CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
The years presented many challenges and opportunities. In 1985 Rotary International under took the huge campaign to eradicate the crippling disease of polio world-wide. To get started Rotary needed a substantial amount of money and each club was asked to accept a challenging financial pledge to support the program. At the end of the meeting, on the day the challenge was presented, our members pledged more than was asked. Our contributions and support of the Polio Plus program have been constant for over thirty years. Many of our members, led by Barry and Mary Jane Howie travelled to India and Africa to vaccinate children against the disease.
We also were early supporters of Murray Dryden’s Sleeping Children around the World. Joe Vet, a charter member, went to India and Bangladesh to be part of the teams handing out bed kits to children. A program we support to this day.
The photo below is of Joe Vet.
Representatives from the Halton Woman’s Place in Milton spoke to our club about their dire situation. The shelter was over-crowded, bursting at the seams. They had received an unexpected gift of $200,000 from a will and they needed another shelter in the Oakville Burlington area. They asked for our help. The Ontario Government would support staffing if they could show ‘significant support’ from the community. We decided to make this a Rotary effort and, with strong support from our club members, led by Don Vince and George Bradley, Fern Michel and Bill Kerr, we joined our resources with Women’s Place. In six months or so $500,000 was raised from Rotary clubs in Halton and work began on a new shelter to serve abused women in Burlington and Oakville. Our continuing support of manpower and money also helped to get a new shelter built in Milton.
Our Norma Gamble got the idea for a project called ‘Second Stage Housing’. Its goal was to provide a place where the women and their children could get a new start when they leave Halton Women’s Place. We took on the task of collecting and storing furnishings and supplies to completely set up apartments. A key part of the project was a commitment to paint and decorate the apartment in the colours the new tenant would like to have. One day, Don Vince, who once ran a summer student painting group, was painting an apartment and a son of the woman who was going to move in asked Don, “Why are you doing this?” Don, taken back by the question, said “why do you ask? The boy replied, “Because nobody does anything for us”.
The photo below is of Norma Gamble.
One cannot mention Don Vince (President ’91-92) without including his report on one of our famous disasters.
“The plan was to hold a concert of Police Choirs across the region. The plan was to use the proceeds to support programs run in Toronto by Ron Satok, a Blind Artist. A job description that should have placed us on alert. [Ron had spoken to the club at a meeting about his programs. He wore dark Ray-Ban sun glasses; his most memorable words were “I can feel the love in this room.”] By small steps everything went awry, Murphy’s Law prevailed and whatever could go wrong went wrong. At the Blind Artist’s suggestion it was agreed that Theatrical students from Toronto would do presentations between performances of the Police Choirs.
The choirs and performers arrived, but almost no one else came. Ten minutes after show time, with the front row almost full, we decided we’d better start. The first Police Choir started with a rendition of uplifting, cheery songs, celebrating everything that is good in life, immediately followed by one of the student theatrical presentation of a “time to be born”, which consisted of a lone woman, screaming on a darkened stage, doing a very grim, and somewhat shocking, representation of giving birth.
This was followed by several more bouts of musical cheeriness from the Police Choirs, separated by further eye-popping, gut-wrenching theatrics. It was kind of like going to a movie theatre and being treated to scenes from “Mary Poppins”, interspersed with “The Exorcist”.
The experience inspired Don Vince to come up with five rules.
Rule #1 - If you are going to have a Fund-raiser, do a little research.
Rule #2 - The KISS rule, Keep it simple stupid.
Rule #3 - Don’t kid yourself.
Rule #4 - Don’t kid yourself.
Rule #5 - If the fundraiser is a flop, don’t let Mike Vokes know about it.
[Rule #5 was because Mike (President 88-89) on every possible occasion, kept the memory of the disaster alive by donning dark glasses and saying, “I can feel the love in the room.”]
The photo below is of Don Vince.
