Rotary Club of Burlington Central 5 December 2019. Presiding David Roscoe.
Guests Rob Ling (our guest speaker); Joe Chalklin - today’s inductee; Yahel, our exchange student.
Gerry Willard invited Joe Chalklin to the podium to be inducted, introduced first by Anthony Ford-Jones. Anthony met Joe through his wife Lori Chalklin a family practitioner here in Burlington whom Anthony has known and had the privilege of working with for 35 years. Joe was born in Hamilton, and has lived in Burlington for the last 35 years. He is married to Lori and has three daughters and a grandson. He is now retired from architecture where he worked for Toronto firms as a project manager and contract administrator. They have a family cottage on Four Mile Lake for the past 20 years, close to Fenelon Falls in the Kawarthas. His hobbies are road biking, kayaking, curling, skiing, and he struggles with golf. Anthony suggested that he would feel very much at home in this club.
Gerry Willard went on to read out the Charge and Joe Chalklin was warmly received into the club. He hopes to get to meet everybody soon.
Gerry Willard introduced once again, next years Women and Men As Career Coaches starting in March 25 where women as career coaches will be the first event followed by April 23, men as career coaches. The intention of this event is to build the lives of the younger generation with the help of wisdom and experience of the old generation.
Lawrence Leung introduce the idea of a trip to Amantani Island in Peru next July. He has the vision of taking a group down there to meet Abraham and his family and friends, and to spend time with our outbound student Sean Thompson in Peru. He is also planning a trip to Taiwan ahead of the Rotary convention in 2021 as part of an exchange visit with a Taiwanese Rotary club.
The Christmas adult party will take place on 13 December.
A show of hands indicated that we should still have the regular Rotary club meeting on 12 December.
The children's Christmas party will be on 19 December and will start a little earlier than usual, at 7 AM. It will be the last club event at the Burlington Golf and Country Club until next July after their renovations. The first meeting of the year will be January 9 at the Holiday Inn, our temporary venue.
Speakers have been arranged to the end of this year and more speakers are needed for 2020.
Yahel spoke to us of her relatively busy week, spending time with Sheila and Owen, decorating a Christmas tree, performing in her school musical, and finally dinner with 24 club members at Kamoosh Bistro where they had a spectacular meal, highly recommended by David Roscoe. It's a pleasure to be able to give back to the restaurants that have supported us at Lakeside À La Cart
Today we have a guest sergeant at arms McElhinney who is also our President Elect from the Auchtermuchtie by way of Ballachulish or some even more improbable/unpronouncable place. Owen had a quiz for us and it seems worthwhile including the results of the quiz in this bulletin. It was on Rotary Youth Exchange which was first started in 1927. The first year our club sponsored a student was 1987. The typical length of exchange is 10 months. The ‘ideal host family’ is thought to be any of: a family with children; empty-nesters; or single parents. Each such family brings their own unique advantages to make the life of an exchange student fun and fulfilled. District Chairs of the youth exchange program have been Eric Anderson; Dean Rutty; Peter Thoem; and Sheila Welham will become the chair. The ultimate goal of the program is Peace through exchange. Our current rebound student is Carrie Osfolk who came back from Taiwan. Our current inbound student Yahel is from Langenbruck in Switzerland. Our current outbound student is Sean Thompson who is currently in Peru. Yahel will have four host families this year.
Jim Brindle is recovering in hospital; we were happy to hear that he is doing well, though not having his computer must be a trial! (Catherine Brady maintained that Jim's lack of computer access was her excuse for not having the bulletin in until 11 o'clock last night.) There were too many happy dollars to recall in this bulletin. Jim anticipates being away from the club for around six weeks or so;
Our guest speaker, Rob Ling, was introduced: a past member of the Ontario Power Generation Corporation and a principal member of the Burlington Performing Arts Centre and Mundialization committee. He was in charge of fostering the twin city relationships namely Itabashi, where Johanna Hahn was responsible for Apeldoorn in Holland.
Rob was involved with the past exchange student Mana who became involved with the Mundialization committee. Recently Rob was an official delegate to Japan along with the city sponsored Mundialization committee. The program is to support and to promote this excellent peace and understanding process around the world. They also organize the model UN assembly day for high school students who debate current issues. This year was the 30th anniversary of the twinning of Burlington with Itabashi. Mana willingly joined the committee while she was here. During her stay she met with Rob and his wife Phyllis who invited her to their home where she was surprised to see so many Japanese artifacts Robert being a “Japanophile”. There was a number of events last year in Burlington which unfortunately, Mana missed, having already gone home to Japan by the time they occurred. The opening of the Itabashi garden at Tansley Woods library was a fine event which the scribe happened to visit at the time; it's a beautiful garden and is well worth a visit. There was also a Sakura festival (National Cherry Blossom Festival) attended by 300 people; it was the maximum they could get into the AGB. Next years will be on Saturday, May 9, 2020.
Mana was the MC for most of those events. She used to go to Rob's house regularly, often before these events, as it was close to her high school. They would go to a Japanese restaurant, a Japanese pub, Japanese film screenings, a drumming concert in Toronto. Rob had a number of lovely pictures of these events and finally a picture of Mana in her graduating cap and gown out of Central high school.
Rob and his wife went to Ishikawa a northwestern prefecture of Japan on the Sea of Japan close to Kaga, a hot springs resort where Mana’s mother works. They have beautiful trees which are frequently laden with masses of snow straight across the sea from Siberia, sometimes as much as a metre at a time which they protect with special tepees. They visited a quarry that was famous for producing the stone that built the national Diet building. They visited a copper mine, had a Sake tasting put on by a fourth-generation sake brewer who was able to demonstrate the extraordinary complexities of this interesting rice spirit, drunk either warm or cold, with or without food, tasting entirely different each time. Mana, at the age of 18 could not be induced to try it as the drinking age in Japan is 21, and she is a stickler for propriety. Komatsu, known to Canadians because of the industrial trucks that come from there, is where Mana attends high school. Rob and Phyllis saw the massive and beautiful spring festival floats which have much symbolism of the Buddhist and Shinto religions, carried by numerous men through the streets of each section of the city.
Manas mother is known as the Okami-san, or customer contact person at the hot springs which they visited. They also met her grandparents before catching the Bullet Train back to Tokyo. Mana left them with a lovely keepsake upon which was written in Japanese, “Memories forever at the centre of our hearts.”
Randy Reeve thanked Rob for his presentation and presented him with the customary certificate of appreciation.
Unofficially at the end of the meeting a number of the members had the chance to see and to chat, thanks to the wonders of FaceTime, with Abraham in Lima, who has just completed his first year of his B.Sc. in civil engineering in Lima. He's most of himself and very grateful to the several members of the club who have been supporting him in his studies. He’s so excited to be taking the long journey back to Amantani Island on Lake Titicaca.
Anthony Ford-Jones
