1. Land Acknowledgement was given by George Vincent.
2. Anthem was led by Lindsay James.
3. Our President Lynn proposed a Toast to King Charles III and Canada.
4. Mike Henry provided the inspiring Invocation which reminded us why we provide service to people, most of whom we will never meet.
5. Guests: Prospective members Shahrzad Aminazadeh and Nasser Ghadri were introduced by Mike Henry and Ralf Soeder respectively. Bob Dodds introduced his wife Peggy who helps in organizing aspects of the Christmas party.
6. Susan Sheppard led the Happy Bucks including questions about the Grey Cup game this year (in Winnipeg), won by the Saskatchewan Rough-riders. She asked who had shared or re-posted Facebook from Rotary Oakville’s Facebook page ; she asked who had signed up for Christmas kettle duty for the Salvation Army and who subscribed to the Oakville News that published the news about RC Oakville’s donation of $10,000 to Food for Life. A lot of us owe fines – you know who you are!!
There are some people who owe some happy bucks also:
Rod Craig - happy that its December, the start of Christmas season
Joe White – happy that he celebrated his 70th birthday in Costa Rica
Ralf Soeder – happy about the successful merger of RC Oakville West and RC Oakville
7. Announcements:
The Club Excellence Award for 2024-25 was presented to RC Oakville West, under the leadership of James Montague.
James is also the new District Asst Governor for the Oakville cluster; supporting the Presidents and President-elects. Congrats on both counts!
Ralf presented a new online means of inviting someone you know to join Rotary through the ‘Gift of Rotary’ promotional material - more details from Lynn or Ralf.
8. James Montague introduce the Guest Speaker: Anthony Cheam (author, life-coach, motivational speaker, personal trainer). Some of the highlights of Anthony’s talk follow.
- Where you will be in 2 years depends on what you read, what you listen to, who you hang out with, what you do to improve yourself
- Upgrade your health: take care of yourself so that you can care for others
- How you treat your body will determine how you perform
- Can you improve your physical, emotional, spiritual and financial health?
- 3 strategies for upgrading health: Upgrade yourself to you 2.0 ; the vessel through which we deliver our power and passion
- 1) Gratitude – explosion – everything! Gratitude = plentitude
- Feeling Gratitude means feeling abundance
- Live deep, not on the surface
- 2) Strength training/weight training: best exercise for longevity
- 3) meditation
- Too much doing and not enough being
- ‘Bi-neural beats’ will get you into delta wave meditation in 15 minutes
A question from Ralf: how do we find the motivation?
Anthony – ask yourself why? figure out the benefit you’re looking for to motivate yourself.
Lois Knepflar thanked the Speaker for his inspiring messages.
9. Recent and Upcoming Events
Online Auction is closed – successful, but no numbers to report yet.
Rotary Oakville Cluster Xmas dinner is on Dec 15 – still time to sign up – do it now!
Rotary International Convention: Taipei 13-17 June 2026; Rotary Friendship Exchange is available.
Karla is organizing the Christmas Kettle volunteers (Salvation Army) – please sign up for Dec 6 or 13.
Global Medic volunteering is happening on Dec 13 from 10 to noon – contact Mike Fisher for more details.
Fireside Chat – originally planned for Dec 9, this has postponed until January; details to follow.
Lynn – would like the members to know each other better: suggested 3-minute talks at some of our meetings? Sit at a different table – get to know someone new!
James needs volunteers to help with Special Olympic cookie order coordination, on Friday Dec 5 – please contact James and help out.
The Significant Grant decision from the RCO Foundation will be announced on Dec 15th at the Xmas party (Gary Comerford).
10. Meeting Close
Lynn led everyone in repeating the Four Way Test with a ‘Have Fun’ thrown in for good measure.
11. Lynn proposed a Toast to Friends & Rotarians Around the World
– Adjournment
