Janet has been President previously in 2007-2008. At the time, the club had only 3 women, a statistic that has changed significantly over time! Also, 50% of the Club members have been with the club 10 years or less. Janet's experience with Club and very active involvement from Day 1, is a great story of how Rotary has enriched her life, and can enrich the life of all new members. Her best advice is to "Get involved". She joined the Community Services committee and was tasked with meeting a single mom with MS, who needed her bathroom re-designed to accommodate her wheelchair. Red Cross was providing some funding, and our club funded the rest to give her a fully accessible bathroom. This is when Janet realised the difference we make in a people's lives. A huge impact, with a small simple project. Ribfest was approaching, and Janet was asked to co-ordinate the Children's day program. She began looking for entertainers, and sports/dance groups who would like to participate without much of a budget. Janet did this for many years, before moving onto volunteer coordinator, before moving into a beer tent volunteer the past few years.
Janet has been on the Board as Fundraising Chair, Director at Large, Youth (New Generations) Chair, Community Service Chair, Vice President, President Elect (2), President (2), Past President.
The 12 Days of Christmas is one of Janet's ideas, and she also coordinates the King Road School Breakfast program. Two more ways that show that even small things we do in our community make enormous impacts to the lives of those around us who are less fortunate.
Janet and First Spouse, John, have travelled to Mexico on 3 separate occasions, twice to Agua Prieta (2014, 2015), and then Tobasco in 2024. They gave out backpacks with school supplies, personal hygiene items to Seniors, stuffed animals to special needs children. And then came back and with the help of the International Committee contributed funds to help build a basketball/soccer court for an after school program. At Tobasco, they helped put together a program for a self-sustaining chicken and egg program. The eggs will be sold by the families to generate income. The Rotary Club of Villahermosa will collect a small amount of money (1 egg/farmer/day) to be reinvested into the program so that more families will be able to join later. This program was initiated by a Global Grant submitted by Burlington North, and supported by our club. More proof that small projects can help build sustainability, economic growth, and have an enormous impact in people's lives and livelihood.
Janet also attended a cleft palate operation, which is part of a Global Grant we submitted. They got to see the impact of the operation on a 10 month old child.
Janet has attended two Rotary International Conferences in Toronto in 2018, and Hamburg in 2019. These experiences allowed her to learn more about how different Rotarians around the world do things, their experiences, etc. Plus the people she travelled to Hamburg with learned a lot about each other. The next RI Conference is in Calgary in 2025, and Janet encourages all who can to go.
This year's theme is The Magic of Rotary
The magic in Rotary comes from your hard work, your passions, your dedidcation, your skills, your connections, your ideas. Each of you brings these to the table, and when these are shared, we develop friendships, projects, grants, fundraisers, and the magic starts.
Magic comes from Service above Self
- Magic to the student in Kenya who can get a high school education
- Magic to those living in a shelter to see a move under the stars
- Magic to a high school student who can participate in Adventures in Citizenship
- Magic to a youth exchange student who gets to live and learn about a new culture and make lifelong friends
- Magic to the residents of Bethany Place who now a new electric razor for shaving
- Magic to the child in Mexico who receives a cleft palate operation
- Magic to the Out of the Cold Program who received a commercial stove so they can feed the hungry in Hamilton
- Magic when the Rotary Clubs in Halton get together and pool resources to help others in Guatemala, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Uganda, and Kenya since 2016 (the MOB).
Janet's promise is keep members informed of club projects, past and present, service and volunteer opportunities, as well as what is happening in the Rotary World.
There will be Moment in the History of the Club on a regular basis.
There will be some reclassification talks from long time members, to help us all get to know each other a little better.
There will be some Fellowship opportunities such as Guess Who is Coming to Dinner and few other ideas. Any other ideas are welcome!
There will be some offsite meetings a few times this year, some ideas are Joseph Brant Museum, Feed Halton Distribution Centre, and Burlington Green. Open to other suggestions as well!
We will be working on a Vision and Strategic Plan. We hope to have all members participate in this event (further details below). This plan gives us direction, and helps the club become what you - the membership - wants it to be.
Dean will be updating the website to make it more user friendly, including upcoming activities. This will also help ensure that our Student Awards are found more easily by students looking for
awards/scholarships. We will showcase what our club is about.
Some dates to be aware of (will be reminded in the future)
- 2nd Saturday every month is food packing at Global Medic from 10-12- next one is July 13
- No meeting on August 6th
- District Governor visit September 17th
- District Conference in Mississauga October 5th
- Serving Dinner at Seniors Centre October 24th 4-7
- Serving Christmas Dinner at BurLINKton Dec 11th
- 12 Days of Christmas Dec 14th- Dec 25th
- Meeting held at Joseph Brant Museum on Feb 4th
- Rotary Anniversary Celebration Feb 25th
- Rotary International Convention in Calgary June 21-25
If you have any ideas, please feel free to share with Janet! Let's see if there is a way to make it happen! Join a committee to find one that meets your passions and skills!
We would like to implement an archive system of some type to help keep the memories of the club alive!
Vision Process - Anand
The purpose behind the Vision and Strategic Plan is to help guide the leaders of the club over the next few years, to fulfill the desires of the club members. This helps build engagement, helps with decision-making, helps define who we are as a club, and gives us a set of stories to tell.This is important as the leadership of the club changes each year, but we need to continue to work towards these goals.
The process itself is fairly straightforward. We will aim for a date in the Fall (Saturday) where we can get as many participants as possible from the club out. One of the District resources is a facilitator who will guide us through the process of finding goals, finding the things that are most critical/crucial to the club, and helping define a mission statement for the next few years for us. Then we will put together a plan, working with the committee chairs on the things we need to do to achieve these goals, then these are shared with the club. The process is refined a few times before we come upon a plan. The plan is meant to be a "living document" meaning that it can and will change over time as things do happen (Covid for example totally derailed the plan we created in 2018-2019).
IF possible we will also include the Foundation, as Angus has expressed interest in getting some Visioning done for that as well.
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