Thanks for visiting our site! The first ClubRunner site in District 5370
"The Friendly Club"
Tuesdays at 12:15 PM
Woodvale Facility and Golf Clubhouse
4540 - 50 Street NW
Edmonton, AB T6L 6B6 Canada
Our Club meets every week with a twist. The first three weeks of each month on Tuesday at the Woodvale Club and the last week for a meeting and social at a location, date and time to be determined. Members will be notified by email of the details.
This week our Club President, Heather de Kok, gave us a presentation on her time at the Rotary International Convention that was held in May this year in Melbourne, Australia which she attended as a representative of our club. Heather told us there were between fifteen and twenty thousand attendees and that she met Rotarians everywhere she went, even in the Brisbane airport where she changed planes on her way there. She told us that she had booked a small hotel that was only a short trolley ride to the convention area. She said that Rotary had made a deal with the City of Melbourne that made public transport free for all attending Rotarians. She said that she took lots of handheld Canadian flags that she handed out freely, garnering her a large flag waving contingent at the opening Flag ceremony. She said that she felt very proud of the fact that this past year’s RI President, Jennifer Jones, was a Canadian and this meant that everyone at the Opening Flag Ceremony sang the Canadian Anthem. She said that it was a surreal experience.
She told us that two of the speakers at this ceremony were especially good, incoming President Gordon McInally speaking on mental health ( the focus of our upcoming Rotary year ) and our own Jennifer Jones (RI President), who spoke about how she did not want empowerment of women to become the focus of her year as president, but as the year went on and she saw the effect that she was having on women in other countries, she became very proud to be a woman, a wife and also the President of RI.
Heather told us that they had a lot of sessions and workshops on membership building, and that she attended four different ones on this topic. She learned that people join Rotary for a myriad of different reasons, networking, fellowship, making a difference in other people’s lives and many more, but they overwhelmingly stay for the fellowship. She also said that the key to fellowship is to get people involved in club activities where they get to know each other better and this in turn encourages them to come out for more activities. Heather said that we need to be Joyous (the Rotary Theme for this year) and have fun, to look at where we are going, not back at where we have been.
As a member of a poor community, poverty is always a challenge to me but I want to overcome all the barriers with my courage, education which we have got from my school. Crises, conflict, sickness and misperceptions are the regular scenarios of the daily life of the slum dwellers. But I do not care about that, rather I want to overcome it and help others to come out of it. Before my schooling, I couldn’t manage things well but now I can manage better. Now I understand the root causes of a conflict, problem and most of the time people’s unawareness is responsible for that. To me economic empowerment by own earning is important for a woman. So, I have been taking advanced tailoring training for 2 months so that I can make a better earning. I want to empower myself and develop my skills. My husband works hard and wants to educate our children. I can see a big change in him. At the start of my school, he did not support my learning and thought women are born for doing the domestic work, looking after children but now he thinks differently and values me as her wife, as a mother-teacher and loves me. You will be happy to know that I gave birth to a new baby. She is a girl and in good health.
In our slum all children are now learning but there are some elderly people who are completely illiterate and cannot even write their names. We have decided to give them some education like how to write names, numbers and counting. Not everybody is interested but many are. But when they try to write something, they hold the pencil strongly and it is difficult to run the pencil. Now I am teaching an elderly woman who lives next door. She came to our slum a year before to live with her elder son’s family. She cooks and does some domestic work. Sometimes she visits our mother-school and observes our learning. She is hesitant to come inside the classroom. Her name is Rubia Khanam and about 70 years old. I call her Rubi Khala. In Bengali, ‘Khala’ means aunty. She often regrets, if she had an opportunity of learning in her childhood! I have told her not to worry, I would teach her that she can read & write simple things.
Thank you very much for your support of my education and the children I am teaching.
This week we heard from Pete Desrochers, the President of the Alberta Arbitration and Mediation Society (AAMS). Pete began his talk with a unique twist by pretending to take a rather humorous call from the Russian President requesting mediation services. He then proceeded to explain to his caller what mediation is all about.
He told us that mediation is the only non-legal process recognized by the courts. He said that all information provided to a mediator is personal, confidential and privileged and may not be revealed to anyone, even a judge. Once a mediation agreement is signed by the involved parties it is considered legally binding. He said that about ninety five percent of divorce agreements in the US are now mediated, rather than going through the courts. This saves a lot of time and expense. He said that mediation for all types of disputes has an eighty five percent success rate.
Pete told us that in the past this Society provided both professional training, certification and registration for certified arbitrators and mediators in Alberta as well as having a non-profit arm that provided advice and help for the general public. Recent changes made by the Federal Government required them to separate their training, certification and registry functions out into a new entity, the ADR Institute of Alberta.
This leaves the AAMS as an independent Federal non-profit society to provide information, advice and help to the general public. He said that many people are not aware of the services a mediator can provide outside of the legal system, in particular, the privacy afforded by these services.
Pete said that the avenues for not using lawyers to settle disputes are endless. The AAMS believes that no Albertan should fear conflict. The AAMS can help in settlements of many different kinds of disputes such as divorce, child custody, parenting partnerships, wills and estates, elder care, business and professional disagreements, school, government and indigenous group disputes. as well as many others.
They are rolling out a new Lighthouse Initiative which will see various representatives of their group visiting seniors groups, new immigrant groups, drop in centers and even setting up informal sessions in cafes around Edmonton (to be known as the Resolution Cafe) so that people who could use their services will not fall through the cracks. They are currently looking for support in the form of volunteers and funding to be able to expand these services.
We would like to thank Pete for his very interesting and informative talk. Mediation is something every one of us can use at some point in our lives.
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ClubRunner
905.829.5299
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