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IN THE BEGINNING 
A brief history of the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar
Chartered, September 22, 1978
K. James S. Campbell
 
In the beginning
 
Our history club began well before the charter night banquet, September 22, 1978. Meetings of the new Rotarians had been going since March of ’78. Our sponsor, the Rotary Club of Oakville, encouraged by the leaders of the district 709, set in motion a plan to start a second club in town early in 1977.  District 709 included clubs in New York State, in and around Buffalo, and across the border in Ontario, along the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. There were almost an equal number of clubs on each side of the border.
 
 
Their robust rendition of O Canada often surprised others lunching at Hearthside – should the customers stand, sing along, or simply shake their heads in wonder.
 
 
The first step was to find a member of the Oakville Club to be “Mr. Rotary” to recruit possible members, explain about Rotary and help in organizing meetings. Jimmy Duncan, a past President of the Rotary Club of Oakville, volunteered to be “Mr. Rotary”. No one could have been better equipped. Jimmy was a great Rotarian, a gentleman. He owned a hardware store specializing in the needs of contractors. In his shop, in a prominent place, he posted Rotary’s 4 Way test, his guide in life and business. Three members, Bill Barnes, John Glen and Frank Rice from the Oakville Club planned to move to the new Club.
 
 
The group met for lunch in a semi private corner of the Hearthside Restaurant, Dunn and Church Streets, downtown Oakville, at noon on Thursdays. Under Jimmy Duncan’s capable hands, they started to operate as a club, with a president and a board.
 
Early in 1978, Jimmy reported to the Oakville Club, the new group was meeting regularly, Bill Barnes was the President. They would be ready to be chartered in the fall.
 
The photo below is of founding President Bill Barnes.
 
The date was set for the Charter night, September 23rd, 1978; Jim Campbell, President elect of the Oakville Club led the planning committee for the evening.  The new club’s name was set, “The Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar”.  The Media Room at the new Glen Abby Golf Club was booked; invitations went to all clubs in the district; Charlie Fogel, a past District Governor, a professor at the University of Buffalo, and a Director of Rotary International, agreed to be our speaker. Requests for tickets for the dinner and gifts to the new club flowed in. A week before the dinner, there was a scramble to accommodate fifty percent more people than expected!  
 
 
We were blessed in 2003, at the club’s 25th Anniversary, to once again have Charlie Fogel return as our speaker. In 2013 all members received a commemorative mug for the 35th Anniversary.
           
It was a great evening. Oakville’s Mayor, Harry Barrett, brought greetings The Charter was presented to Bill Barnes, the President of Oakville Trafalgar; twenty two Charter Members were introduced by Terry Williams, District Governor; and Charlie Fogel’s address pointed out the opportunities in Rotary to make a difference in our communities and in the world.   An impressive number of gifts from clubs in the district were presented.  It was a night to remember.
 
Bill Barnes, the new President, said the club’s first priority was to recruit more members.
 
{See Appendix 1 for the list of charter members and their classifications, and also the first executive}
 
The picture below is of the initial club in 1978.
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TRADITIONS
To begin, to understand the history of the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar (RCOT), it is best to take note of a few traditions that go back to our very first days, when the ink on the new charter was barely dry.
 
The club adopted the challenge to become one of the leading clubs in our district in generously supporting Rotary’s International Foundation.
 
While taking seriously our commitment to serve others – youth, community, and international service – the record shows we’ve never taken ourselves too seriously. Every meeting is blessed by a lot of teasing and laughter. Meetings are always a refreshing break from the stresses and challenges of the workaday world.
 
What may be the most durable of our traditions is, year in and year out, Bill Kerr (one of our charter members) arrives late for our meetings. His priceless comment, one day when he arrived a bit earlier than usual, “I see we are still singing O Canada!”  (Slight correction: When he was president [85-86] he was never late!)
 
The photo below is of Bill Kerr.
 
We’ve always been ready to try new things. We were one of the first clubs in our Rotary District to induct women into Rotary. We also found ourselves (2013) being the frontrunner in a new style of organizing and managing international projects. Gathering support from 26 other clubs, with matching grants, we raised $459,000.00 (US) to put water and sanitation facilities into two villages in Uganda.
 
When a decision is made to move forward on a matter everyone gets behind the endeavour. We’ve never had an occasion when we had factions or groups or lobbies wishing to subvert a decision because they do not agree with it. Pulling together is a product of the friendship and trust that develops when members are in the club for the right reasons, Service above Self.
 
Okay, now we can get started.
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EVOLUTION
In writing this history the plan was to gather information from all the past-presidents of the club (nearly 40).  Thankfully many replied; however the vast majority of them confessed they had difficulty in remembering the highlights of their year as club president. It is not because they suffered from memory loss or because little happened in their year. It is because of the way Rotary works. New ventures, changes and challenges, always overlap the terms of more than one president, often three or four presidents and boards involved in the planning and execution of service projects and fundraising, The presidents are also aware the story of the club is about what the members accomplish year in and year out, about the way the club evolves year over year.
 
{For a list of all the Presidents since 1978 see Appendix 2.} 
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FIRSTS AND FOOLISHNESS
 
The club continued to meet at the Hearthside Restaurant, (now the Queen’s Head). It was a time of firsts: the club’s first major project was the building of a Picnic Shelter in Coronation Park., and Clifford Deathe started building his 38 year record of perfect attendance; David Dunn, raconteur par excellence, with his English sense of humour, marked everyone’s birthday with a ditty or a poem, often with the help of Bob Blades’ poetical skills, it was one of the ways he devised to raise money for the Foundation. 
 
The photo below is of Bob Blades.
 
Rotary District 709 included clubs in the Buffalo Niagara region of New York State and an equal number on our side of the border. As it was a tradition, to build cross border friendship, each club was twinned with a club across the border. RCOT was twinned with Amherst South and yearly we’d host them at one of our meetings and we’d hire a bus to visit them. On one return journey, after a good time and a few libations, it was decided that one of our members, Cam Taylor – Minister of Knox Church – needed more education. With this incentive, when the bus arrived back in Canada it took a detour in Niagara Falls to an establishment that specializing in displaying the wonders of the female anatomy.  No detailed report on the effectiveness of this educational experience was forthcoming from Cam.
 
Well we were young. Further evidence of that was manifest in the reputation we had in the District as the club that threw buns at each new president starting in office, and at the District Governor when he made his annual visit. This custom, instituted and managed by Basil Markow’s creative mind, also produced a trophy for Fine Master of the Year. It was a white toilet seat suitably engraved and presented each year. The winners always managed to store it in a deep dark place. Gay McDermott, our first female president, who won the award, managed to ‘lose’ it. As president, Gay also ended our ‘bun throwing’ as silly and undignified. Here’s Bill Kerr’s comments on our bun tossing, “Women do not understand that it’s a “guy thing” to bring people down a notch lest they become ‘too big for their britches’ as they used to say. You may be president or district governor but remember you are still one of us.”
 
The picture below is of our first female President Gay McDermott.
 
When Rotary’s International Conference was held in Toronto Basil picked up some visiting Rotarians to bring them to Oakville. He told them to look in the hotel lobby for someone wearing a sign that said Meatloaf. 
 
Money was raised by running Bingo in the eye watering smoke filled Bingo Hall; the saving grace of the evening was to gather afterwards for beer and pizza. There was also an annual Art Auction held in the Glen Abby Golf Club conference room. It was successful for a few years; that is until all the members had their walls filled with pictures! We also had successful Sports Celebrity Dinners for dads and their sons until the locker-room humour, fueled by a few drinks, tended to get out of hand,
 
By the way, Basil Markow, perhaps in an attempt to keep the cost of lunch low, initiated the “Great Meat Loaf Contest” and for twenty two meetings in a row we were served a different meatloaf for lunch. While the Hearthside did not run out of new recipes we ran out of patience.
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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 cameTen 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. 
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WELCOME LADIES
Which brings us to one of the great steps forward for the club. In 1978, the year our club was chartered, the Rotary Club of Duarte, California, admitted three women into membership. It was contrary to the constitution of Rotary and the club’s charter was withdrawn. The three women members and the Duarte Club took the matter to court. Following ten years of litigation, in 1987, the United States Supreme Court ruled that woman should be allowed to be members of Rotary.
 
The Rotary International Board, probably with a sigh of relief, immediately took actions that would, in the following year, change Rotary’s constitution and set in place a process to adjust all documents to remove any wording that might be interpreted as referring to men only. They also encouraged clubs to actively recruit women members. Our Board decided we should take the lead to actively recruit women to be members of the club.
 
Needless to say, some members were not too happy with that decision and declared they would leave the club if women joined; and, later, true to their word, they did.  Others were concerned that, to accommodate the sensitivities of women members, we’d have to curb the competitive banter that added light and laughter to our meetings,
 
We soon discovered it was actually easier to agree to have women Rotarians than it was to recruit women to join. President Jim Ayers wisely insisted that we needed to begin by inducting two strong women to be the pioneers, who would support one another. The search was on.
 
Gay took on the job of being the first woman to be our president. She applied her sharp wit and organizational skills and never tired of saying she had to keep “you fellows” in line. Her quick wit served her well. When she was fine master she often began with; “Are you awake Ron? Jim, you’ll love this one. Behave yourself Billy.”  Usually her jokes were from the latest Readers’ Digest, which added to the laughter.
           
On April 20th, 1990 two women were inducted: Jenny Amy, a Library Consultant, and, Gay McDermott, Vice President of Nursing, Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital. It all went smoothly; although, later, Jenny reported that, while she felt welcome, one of our past presidents made a point, on the day they joined, that he’d voted against having women members.  Jim Ayres was right, we had recruited two great ladies, who quickly became stellar members and paved the way for the many women who followed their path. 
 
The club adjusted so well that we had great fun when we threw a baby shower for Kristin Baird. As far as we can tell it was a first for Rotary.  Oh, yes, the two members did resign. One of them, Barry Kay rejoined the club and soon afterward his daughter became a member.
 
The photo below is some of the club ladies in 2013.
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CONNECTIONS, CONNECTIONS
To Rotary the word International is more than an acknowledgement that we have clubs all over the world. It is about people linking with people, it is promoting understanding and webs of connections.
 
The photo below is of Bill Dodds an ardent supporter of the youth exchange program.
 
One of the ways this is expressed is the Student Exchange Program. The program gives young people, before their last year in High School, the opportunity to spend a year in a foreign land learning about that country, its culture, language, customs and history. Students are hosted by Rotary Clubs and attend school. We have been participating in the program since 1989 when we hosted Annette Helm from Sweden. For every student we host we send a student from Oakville abroad. We’ve had students from, and sent students to, places like Japan, France, Finland, Australia, Austria, Germany, Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa, Italy, and many more. 
 
Creating life changing connections is important.
 
We also connected by Group Study Exchange teams from other countries who we have hosted for one week of their monthly visit to our district. The teams consist of six people in the early stages of their careers.  We’ve hosted visits from Rotary Districts in Argentina, France and Austria. The teams learn about business, governments, customs and culture. We stretched our budget when we took the team from Argentina to see the Phantom of the Opera. Norma Gamble was 7080’s team leader for a group from our district that visited Austria.  
 
When Tristan Naylor was a youngster his father got him involved in our fundraising events and social events. He always worked hard and so impressed the club that he was awarded a Paul Harris Fellowship in 2001 when he was seventeen.
 
We have also had the honour to have nominated two Ambassadorial Scholars to do post graduate studies abroad. Tristan Naylor to study at Oxford University and Megan Wanless to study at Edinburgh University in Scotland. These scholarships, funded by Rotary International’s Foundation, are designed to broaden the student’s experience and understanding. Each scholar is encouraged to be an ambassador of Rotary and their country.  We are honoured to have Dianna Dinevski, a member of our club, who was an Ambassadorial Scholar to Italy from Oakville.
 
The only member teased for having an accent is Desmond Jordan, who has probably travelled in more countries than any of us, but has never lost his lovely Scottish accent.
 
Connections, connections. We have members from South Africa, India, China, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Holland Jamaica and France.  Scouting out possible projects, vaccinating children against polio, seeing the results of projects, building schools have taken our members to places like Mexico, Brazil, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, etc. We never forget the importance of on-the-ground, face-to-face contacts that link people together and enrich our lives.  Our connections with people from all over the world is solidified when our members attend the annual Rotary’s International Assembly. It is a place to meet and share personal and Rotary stories and experiences, a place where lasting connections are made. 
 
When Ian Ferguson took office as Governor, honouring his Scottish heritage and his ability to address the haggis in Gaelic, several members of the club turned up in kilts and tartans.
 
The photo below is of Past District Governor  Barry Howie.
 
Our connection with the wide world of Rotary was greatly enhanced when Barry Howie (2000-01) and Ian Ferguson (2012-13) became District Governors. We were proud to have them represent our club in the district and were ‘mostly’ pleased as they continually brought us up to date on the opportunities available to us as part of Rotary’s worldwide fellowship. Barry never missed an opportunity to speak on the challenges and successes of the Polio Plus vaccination program. In his year he also led the charge to establish a centre in South America where teachers would take courses on teaching and promoting literacy. Ian’s emphasis in his term was on how fellowship and training were the keys to the strength and effectiveness of Rotary. He has continued this work as he has become deeply involved with Rotary’s leadership training projects. An important task in an organization where all our officers change every year.
 
The photo below is of past District Governor Ian Ferguson.
 
In our district, the governor’s home club has the ‘honour’ of organizing and running the annual District Conference which are mainly supposed to be all about business and inspiration. Organizing a conference is a year-long project. However, as one might expect, the importance of fellowship and fun our club cannot be denied. Here’s Trish Peden’s memory from 2001.
 
"Once upon a time there was a Rotary District Conference. The Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar, being the pleasant folks they are, participated in two ways.
 
First, there was the award winning, action packed, popular RCOT Hospitality Suite!!!
 
Second, was the RCOT song & dance number in the evening entertainment show! There was a Gendarme, a Cook, a Soldier, a construction worker among others, and also a French Maid [guess who]....feather duster and all! The object was to dust low as the gendarme swung high, to dust high as the construction guy hammered low, etc. as the song was being sung. Very funny, very entertaining!
 
After the show, the French Maid had to go to her room to change for the Hospitality Suite. As it turns out, she was alone in the elevator just holding her feather duster, minding her own business, when a young gentleman entered the elevator. Well, didn't he look the French Maid up and down, raised one eyebrow and inquired..."How much?"  Seemingly unperturbed, the French Maid countered with.... Wait for it.... “You couldn't afford me!"
 
The photo below is of Trish Peden winning the weekly 50/50 draw.
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THE BIG THREE
We have a short answer when people ask us what we Rotarians do: “We raise money and then give it all away helping people and communities in need.” Every dollar raised is given away. [The expenses of running our club, supporting the district and Rotary International, is covered by the yearly dues of members.] Sadly no one has kept accurate records but our best calculation is we have raised and spent at least one and a half million dollars to this time (2017). [Our members’ contributions to the Rotary International Foundation are separate; by 2009 our donations to the Foundation – from when the club was founded – was over $250,000.00 US]
 
             
For years we operated with three hard working committees that spend the money; International Service, Community Service and New Generations. Each gets to spend about one third of the money raised. It is difficult work, as the needs are always greater that our resources, hard decisions have to be made.
 
 
One low key ongoing project is a program to rescue clothing, shoes and boots, being removed from stock in stores like Marks and Winners. Our Bag Lady, Kathy Scantlebury, collects the bags, sorts it all, and organizes its distribution to homeless shelters, missions, refugees, and to “in from the cold” churches.  Some of it makes its way to places in Africa and Mexico! This year the estimated value of all the rescued clothing is $126,500!   When Kathy was president (2002-03), while there were many lighthearted jokes about her being height challenged, she was quickly supplied with a stool for the podium. Tiny but mighty.
 
 
Community Service Committee have given money when food banks were in need, sent disadvantaged young people to summer camps, and made multiyear commitments to Halton Woman’s Place, Oakville Trafalgar Hospital, to the YMCA. For years, in partnership with Acclaim Health, the committee organises a Strawberry Social for seniors visited by Acclaim’s volunteers.  2017 will mark the 29th year we’ve run the social. Each year we discover it is the only time some of the seniors get out all year. The committee regularly hosts community dinners at the Kerr Street Mission. We’ve supported Ian Anderson House, Big Brothers and Big Sisters and their after school homework project. There’s the apartments we equipped for women leaving the women’s shelter; and we’ve supplied wheelchairs to people. We’ve done a lot since we built the picnic shelter in Coronation Park… well the list runs on and on.
 
Verna Andrews (president 2007-08) reported that in her year the Community Service committee supported eight major community initiatives, from drug and alcohol prevention school programs to supporting the Fairshare Food Bank. Checking the records showed that it was a typical year for the committee. Proof that the committee always strives to do whatever it can to make people’s lives a little better, our community a bit stronger.
 
The photo below is of Verna Andrews.
 
International Service Committee has kept us deeply involved with Rotary’s Polio Plus Program, with the other clubs in Oakville and the Zenon Corporation, installed water filtration plants in Africa. We funded libraries in India; supported Aids programs in Africa, and Health Fairs around the world; and, thanks to Verna Andrews (president 2001-02) we took a strong lead in the world wide effort to eliminate land mines. We also adopted a whole village; supported building schools in far off places and literacy programs in India and South America.
 
 
The work of the committee was so impressive, the people at Rotary International invited Claire Conway to explain how the system works at the International Convention in 2016.
 
 
As mentioned earlier, with the leadership of June Oliver, we undertook a massive project to provide water and sanitation systems in two villages in Uganda. With solar powered pumps and piping and separate latrines for girls and boys the quality of life for everyone was improved.  Working closely with our fellow Rotarian in Kampala a comprehensive program was devised, involving health education, the planting of trees and a system to collect methane gas for cooking. The project took years from planning to execution, there were complications in dealing with fluctuating currencies, new application process in Rotary, and many challenges keeping connected with plans and progress in Africa. It is all working, it is a marvel. When our members visited the villages they were surrounded by love and laughter and people full of hope. The world is vast, the needs unending, yet every step forward marks the way to a better future.
 
The photo below is of one of the washrooms built as part of the Ugandan WASH project with Claire Conway, June Oliver and Jennifer Kay
 
 
New Generations, is the committee that helps young people, a long time interest in Rotary. Each year we send students to a weeklong stay at RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Award), to Camp Enterprise where students learn how business works. The committee looks after our Student Exchange program preparing students to go off for a year and looking after the ones who come to Oakville, and arranging for host families.  It is an educational experience for the students, the host families and for the club. Stuff happens: one girl, I believe she was from Australia, was hit in the mouth with a puck while watching a hockey game. Thankfully one of our members was a dentist who fixed her up.  Over the years we’ve seen female Japanese students who arrive very shy and reserved, slowly but surely became adventuresome and outgoing. 
 
A program that has grown year after year is our bursary program designed to help students graduating from high school who have the desire and the marks to take on postsecondary education but need financial help to get started. There’s an application process; interviews are held at the schools to select the students. Working with other clubs with similar programs the selected students and a parent are invited to a banquet where the award certificates are presented.  For each student a payment of $2,000.00 is sent to the student’s chosen school to go for tuition.  But, while it is wonderful to see all the proud students and parents we are aware there are always more worthy students than we can help.
 
The photo below is of the recipients in 2017.
 
 In 2016 we added a fourth Committee, the Indigenous Committee, through which we provide funds to help aboriginal students from remote settlements to attend Laurentian University, to  equip them to provide expertise and leadership in their home communities.
 
In the photo below is Stepfanie Johnston the first recipient of the Rotary Indigenous Scholarship with Cliff Thompson and Claire Conway.
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ALL HANDS ON DECK
Needless to say, to do all these things we need to raise quite a bit of money.  It takes a lot of planning and hard work for all the members of the club. There are the times when we need “all hands on deck.” Often we need the help of our families, friends and volunteers to be successful. As much as we can we try to make sure our fundraising projects give value for money and also serve the community.
 
What is probably not as obvious is that in working our shifts adds to the strength of the club as we meet and work together. We are also aware that there are times when Murphy’s law comes into play and everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Torrential rains are hard to manage when you are running an outdoor beer garden in a park or a RibFest in a parking lot. No matter what, rain or shine, some best memories and closest friendships are cemented as we work together. It helps to keep in mind all the good that will be possible with the money raised.
 
 
Bruce Heslip (president 2000-01) came up with the idea that selling maple syrup would be a good fundraiser. So he (we) ordered a truck load of syrup from Quebec. There were cases and cases of syrup.  It took years to sell, ‘get rid’ of it all. For years, whenever we inducted a new member we presented them with a case of syrup to sell.
 
 
As the years have moved by the club has found many new fund raising projects to meet the changing demographics of Oakville, to increase our revenue, and to replace programs that have, for one reason or another, run their course.  We’ve had Art Auctions, Sport Celebrity Dinners, a Trip of the Month lottery, ran Bingos, sold Roses for Thanksgiving, ran the beer concession at the Waterfront Festival, mounted Dragon Boat Races, and a TV Auction that morphed in time to be an Internet Auction, and manage The Annual Oakville Family Ribfest. That’s only a partial list, but, as you can see, we always need to plan for the future  
 
 
One night Bill Kerr was an auctioneer on camera when an electric lawnmower donated by Oakville Hydro was up for bidding. The bids on the mower were low so Bill, to promote interest on the mower, said Ron Noonan, manager of Hydro, a fellow Rotarian, would cut the winning bidder’s lawn. It failed to get a higher bid; it went at bargain price. Ron Noonan saw an opportunity to tease Bill. At the next club’s next meeting he generated much laughter castigating Bill for failing to get a proper price for the mower. For the next two or three years, no matter what the topic was being discussed, he managed to remind the club and Bill about the mower.
 
 
All of which brings another memory of Ron Noonan. One year when the TV Auction ended there was a picture of a nude woman painted on velvet that was unsold! It was outstandingly ugly. Ron decided we should auction it off at one of our meetings. Before the meeting that day he took Dave Meyers aside and told him it was going to be hard to sell the painting and would Dave open the bidding at $25.00? He agreed. When Ron called for bids Dave said $25.00. Instantly Ron said SOLD.
 
 
Quite often what seems simple ideas turn out to be very complicated. The TV auction was a case in point. We needed a truck to run from the warehouse to the studio, many items were photographed and had to be keyed in at the right moment, all the while shifts of amateur Rotarian auctioneers were on camera promoting bids on the products and in the back room bids were coming in by telephone and winning bidders were being notified.  It was hectic but it was fun.  The secret of our success is that we have in the club people with a wide range of skills and talents who are willing to take on something new. Joe Vet, who used to own a florist shop downtown, led the club in packing and selling Roses. Bill and Lisa Dodd, who were art dealers down town, got us connected with the people who organized art auctions.
 
One of the biggest and most complicated is the Oakville Family Ribfest. After three years of investigation and planning the first RibFest was held in June, 2011. Calm, cool and collected Trish Peden, (President 1998-99) chaired the committee for years through all the challenges.  Sheridan College’s parking lot facing Trafalgar Road was a perfect location, sponsors were recruited, site plans were made, advertising plans developed, permits of all kinds were gathered, music groups needed to be booked, and major plans for recruiting volunteers and recycling were created, 24 hour security set up…  A Ribfest is an “all hands on deck” event. From setting up to taking down it is essentially a week on the ground, with three hectic days on the weekend.
 
The photo below show the Ribfest site in June 2016.
There is no doubt that fundraising is important in Rotary.  We also hope that, in our fundraising endeavours, we provide the citizens of our Town with quality enjoyable events and our sponsors and contributors with exposure that benefits them.
 
For us, in the end, it is not about money, it is about what the money can do. It lets us present a handicapped person with a wheel chair, to gives a student a financial boost starting college, it lets us send young people to summer camp and others to programs that train in leadership and how business works. It means we can support libraries in India and run community dinners at the Kerr St. Mission. It means that there are hosts of children worldwide, who, because they were vaccinated, will not be crippled for life by polio.
And so, most years, we usually have around three different fundraising programs on the go and we are always looking at other ways of earning money.
 
It is not magic, it is hard work that produces magical results.
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WEEK BY WEEK, YEAR BY YEAR
We are a club, we elect officers, we meet every week at noon on Thursdays, we keep minutes, have a treasurer, have a foundation with a charitable number, have RIOTS, our monthly newsletter; all that important club stuff.  From the reports of our past presidents, every six or seven years we pause, catch our breath and spend a lot of time and effort reviewing how we are doing. Are our programs meeting our goals? Are we following the club’s constitution and bylaws and practices? It is a way to renew our commitment and engagement with our community and the world.  The district has come up with a name for this process, Visioning. We always thought we were just getting our act together.
 
We’ve held our lunch meeting in various venues over the years. Starting at Hearthside we have met at the Holiday Inn (When it was at the northeast corner of Trafalgar and the QEW), The Oakville Club, The Town Restaurant on Speers, Otello’s and now at Le Dome Banquet Hall on the North Service Road. In Ashok Kochhar’s year as president (2006-07) we moved our venue three times.
 
In all the changes, from the beginning to the end, Rotary is not about places and things, it it’s about a group of people genuinely concerned about service and making life better for others.  It is about working together and enjoying each other’s company.
 
 
When all else fails we can always tease John Kubacki about his full head of hair and his singing; and we can rely on Ray Jackson’s quick comebacks and Bent Fink-Jensen’s pearls of wisdom. Comments about Captain Dave Meyer’s boats, Jeff Parker’s warm Alberta charm and Denyse Tyndall’s crush on Elvis… well we’re not likely to run out of the laughter that has enriched our fellowship all these Thursdays at noon. 
 
 
We are serious in our work and equally determined that our luncheon meetings should be a relief, a break from the pressures of our working days. We laughed as Linda Devitt presented the annual Male Chauvinist awards; at George Stern’s priceless Elvis impersonations; Bill Dodd and Bob Mitchell acting out a Bob and Ray routine from radio in the fifties; Jay Lockwood in drag walking confidently in high heels; Ken Coulter dressed up as a Russian babushka, beard and all, with Jim Wilson translating his words into English; the visits of Santa and his elves giving their reports on whether we all have been naughty or nice; there are the Prophesies and Woes of the Prophet Nairator; and, of course, we never found out what Jennifer Loker did that caused so many members to pay out Happy Bucks! We don’t want to forget Bill Koopman’s birthday when Verna Andrews mimicked Marilyn Monroe’s breathless “Happy Birthday Mr. President”; and Bob Ruton’s painfully slow paced comments and announcements.
 
Below is a photo of Bob Ruton.
 
With all the years, all the boards, all the contributions made by our members, writing our history is like walking through a field of landmines. I am sure there are stories untold, unsung heroes and many incidents and events overlooked.  There is an old saying “When all is said and done, more is said than done.” With Rotary we reverse that adage: ”more is done than said.”
 
To be continued…
 
 
 
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APPENDIX ONE - CHARTER MEMBERS
Charter Members Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar
 
Arnold C. Austin – Office Supplies Retailing
William C. Barnes – Telephone Service
Robert F. Blades – Fuel Oil Distribution
John F. Caird – Insurance Casualty
N.H. Clifford Deathe – Men’s Clothing retailing
David Dunn – Custom Brokerage
Ian Foster – Education, Public Schools
Gordon E. Glenn – Accounting Service
Dan Harris – Drugs Retailing
K. Michael Hickey – Gemology
Cyril Joseph Kelly – Banking
William B. Kerr – General Law Practice
William Leonard – Gov’t Admin. – Health
John MacDonald – Automobile Battery Services
R. Malcolm Nourse – Automotive Retailing
 
 
 
 
 
 
1st Executive 1978 -79
President, Bill Barnes
Vice President, Malcolm Nourse
Secretary, Gordon Glen
 Treasurer, Cyril Kelly
Club Service, Malcolm Nourse
International Service, Cam Taylor
Vocational Service, Dan Rozzel
Community Service,  John Caird 
 
 
 
John S. Smith – Financial Services
R. Campbell Taylor – Christianity, Protestant
Frank Tonello – Banking, Additional Active
Joseph Vet – Flowers Retailing
Hans Peter Zulauf – Insurance, Fir
B. Francis Rice – Christianity, Protestant
Daniel R.B. Roszell – Dentistry
Edward Pearce – Salvation Army
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APPENDIX TWO - PRESIDENTS
PRESIDENTS ROTARY CLUB OF OAKVILLE TRAFALGAR, 1978 - 2019
 
William C. Barnes                  1978 – 79
 
R. Malcolm Nourse                 1979 – 80
 
Ian Foster                             1980 – 81
 
David Dunn                           1981 – 82
 
R. Campbell Taylor                 1982 – 83
 
Ralph A. McCormick               1983 – 84
 
Basil R. Markow                      1984 – 85
 
William B. Kerr                       1985 – 86
 
David C. Cook                         1986 – 87
 
William H. Dodd                     1987 – 88
 
Michael C. Vokes                    1988 – 89
 
James A. Ayres                      1989 – 90
 
Paul J. Henderson                   1990 – 91
 
Donald H. Vince                      1991 – 92
Robert B. Walker                    1992 – 93
 
Robert L. Mitchell                   1993 – 94
 
George D. Bradley                  1994 – 95
 
Barry Howie                            1995 – 96
 
Gabrielle McDermott                1996 – 97
 
James W. Wilson                     1997 – 98
 
Trish Peden                             1998 – 99
 
Peter Zulauf                            1999 - 00
 
Bruce Heslip                            2000 – 01
 
John Kubacki                           2001 – 02
 
Kathy Scantlebury                   2002 – 03
 
Jim Campbell                          2003 – 04
 
Linda Spalding                         2004 – 05
 
Steve Chang                            2005 – 06
 
Ashok Kochhar                        2006 – 07
 
Verna Andrews                       2007 – 08 
 
Ian Ferguson                           2008 – 09
 
Mike Radford                          2009 – 10
 
George Dlugosh                      2010 – 11
 
Brian Simpson                         2011 – 12
 
Ray Jackson                             2012 – 13
 
Bill Koopman                           2013 – 14
 
Ron Salem                               2014 - 15
 
Ken Coulter                             2015 – 16
 
Bent Fink-Jensen                     2016 – 17
 
Raj Phalpher                             2017 – 18
 
Karen Milner                        2018 - 19
Jennifer Kay                         2019-20 
 
Catherine Whittaker            2020 - 2021 
 
Liz Behrens                         2021 - 2022
 
Cliff Thompson                  2022 - 2023
 
Lauri Asikainen/June Oliver 2023-2024
 
June Oliver/Lauri Asikainen 2024-2025
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APPENDIX 3 OUR EXCHANGE STUDENTS
 
Exchange Students
Name
Year & Status
From or To
Vanessa Teran
2013-2014 Inbound
From Venezuela
Madison Sforza
2013-2014 Outbound
To Chile
Faustine Achte
2014-2015 Inbound
From France
Will Zak
2014-2015 Outbound
To France
Isabella Tataki
2015-2016 Inbound
From Brazil
Aleksandar Radman
2015-2016 Outbound
To Japan
Valeria Turina
2016-2017 Inbound
From Italy
Victoria Auwaerter
2016-2017 Outbound
To Japan
Mell Caneva
2017-2018 Inbound
From Paraguay
Morgan Loder
2017-2018 Outbound
To Australia
Delia Bedon                                     2018-2019 Inbound                       From Switzerland
Bailey Collinge-DaSilva                 2018-2019 Outbound                    To France
No exchange students                     2019-2020                                      None
No exchange students                     2020-2021                                      None
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COMMENTS
Comments on the Brief History of the Club should be forwarded to info@rcot.ca with "history" in the subject line. 
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