Chair: Bill Denyar

 

 

O Canada: Sue Ueffing

 

Guests/Visiting Rotarians: Pete Smith and Ben Fleckenstein

 

Sue: Had a great weekend, visiting with lots of friends and family.

Shelley: Great to have Ben here, he just returned from a French immersion program at St. Anne.

Cate: Happy to be back at the meeting and had a great Father’s Day with her family, both her mother and father are doing well.

 

Lobster Doo is June 24^th, invite friends and partners! Today is the last day for sign up!

 

Received a thank you note from Brigadoon for the support (through PWD) for their Gater.

 

It’s the last business meeting of the Rotary year, and Bill’s last as President. Bill suggested that the Strategic Planning process has been an important part of the year and went through some of the goals we had set for the year in each of the strategic priorities. The Strategic Plan won’t be able to capture everything that the club does, but can help to guide us. The way we set to monitor the plan was to have committees report verbally in January and write a final report in June.

Great Environmental Day – thanks Pierre and Shelly!

Heather made some comments on how the strategic plan was a living document, it is meant for us to revisit it.

 

Gerry – made some comments on the programs that the Youth Committee had been able to support youth to attend including adventures in citizenship, breakfast program, safe grad, etc.

Phil -  Tulips –$25/box and $15 goes to Polio – payment by July 20^th.

Valley Faces – focus is more on editorial content

Carl – reported on some of what the PWD committee has been doing, including supporting students at Landmark East, the KCA bus, glasses, scooters, ramps, dental work, etc.

 

 

RI Minute – Shared by Greg Trefry

Czech and Slovak Rotary Members Open Aid Corridor into Ukraine by Arnold R. Grahl

Within a day of Russian troops entering Ukraine in February, Rotary clubs in the Czech Republic and Slovakia were using their connections to gain access to a strategic railway hub that has allowed them to shuttle critical supplies into Ukraine and help refugees get out.

The city of Košice, Slovakia, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the border with Ukraine, is home to a rail terminus where east meets west. For decades, the terminus has received trains carrying raw materials out of Ukraine along wide-gauge rail lines. The cargo is then transferred onto train cars that run on the standard-gauge rail lines used elsewhere in Europe.

A number of multinational shipping companies use the hub. Rotary members realized quickly that they needed to be able to use it as well.

Martin Pitorák, president of the Rotary Club of Košice, is a former vice president of U.S. Steel Košice, which uses the hub. He and Michal Sláma, president of the Rotary Club of Pardubice, Czech Republic, were among Rotary members who were able to negotiate access.

“We acted very quickly,” says Monika Kočiová, a member of the Rotaract and Rotary clubs of Košice. “We were making arrangements while others were still knocking at the door.”

The hub is important because Ukraine’s extensive rail network, one of the largest in the world, serves parts of the country that are difficult to reach by truck.

Rotary was the first humanitarian organization to get permission to use the rail hub for relief supplies, Kočiová says, and clubs have sent trains full of medical supplies, nonperishable food, and hygiene products across the border. The Slovak government and the European Union have since designated the hub as a primary pathway for sending supplies by rail into Ukraine.

Supplies that arrive in Košice are unloaded and sorted by Rotary volunteers into warehouses before being moved into Ukraine. The Rotary and Rotaract clubs have also used more than 60 trucks and buses to carry 740 tons of supplies into the western Ukrainian region of Uzhhorod, just across the border. From there, they are distributed to locations around the country.

“It is great to see the power of Rotary at work in this time of need,” says Pitorák. “In addition to supplies, financial support is coming in from many parts of the world.”

 

Greg presented about how to become a Paul Harris Fellow “substantial contribution to the Foundation”. It can be an inspiration to others to contribute.

Peter and Bill presented Ellen Crowley with her Paul Harris! Congratulations Ellen!

 

 

Chase the Ace: Heather won the ticket draw but… oh no! It was a roll over!!