Bulletin – May 17, 2018
Today we were treated to a meeting in the main dining room of BG&CC. What a nice change.
Guests Nick Lang, guest of Richard Pass; Dan Kalmats, Visiting Rotarian from RC of Burlington and our exchange student Abraham.
Announcements
Dan Kalmats congratulated Janet Canavan on her appointment as Assistant District Governor for the Burlington Clubs – congratulations Janet!! He also put a plug in for the upcoming Rib and Lobsterfest on May 26 at Central Arena. Dan mentioned that he sells a lot of tickets for us for Lakeside so maybe we could return the favour by selling tickets or attending this function. For more information -
https://rotaryburlington.com/Joe Watson distributed Raffle Tickets for the draw at Lakeside.
June 14th – President’s Induction Dinner
Richard Pass introduced Nick Lang who was a participant in one of our past Leadership Camps. Nick related a summary of his awesome experience saying that he had been to several camps before but this was the best one he had ever attended. Through it, he and others have gained training on being leaders in all their future endeavours. The people he met there have widened his circle of friends. He still “gets together” through Snapchat where 20 of his group converse sometimes daily about subjects of interest.
Abraham – our Exchange Student : Abraham met with other exchange students in Milton; had Chinese food for the first time at Mandarin where he “ate a lot”; is enjoying the weather now; catching up on all sorts of Superhero Movies which he really likes and lastly, he is in awe of vacuum rover machines which his present host family has.
Rod Collard – our Sergeant at Arms
Cuppy Katz celebrated his 87th birthday recently.
The Life and Times of our Karmel Sakran
Albert Schmidt introduced Karmel who presented his vocational talk today.
Karmel started off by stating that he grew up being a grocer’s kid. He explained later that in 1968 he immigrated to Canada along with his parents from Israel. His first language was Arabic. Most Israelis know Hebrew, English and Arabic languages His father worked at the Ford plant for a few years and soon had an opportunity to buy a small grocery store. He grew up as a Christian as his mother was supposed to be a nun but this was squashed by his grandmother due to the fact that his mother’s two sisters were nuns and his grandmother told the church that two was enough, you’re not getting the third one. He grew up in the grocery store and was sometimes the only one working there as young as age 11. Through that process he gained his communication skills and training. Karmel loves all sorts of music as does his family who played the lute and violin. His favourite music is Arabic. His family view, which he shares is “donation without expectation of anything in return”
Upon graduation from Law School in 1995 he worked for a number of years in government (after being rejected initially for an interview but not taking no for an answer he pursued the matter and got the job) doing research in criminal cases especially involving Breach of Trust cases. However he had “a business bent” and decided to go into private practice. He is now one of 5 lawyers in his law firm and is 54 years old.
Karmel concluded his talk by mentioning some of the organizations that he has been involved in – specifically a founding member of the Board of the Carpenter Hospice, the Board of the Joseph Brant Hospital and the Halton Learning Foundation where he has been involved in fundraising. Rotary is one of his focal points in community involvement. Through Rotary he has gained many friendships and specifically mentioned Roy Stovanivich and Albert Schmidt.
Rene Papin thanked Karmel for his presentation.
