Things were back to normal for our meeting this week. We could see ourselves on the big screen and it was interesting to see Allan pointing away yet appearing to be pointing at himself. We talked about basketball, clarity of the on-screen pictures this week, and then Stephen called the meeting to order and we stood and sang O Canada, in fine voice once again. “Bravo!” one member called out.
We welcomed guests Cameron Reid and Riley Sommerville, who joined Stephen, Wayne, Rudy, John, Anthony, Nora, Brendan and Allan at Timms, and Lana, Gertrude and Kadonah via zoom. Riley was here to receive her $1500 scholarship cheque from President Stephen (see photo). Regrets were received from Nav. Cameron attended on behalf of the Fraser Valley Bandits basketball team, inviting us to Rotary Night on Saturday, July 30, their last regular season home game. He shared information about this local professional basketball team and the Canadian league (80% of the players are Canadian). It is a summer league and many of the players are making six figures. Had he shared this game information with us earlier, perhaps more members would have been able to arrange to attend. As we received the details only two days before the game, only two of the members present planned to attend the game. We’ll hear about it at our next meeting.
Club Announcements
The Aldergrove Club is putting together a presentation of what all four Langley Rotary Clubs are doing, and Stephen has shared information about our club for this. We need another volunteer to sell 50/50 tickets during the morning shift on August 7 at IGA Walnut Grove. Call Wayne if you are able to help out. Also, we could use more children’s books donated for the book sale at Ribfest.
Population Growth in Langley and more!
Stephen presented information about population growth in Langley and noted that most of it (3/4) is happening in the Willoughby area. His slide show was most interesting and you can request photos of some of the slides if you wish. Langley Township has 75% of its land area in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) so housing and development are focussed in the remaining 25%. The Skytrain extension will be coming to Langley City, but will obviously affect the Township as housing and transit routes will be planned to make use of this mode of transportation to and from Vancouver (think the 200th Street corridor). Discussion ensued about the ALR and the focus on food security as well as the need for more housing. “Lovely presentation” and “Really great” were two of the comments heard after Stephen’s talk.
Other updates
The Rotary Moment was deferred until our next meeting. Happy and sad dollars for Polio Plus were donated for the excellent presentation (multiple mentions), being late arriving to the meeting, wearing a shirt bought in Kauai in 2003 that still fits, sadly growing into an XL t-shirt, finding a lost ear ring, Marina and her brave stance in Russia, recent shooting victims and for people protesting non-violently.
We closed with a toast to Canada and wished each other a good evening. We will continue with hybrid meetings, and hope more members will start attending in person again.
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