joe Watson recalled that the top few sellers of poinsettias were rewarded by a very pleasant evening at his house for wine and cheese which I had the pleasure attending and can certainly say it's worth selling a goodly number for its own sake but also for the pleasure of that evening which will be repeated this year.

Lawrence Leung noted that the deadline for nominations for club committee positions has passed and is closed and names will be formally announced soon.

Next week there will be no morning meeting in view of the preceding night’s Remembrance Day event which will double as a club meeting.

Sgt. at Arms Rod Collard announced club joining anniversaries: David Dean 30 years; Andrew Gaydon 17 years; Anthony Ford Jones 15 years; Leslie Allison 7 years.

Owen McElhinney and Nima celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary and Cuppy Katz, who is not here today also celebrates a wedding anniversary.

The Sergeant rather cruelly asked that Andrew Gaydon confirm who won the International Rugby series. The South Africans won the day and Andrew was forced to relive this sad event. Rod Collard had a rugby terminology quiz and was successful in stumping Andrew Gaydon with a number of them. The terms Hooker, Knock-on, Mulligriber, Ruck, Sipi Tau, Gary Owen, and Blood-in (the period allowed a player to go off the field to staunch the bleeding from a wound and to return duly bandaged to the field) were terms that for the most part, made no sense to most of the cub members and several hefty fines were extracted for this egregious demonstration of ignorance of matters Rugby.

Rod’s brilliant artistry was put to use to depict a well known rugby player, Lou Bottomey

Owen was happy to announce that not only did he and Nima celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary but their Mexican guests celebrated their 36th wedding anniversary on the same day.

David Roscoe announced that his daughter Hailey had just graduated from a unique program of sound production that she had completed in the Abbey Road studios. There was a ceremony which David attended on this hallowed ground where Studio 1 is left untouched as it had been when the Beatles were last recorded there.

Bill Clarkson announced this would be his last meeting before heading south to Venice in Florida for the winter.

Anthony Ford-Jones was happy to have been with Lee to the Nelson Mandela exhibit currently at the Meridian Centre for the Arts in North York, a superb and very poignant exhibit of audiovisual and artifacts from the apartheid era that brought home the extent of the struggle that so many black South Africans suffered for so many decades at the hands of the South African Government during Apartheid. In the end Madiba, as Mandela was affectionately known, was able to say that the Right to be free had been won but that Freedom was far from secured. A strong take-home message from the exhibit was that the right to vote has been so desperately hard won by so many people around the world that not to vote for our leaders in a democracy seems to be a terrible travesty in the face of this history. 

Rod Collard announced that there will be a dinner at Kamoosh Bistro, a fine restaurant that supported Lakeside a la Carte. The intention is that there be a dinner at one of these supportive restaurants every month on a Tuesday or Wednesday, to be decided.

Mae Radford review the Friendship Group visit to Mexico last year that resulted in the return visit of our honoured guests today. This group goes a long way to promote peace through understanding of different cultures. Only a small number of their hosts from last year's trip were able to come on this trip. They had a walking tour of Toronto, dinner in a restaurant, a visit to Niagara Falls and to Niagara-on-the-Lake and a winery tour. They were entertained at Dave Beckett's home.

Fernando thanked our club for the warm welcome and hospitality and gave a brief description of the 4130 Rotary District in Mexico, one of the largest in the country, in the North of Mexico. There are seven clubs. It was quite a variety of clubs including men only and women only clubs. They were a fairly typical mix of ages and demographics and one of the clubs only had eight members but seemed to be prolific in its involvement in the community and its activities.

Banners were exchanged and a gift was given to each of the visitors from our club with some characteristic Canadian content including a Maple Leaf ball cap. There is also a book about Burlington written in Spanish for our visitors.

There was a warm interaction all round and they were wished a bon voyage on the way to the UN this afternoon. Our club will clearly be very welcome if ever they wish to go and visit our new friends in Mexico. 

The meeting was adjourned.

Anthony Ford-Jones