Technical difficulties.
I have long been of the opinion that Audio-visual (especially PowerPoint) is the Achilles’ Heel of a well-intentioned meeting. For example, last Thursday, there we were, gathered in front of a handful of guests who naturally expect the best of us (Mana Sawamori, Anel Neuman, Susan Jasper, Vila Mohibi, Fareen Samji and David Vandenberg). Gathered to watch a short, fun video about the recent Chef Nicholas cooking class evening. The video was poised to go but was ominously cranked ninety degrees off vertical; a dispiriting prospect that you’d think could be fixed with a couple of clicks of a ‘Rotate’ button. But no.
One of our more technically-savvy members (we’ll omit names for now), thought the best solution to this a/v challenge was quite simply to rotate the projector a compensating ninety degrees on its long axis. He had no sooner laid his hands on the machine than the whole darn show went black. For an investigative reporter this was too good to be true, I was scribbling furiously: my notes say, “Chaos. 5 people trying to fix Chef Nicholas movie, gales of laughter. ..bad timing as yet another guest arrives.” Eventually it seemed the whole thing could only be solved in classic Microsoft style by taking everything apart, rebooting the computer, running a scan for viruses and reloading the file. And it wasn’t even PowerPoint’s fault this time.
Anyway, that was one of the most notable events of the meeting. (And the Chef Nicholas video was worth waiting for.) Our guest speaker rescued us later.
Anel reported going to Toronto to hear an Estonian choir and Mana relayed that she has now visited eighteen Rotary meetings out of her target of twenty-five.
Rotarian of the Week – Owen McElhinney for his energy and vision. Anointed and appointed by Mae Radford who summarised him thus:
He chairs the Milton, Oakville, Burlington cluster for International Service committee meetings and hosts them at his home.
He is Club Director for International Services for RCBC.
Whenever "youth" is mentioned, you can be certain that Owen is there – he serves on Youth Committee, hosts an exchange student each year, keeps in contact with past in bound students and is preparing to be President-Elect for RCBC.
Owen is known as the "man who wears a kilt" - in fact the only Scot we know who wears an Irish tartan (Donegal) as the fabric for his kilt.
And so to our guest speaker, Rotarian Fareen Samji on the topic of Python’s Pit. We all know the familiar Dragons Den format: hopefuls bring their next best invention/idea to a panel of cynics who hint that they have money to invest. Pythons Pit started out about nine years ago with much the same format but has quietly evolved to become more of a crucible for students with an idea. The purpose is to foster innovation, entrepreneurship and to coach presentation skills among young inventors and creators.
Python’s Pit has a strong screen-time component, it started with coverage and support from Cogeco but with it came limitations as to rescreening opportunities. The new generation of Python’s Pit will be on-line and viewable through YouTube.
Recently a Python’s Pit winner, Riya Karamanchi (Grade 9) came up with the idea of creating a smart white-cane for the visually impaired. To paraphrase Steve Jobs, “Think white cane; think GPS. Think white cane that tells you where you are and where it’s safe to step.”
Python’s Pit is so youth-focussed that Fareen acknowledged that she is now too old to communicate effectively and has now passed the torch to Executive Director role to David Vandenberg.
