Alison's Re-Classification

Alison said that when she sat down to write some notes she was thinking she'd been in Rotary for about 10 years but when she started counting she realized it was 17.  She recalls the number of members was about the same and noted 24 are still active.  The big difference, of course, is that she was the 3rd woman to join, after Terri, also still a member.  She harked back to the glory days of Dean Nicholls and 'women in Rotary'.

Alison has served on successive Boards for about half of those years - International, Vocational, Community Service and Pres. Elect, Pres. and Past Pres.  She really enjoyed the International and Youth Exchange programs and served on the District Committee for exchanges for 7 years, dealing with people in Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, New Zealand and Germany.  She met so many great students who are now friends for life. 

In 1996 she had three children ages 7, 4, and 2 so she was already busy.  She had been working at NEBS for 10 years and was working on their transition to a new marketing plan based on data bases.  They compiled business records and analyzed the data to target potential.  They were among the first to join the air miles program and worked hard at developing partnerships and alliances. 

In 1999 she started on her MBA, which took two and a half years.  She'd get the kids in bed and do her homework.  In the early 2,000's there were acquisitions - Chiswick,McBee, Payweb, etc. and she worked on all the brands, doing the creative and the production of direct mail and overseeing about 30 people.  Then they were bought by Delux fro the States which began a slow integration of purchasing and HR and she joined senior management to develop North America wide marketing.  They created jobs, developed targets, drove the integration and then positions were eliminated as they all reported to the US.  She moved to developing strategic markets, developing webinar series, seminar series produced in 10 cities, doing road trips with trucks to hold displays for small businesses.  She was travelling all the time, which was stressful, and she was the only Canadian on the team, which could create a left out feeling.  When she was offered a package last August, she took it.

She says she misses the people but not the stress and now she's taking the opportunity to start her own business which aims to help small local businesses with marketing and developing business plans and enhancing their existing technologies.  Shes targeting businesses with 20 employees plus or minus and she's working from home.

Now her girls are 24, 21 and 18.  Alysha is in first year at Humber and a member of the Ontario fastball champion team and taking multi media.  Alana is in Niagara taking  acting in flim and TV and working as a waitress and Emily is married and living in London and taking a MBA and travelling.  She and Dave have been married 27 years - he's still at Elcan - and they are in Wyevale with an old dog, a new dog and a guinea pig.

Ron thanked her for the update and for her commitment to the Club and the Community.