President Mitch Sabsabi called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m.
Hart Jansson gave the Land Acknowledgement
Rudy Habesch led in the singing of the National Anthem.
President Mitch proposed a toast to King George lll and Canada.
George Vincent gave the invocation.
There were 19 club members and 3 guests in attendance
Ramji Khandelwal - prospective member
Peggy Dodds
Sohail Naseer - District Governor
Announcements
Mike Henry spoke about the Oakville Rotary Golf to Give tournament on behalf of Bob Miskelly who is on vacation in Europe.
The tournament was held last Monday at Pipers Heath with 107 registered golfers. It was a beautiful day for golf with many club members playing golf and others joining for dinner. Former Toronto Argonaut, Dan Ferrone, handled the traditional live auction. Preliminary estimate is that we have netted about $34K which is almost $10k more than last year. This year we are donating 50% of the proceeds to Food4Life.
Mike thanked all the club members on the golf committee for their help, Mahendra, Rae, David, Lynn, and Sid and the members who helped to distribute the prizes at the event. He also thanked all the club members who had their businesses sponsor the tournament which was key to the success.
We have invited Food4Life and the Gold and Silver Sponsors to the October 21 meeting so that we can present the check to F4L and thank the sponsors.
The club then offer a round of applause for Bob Miskelly who ran the Tournament skillfully this year.
This years Rotary Online Auction which will be held From November 4 to November 18. Mike to handle in Bob’s absence. We have almost $8,000 in items that were raised at the same time as the golf tournament. We may be doing the wine gift baskets. We will be looking for more items and possible sponsors as well.
Mike also mentioned that the Salvation Army have contacted us about supporting the Christmas Kettle Drive this year. We have requested a Saturday at the foot of the escalator at Oakville Place. December 7 has been taken so we have asked for December 14. Lynn Childs has volunteered to coordinate on behalf of the Community Service Committee. Sign up sheet will be active in a few weeks.
The District Grant for Support House has been approved. Each of the three Oakville Clubs has contributed $5,000 to Support House for their Staircase upgrade project. Support House is charity in Oakville that operates a house for men with mental Health or substance abuse concerns.
Ralf Soeder encouraged all newer members to attend a virtual New Member orientation meeting being held by Rotary Zone 28 the following day September 24 at 7 pm. He has sent the link to a number of our recent members.
There were 17 Rotarians from Oakville and Burlington at the Global Medic event earlier this month where food was packaged for foodbanks in Nova Scotia and Jasper Alberta
The next Global Medic event is Saturday October 19 from 10 am to 12 pm.
Ralf Soeder introduced the guest speaker, District Governor Sohail Naseer
- Sohail was born in Pakistan and after completing high school, did his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, in 1979, from University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
- He joined Rotary in 1995 in Karachi, Pakistan, as he has a passion to serve as volunteer for the betterment of community. His father was also a Rotarian when he was growing up and further to that many of his family members has been in Rotary in Pakistan.
- Sohail migrated to Canada in 1996 and joined the Rotary Club, Gloucester.
- Sohail joined Milton Rotary in 2010 and became President of the Club in 2012.
- In 2014, he started his involvement in District activities and became Assistant Governor for the North Halton Cluster. In 2017, he became the Director of Finance for the District. Sohail has been involved in many club-level fundraising and community service projects, including Rotary Youth Exchange, Students Advisory and the Online Auction.
- Sohail has been involved in the PanAm Games, including fundraising activities for the
- velodrome facility constructed in Milton.
- He has also served as chair and member of the Community Advisory Board of Maplehurst Correctional Facility in Milton.
- Sohail has served as a member of the Committee of Adjustment for the Town of Milton.
- His dedication to service has been officially recognized through an Ontario Volunteer Award from the Government of Ontario.
- Professionally, Sohail is a licensed Civil Engineer. He is part of the Executive Board of the PEO (Professional Engineers Ontario), Oakville Chapter, and has served as Chair of that chapter.
Sohail was asked by President Mitch to induct for our newest club member, Karla Cabrera. Karla was inducted and received her Rotary pin and badge from Mahendra Shah. Karla thanked everyone for inviting her to join the club.
Sohail’s talk revolved around this year’s theme of the Magic of Rotary and explained that the intent was to weave community with Rotary MAGIC which is an acronym!
- M is for motivation and mentorship
- A is for action in that Rotarians are people of action
- G is generosity as Rotarians freely give their time and talent toward charitable activities
- I is for inclusion
- C is for connection to the community and that our activities should reflect the needs of our community
He mentioned the key area for him this year are
- Rotary Legacy
- Sustainable growth
- The district has lost 300 members in the past 6 years.
- His target is a net increase of 100 members this year and 4 new clubs in the district including satellite and passport clubs
- Youth engagement
- Setting up alumni clubs for former recipients of Rotary scholarships and bursaries to bring them in Rotary
- Promoting DEI
Sohail completed his talk by asking for everyone to register for the District Conference that will be held at First Ontario Arts center in Milton on Saturday, October 5.
Jean Wettlaufer called for Happy Bucks and Fines
Jean issued fines based on the attendee’s knowledge of recent Rotary activities and personnel …which wasn’t too bad!
Rudy was happy about the government announcement about $150M going to Polio eradication. Mahendra is happy as he is heading to Spain at the end of the week
Upcoming Meetings
October 7 Classification talk for Karla Cabrera
October 21 Global IT meltdown July 19 2024: causes, effect, clean-up & lessons with Jason Stitt and the presentation of a check to Food4Life
President Mitch closed the meeting at 8:18 with a toast to friends and Rotarians around the world
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