Rotary Club of Oakville meeting Monday May 4, 2020
President Rod opened the meeting at 7:00 pm. He then welcomed three guests – Peggy Dodds, District Governor Lesley Barmania, and RCO prospect Viv Naidoo as well as the 24 members who were present for the meeting.
President Rod then proposed a toast to the Queen and Canada.
Judy Warrington presented a very innovative invocation with many surprises in it.
President Rod then asked for reports:
Michael Conway announced that he had been asked to assist Trafalgar Rotary Club on an initiative to raise funds through returning wine and beer bottles to the Beer Store. He offered to pick up any bottles from members after 3 pm on Tuesday May 5 and deliver them to the Beer Store.
President Rod announced that George Farrow joined Rotary May 6 1961, and recently celebrated his 86th birthday.
George Farrow announced that the Annual General Meeting of the RCO Foundation will be the subject of our next meeting on Monday May 25. 3 new Directors will be appointed for a three year period and 1 new Director will be appointed for a 1 year period.
The next item on the agenda was the induction of new member Riona Naidu. Her husband Viv took the place of her sponsor to place her Rotary pin on her apparel since it would have been difficult for the sponsor who was respecting social distancing. Asked if she would like to say a few words, Riona commented that she had looked at several Rotary Clubs and decided that the Rotary Club of Oakville was the most active with projects and she wanted to make a difference. She then stated that her husband Viv would soon be applying to join the club. She thanked everyone in the Club for her warm welcome, even though we are all practicing social distancing during the Covid-19 lockdown.
President Rod then asked new member Mitch Sabsadi to present his Classification speech. Mitch started by telling us that his professional career started in his final year of high school when he joined a real estate brokerage firm as an administrator. He started a construction company in 2016 and moved to “restructure operations” in 2019 and assumed a construction project management role in 2019 working for Mohawk College. He then introduced us to two different approaches to project management, one called “Waterfall” and the other called “Agile.” He commented that Waterfall is less flexible than Agile if you run into roadblocks. Waterfall will deliver on the planned results but Agile will adapt to changes in the plans.
He finds the Job rewarding because he enjoys engaging with clients to provide concepts, help them envision the solutions to their challenge and develop retrofit plans that serves their needs. He enjoys leading a team of professionals and problem-solving challenges as they arise and delivering projects under budgets and holding contractors accountable. Difficulties with Mohawk arise through the College decision process and accounting fiscal end year challenges.
He then outlined the Standard Practices, Ethical issues, project management characteristics and changes in technology affecting the Project Management business. He gave a quick summary of salary ranges for project managers and job opportunities, particularly in IT, Educational requirements and offered advice for young people entering the field.
Rudy Habesh then introduced our guest speaker, District Governor Lesley
Lesley gave us historical details of the Rotary International Foundation “Doing Good in the World”. She told us that the first Rotary Outreach job was the construction of a comfort station in Chicago in 1907. About 1914 Rotarian Arch Klumph proposed building an emergency fund to enable the club to do good things in future years. In 1917 at the Annual Convention in Atlanta Arch proposed an endowment for the purpose of doing good in the world. In 1930 the Foundation awarded its first grant of $500. It was awarded to the “International Society for Crippled Children” – now known as “Easter Seals.”
In the early 1940s contributions were made for World War II relief efforts. Paul Harris died in 1947 and during the next 18 months Rotarians contributed $1 million in his memory. In that same year the Rotary Foundation launched its first program “Scholarships for International Graduate Studies.” In that year 18 men won scholarships. In 1951 Arch Klumph died as the fund approached a total of $3 million. In 1965 three more programs were launched: “Group Study Exchange,” “Special Grants” (later called Matching Grants and “Awards for Technical Training.” In 1978 the “Health, Hunger, and Humanity (3-H)” program was created. In 1979, as its first 3-H project, Rotary began to immunize more than six million children in the Philippines against polio project. During 1979 and the early 1980’s Rotary launched a series of polio immunization campaigns around the world. In 1985 Rotary introduced PolioPlus – the first effort to immunize every child in the world with polio vaccine. By 1985 the PolioPlus campaign had raised almost $ 220 million. In 1999 the Rotary Peace Centres were founded and the first class of Rotary Peace Fellows began their studies in the fall of 2002. In 2009 Rotary partnered with USAID to launch the international “H2O Collaboration” to improve drinking water, sanitation and hygiene.
Lesley then provided details of the inner workings of the District and Global Grants of the RI Foundation, the three different sections of the Foundation – Polio Plus Fund, Endowment Fund and Annual Fund.
Lesley then talked about the Butterfly Effect, how a small action/donation can start change and make a positive effect on the world, suggesting that any contribution to the RI Foundation was very important. Finally she gave us a quote from Goethe telling about the effectiveness of Commitment, and advised us that Rotarians are people of action.
Her penultimate slide told us that: “Together, we see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change —across the globe, in our communities, and in ourselves.”
President Rod thanked the speaker, advising Lesley that the Club will make a donation to PolioPlus on her behalf. She commented that the donation would be well received.
President Rod then proposed a toast to Rotarians and friends around the world and closed the meeting.
