A small turnout greeted President Rudy at his first meeting of the year. Dr. John Brynjolfson, Navnit Shah, Nora Truman, Allan Richmond and Rudy were in good spirits for the meeting and enjoyed the presentation from our special guest Ron Bergen (photos attached). Also in attendance was Micheal Bolu who set up the meeting for Zoom attendees. However, there were no Zoomers to be found online. Regrets were received from Wayne and Anthony.
We began the meeting with a version of O Canada that worked itself out before ending well. Navnit Shah didn’t have any birthdays or anniversaries for us to salute but I think he said that he was commemorating his arrival in Canada 47 years ago, this week.
Ron Bergen Cares
Guest speaker Ron Bergen has lived in Langley for about five years. He used to work at the PNE in technical services and maintenance but he became disabled. Ron has limited vision now but is diagnosed to be legally blind. In spite of his vision challenges, Ron stays active by accumulating, packaging and distributing personal care products mostly to seniors and the unhoused.
Ron has established “Ron Bergen Cares” as a non-profit organization to take on and grow the distribution of personal care products in and around our community. Ron says that he sees a lot of people who are struggling financially in these uncertain times. Ron shops and compares prices to secure the economical personal care products that can be included in the “kits” that he assembles for distribution.
As Ron’s program is growing he’s getting support from individuals and some stores plus, some churches are helping with distribution. Recently Ron Bergen was recognized for his good work at the Langley Seniors Centre who contributed $10,000.00 to the program.
Other updates
In Wayne’s absence there was no Rotary Foundation moment or Light Touch. However, we did talk about the upcoming Executive meeting and printouts of an Action Roadmapping Tool received from District Governor Aide Pat Bond for consideration and possible input at the meeting. There is much to be considered as we prepare our path as a club for this next year. Also, there was some conversation around the excellent Installation ceremony at the Rotary Interpretive Centre and Wayne’s speech in particular. Then, we talked about Rotary night at the Bandits Basketball event on July 9, the need for volunteers to register for RibFest and the weekend schedule for Rotary 50/50 MegaDraw sales.
We wrapped up the meeting with a roundtable of “happy and sad dollars” that were all of a positive nature, especially for Ron’s presentation but also for Canada.
The meeting ended with a toast to Canada. Thank you to Rudy for sending the information about the meeting for this issue of RoteNotes.
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