Today’s meeting was prefaced with a slide presentation of models showing various arrays of clothing.  We were later to find out that these were photos from the London Calling Fashion Show held at the club on April 30th. More information along with the photos can be found on the front page of our web site.

President Catherine acknowledged the fine job of those who organized the Community Service Awards meeting last week.

Guests

Tim Speed – Guest Speaker

Tim Cresswell, guest of Marie Cresswell

Juliette – our exchange student from France.

 

  

 

President Catherine explained that the Club has built a surplus of $43,000. in its operating fund due in part, to diligence of the Sergeants at Arms over the past few years as well as the fact that no one was sent to the World Rotary Conferences during this period.  Apparently, funds cannot be transferred to the charitable account so the Board has come up with a creative way to overcome this.  For this year, our annual fees of $240.00 will be directed to the charitable account and we will receive a tax receipt provided the funds are received before September 30^th, 2015 and each member asks that it be treated as such.  Someone would have to be semi-retarded not to take advantage of this offer.

 

 

Doug Brown made a request for pledges towards his Juvenile Diabetes fundraising which was emailed to us earlier.

 

 

The District Changeover is being held on June 23^rd at the Burlington G & CC.  Go to the District web site and register if you are planning to attend.

Our club’s changeover is on June 19^th.  More information is to come.  Dress is casual and the cost is lower than past years.

Bruce Maybury awarded Dave Beckett a pin for sponsoring a new member to our club. Bruce also gave a short promotional talk on the benefits of Rotary and how we can all benefit by encouraging new membership.

Juliette gave a summary of her activities over the past couple of weeks which included taking a trip to Rutty’s country estate where numerous activities were experienced; she went to a baseball game, and went “carting” which we were able to learn was go-carting.  She also went to a family cottage on Georgian Bay where she did water skiing, tubing and had lots of fun.

 

Sergeant at Arms Rene gave us his rendition of Henry the 8^th which he also sang at the London Calling Fashion Show. He collected a number of happy dollars but got 84 birthday dollars from Cuppy Katz – congratulations Cuppy and thank you.

 

 

 

Eric Anderson introduced Tim to us who is a native of the UK.  Tim was in the Air Cadets in his younger years and worked in the airline industry most of his life – first with BOAC and later with an Air Cargo company.  He immigrated to Canada in 1980.  His topic today is the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum (CWHM).

The CWHM is 40 years old.  It started initially with two old hangers until 1993 when fire destroyed the hangers and 5 planes. The present facility opened in 1996.

The main feature of the museum is of course the Lancaster which is one of two remaining planes still flying out of 7300 built. This past summer was the first time in 50 years that any of the Lancasters flew together. Last year it cost $1.3 million to operate our Lancaster and most of the funding was raised through sponsorship and fundraising.  For example, they have an old DC3 which you can get a ride on for $60. A ride on the Spitfires or Hurricanes will set you back $300-600.  A ride on the Lancaster is $3000.00 and there is a 2 year waiting list. The Lancaster holds 4 passengers.  They sold a seat on eBay for the trip to England for $50,000.00 and a fellow who lost out in the bidding gave them $100,000.00 for a seat on the way home.   The Lancaster was originally built with single controls (1 pilot – no co-pilot) but because Transport Canada requires dual controls, they had to modify the Lancaster. The engines are only good for 400 hours and then need a Major Overhaul which costs $125,000.00.

The CWHM also rent out the space for various trade shows such as car shows to raise funds for their work. From a business perspective less than 1% of their funding comes from government.  They have 44 planes of which 25 still fly. Others – they don’t have engines for them or are under restoration.  Their annual budget is $5 million.

Their work also includes educational services where curriculum based programs are offered to several school grades.  The theory of flight is taught along with other related aspects of flying such as weather.

A part of the educational component is Project High Flight.  This caters to approximately 12,000 students at more than 25 inner city schools.  They rely on sponsors to fund a school which is mainly the cost of bussing the students to the CWHM for study. It was felt that our Club was being solicited in this regard. A number of Burlington schools were named as potential sponsor locations.

 

Glen Warnica thanked Tim for his rewarding presentation.