The Atlanta Host Organization Committee is offering some good old-fashioned Southern hospitality at the Rotary International Convention from 10 to 14 June. It has planned a wide range of activities featuring everything from good food and music to inspiring tours of local landmarks. If it’s your first convention, these events are chances to meet fellow Rotarians from around the world, and if you’re an experienced convention goer, you can catch up with old friends.
Hall of Fame baseball player Hank Aaron will host Rotarians for a “Strike Out Polio” night at the new SunTrust Park, where you’ll...
When Teguest Yilma helped found the Rotary Club of Addis Ababa Entoto in 2002, she thought polio had already been eradicated from most of the world. But while Ethiopia had been free of the disease, Yilma was shocked to learn that new cases had started cropping up in surrounding countries such as Somalia.
“I was thinking, it’s not possible, we can’t be free if the countries around us are not free,” she says. Yilma, the managing editor of Capital, Ethiopia’s largest English weekly newspaper, has brought a journalist’s skills to the fight against polio. She became vice chair of the Ethiopia...
Battling breast cancer in 2000, Kathryn Smith found comfort pursuing her lifelong interest in Franklin D. Roosevelt. The more she read, the more intrigued she became with the 32nd U.S. president’s private secretary, Marguerite Alice “Missy” LeHand. “I thought, what a fascinating life she had because she was by his side through the polio crisis, establishing the polio rehabilitation center in Warm Springs and then after his return to politics,” she says. Smith, a past president of the Rotary Club of Greater Anderson, S.C., and a longtime newspaper journalist, turned that curiosity into a book...
One of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s earliest memories is of fleeing with his family into the mountains during the Korean War, his village burning behind him. His father and grandfather had to forage for food in the woods; his mother gave birth to his siblings away from anything remotely resembling a health facility. “I have known hunger,” he says. “I have known war, and I have known what it means to be forced to flee conflict.”
The soldiers who came to their rescue were flying the blue flag of the United Nations. The UN provided them with food and their schools with books....
Like a lot of us, I spent much of my childhood riding bikes, but fell out of the habit for a while. Forty years. Then my wife and I moved to New York, where cyclists risk their necks in a daily Thunderdome of cabs, police cars, firetrucks, double-decker buses, messengers on motorbikes, and delivery trucks backing around corners at 20 miles an hour. Not for me! At least not until my 50th birthday, when my metabolic furnace flamed out. Calories started going directly from beer bottle to beer belly. It was time to start exercising. Either that or give up Samuel Adams, and I couldn’t do that to...
General Membership voting on Tuesday April 27, 2017
Please read President Dimitri's summary of his report to the club on January 31, 2017. OPEN LINK
In view of new information about endowment funds that became available since June 7, 2016 and was presented to the membership on January 31, 2017, the 2016-17 Board of Directors passed a resolution at the Board meeting of March 16, 2017 to hold a membership vote on April 25, 2017 on the following motion:
To allow the Board of Directors to establish an endowment fund under the name of the Rotary Club of Edmonton Strathcona through the Edmonton Community Foundation and to place an initial deposit of $10,000 from our recent casino account into the endowment fund.
If you are unable to attend this important meeting, you are encouraged to vote by proxy. Your vote matters.
Download theproxy form, complete it and give to the person you intend to vote on your behalf as indicated on the form.
Alternately, you may fax, email or hand to Hans Granholm with a clear indication of your Yes orNo preference.
On Tuesday this week we head from Mark Mielke, pictured, Specialist Engineer with ATCO Electric. He told us about the construction of the recently completed Eastern Alberta Transmission Line. The line runs 485 kilometers from Gibbons/Redwater to just north of Brooks. It supplies power generated in northern Alberta to the Calgary area. The line is a 500 kVolt HVDC (hi voltage direct current) line that currently carries 4.4 million volts. The decision to build this line was made in 2009 at a cost of 1.8 billion dollars. It is the largest project in ATCO’s history. The choice of making it a DC line was made as this technology allows the line to carry more electricity and to have a much smaller footprint on the land. The as built right of way also has the capacity to carry more electricity in the future, without the need for acquiring more land.
The consultation process prior to construction of the actual line was very extensive. It entailed consultations and meetings with land owners, first nations people, pipeline companies, It involved more than 6000 permits for all kinds of various things such as crossings, land acquisitions, and also required environmental plans, historical resource protection plans and impact studies on land and resources. The line crosses 631 pipelines owned by 133 different companies. Environmental protection involved the use of 70,000 rig mats to protect the land from erosion during construction. They also used mobile wash stations to wash down the equipment and vehicles at each tower site before moving on to the next site, in order to prevent the spread of diseases from one field to another.
The line itself consists of two transformer stations, one at each end, to convert AC to DC and then back to AC, 1387 towers, consisting of over 28,000 tons of steel, and 5,200 kilometers of aluminum conductor steel reinforced line. The towers have bases tailored for the type of soil they are built on, hi pile. Caisson or augured grillage bases. The line required 100 ATCO employees and over 800 construction workers to build. A neutral conductor is run along the towers with the line, to keep any current from entering the soil beneath the line, which helps to mitigate any effects on the pipelines that the line crosses. The line also has a hi-tech fiber optic cable strung along it to allow fast (less than 10 millisecond) communications between the operators at each end of the line, and also has a built-in microwave network as a backup communications system.
The transformer stations at either end required special engineering because of the extremely high electrical field inside the transformer hall. The operators work from a separate building connected by 400,000 fiber optic cables to the transformer hall. There are four very large transformers in each station, each weighing 700,000 pounds. The towers were designed specifically for Alberta conditions of wind and snow loading, and were extensively tested prior to use.
The life expectancy of the line is thirty five years, but in practise it could be extended to fifty or more. The cost of the line adds about one dollar per month to the average user’s bill. The line can also be modified to carry more electricity in the future without the need to acquire more land. The line is a unique hi tech wonder that Alberta can be proud of, and gave an Alberta based company an opportunity to develop a lot of new knowledge and skills that can be applied elsewhere.
In recognition of longtime service and contributions to the club, The Edmonton Strathcona Rotary Club honored longtime member and Past President, Art Baird with an Honorary Membership at his home, on April 11th.
Past President Harald Kuckertz presented the Honorary certificate and a letter from President Dimitri, who was absent in Greece. Also present was his wife Joyce, Past President Ken Sutley and Hans Granholm. The lovely flowers were arranged and curtesy of Heather de Kok.
I'm an old school, hardcore political activist. For instance, I still won't eat grapes because of the plight of the migrant farm workers. I also won't eat raisins because of the older migrant farm workers. That's how hardcore I am. I also won't eat prunes. That's for a completely different reason.
The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. W. C. Fields
Tickets are going fast to the 2017 YESS Gala for Youth! Guests will enjoy elegant entertainment, sumptuous décor, and a decadent feast worthy of the gods. Dive in with us to discover the timeless secrets and hidden treasures of the lost city of Atlantis!
It all takes place on April 28, 2017, in the luxury of the SHAW Conference Centre.
Location - Hall D, Shaw Conference Centre (9797 Jasper Avenue)
Cocktails - 6:30PM
Program & Gala Dinner Begins, Cash Bar - 7:30PM
Parking - Parking options include the Impark Underground Lot at Canada Place, Impark Surface Lot at the Courtyard by Marriott, and the Grierson Hill Surface Lot
Additional Activities include a Live and Silent Auction
Dress - Cocktail or in Theme (Atlantis)
Last year's Gala for Youth was one of the most successful fundraisers in YESS history. Be a part of the life-changing programs and resources that help youth who are in crisis and experience homelessness on their way to brighter futures.
Rtn. Jerry Kelly from Victoria, formerly with the RC Edmonton, joined us at the zoo and gave us an invitation to join other golfers from around the world to their 54th golf tournament in Victoria BC. The "International Golfing Fellowship of Rotary" is one of the oldest Rotary Fellowships.
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