Our speakers on Tuesday, September 4th were Susan Jaspers, the Executive Director of Telling Tales and Julie Shea the President of the Hamilton “Tonic After 5” Rotary Club
“Telling Tales” is celebrating its 10th year on September 16th. More information about TT and the 10th Annual event can be found on the group’s website, here: https://www.tellingtales.org/
Telling Tales really grew out of our club. Ralph Montesanto gave the District’s blessing and Kathy Starodub taught them how to run a book swap. Over time the budget for the event has risen from $30,000 to $350,000 and now has an independent Board (it was originally run by the Hamilton AM Rotary Club). In the very first edition, Robert Munsch made a surprise visit. This year the festival is launching 10 new books world-wide with the authors being brought in for the occasion.
There was an article about the authors and their books that will be appearing at telling tales in the Thursday, September 6th Hamilton Spectator: https://www.thespec.com/whatson-story/8881539-ten-years-of-telling-tales/ (Aside: Note that the writer of the Spec article is Emma Reilly. Her father, Jim Reilly, will be our guest speaker on October 23rd).
Susan closed her portion of presentation by showing this promotional video (unfortunately there was no sound available at the meeting so members may enjoy seeing it again): https://youtu.be/OgMGyx9lDcQ
Julie Shea is the President of the “Tonic After 5” Rotary Club of Hamilton: https://rotary7090.org/clubinfo/tonic-hamilton. Julie also acknowledged our club’s crucial role in the founding of Telling Tales. She is looking for volunteers to do 3 hour shifts. One interesting opportunity is the “barn raising” on Saturday. Volunteers can sign up on-line here: https://www.tellingtales.org/volunteer-opportunities/