e-Strathconian (Nov 16, 2023)

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.

District Site

Rotary Club of Edmonton Strathcona

Venue Map

Canada Flag Program Online Sign-up and Payment

May 01, 2015 – Dec 31, 2023

Buy A Book of Lunch/Meeting Tickets Here

Jul 01, 2023 – Jun 30, 2024

November Twist, Escape Room Adventure
Escape Emporium, Live Escape Game Edmonton
Nov 29, 2023 7:00 PM

Arch Casino 2023
Pure Casino Argyll
Dec 21, 2023 9:00 AM – Dec 22, 2023 3:30 AM

View entire list

No Advance Registration or Payment Required for Meetings

There will be no advance registration or payment for our weekly meetings at the Woodvale Community League. The meal cost is $25 at the door.

Brent Collingwood, Rotary District Governor

Posted by Vi Hughes on Nov 16, 2023

This Tuesday we were honored to hear from our District 5360 Governor Brent Collingwood. Brent talked about the Rotary Vision statement:

TOGETHER we see a world, Where PEOPLE unite and take action, To CREATE, CHANGE across the globe

Which can be shortened to - Together people create change.

He then asked us how does our club reflect the vision and also the theme of the year, ‘Create Hope in the World’?

How would we define our club’s identity?

What are we most proud of and who knows about it?

What is one goal our club can achieve this year?

He then went on to talk about how Rotarians are people of action and how we can make a change in our communities and the world. One of the things Rotary is addressing this year is helping to erase the stigma associated with mental health. He said that we can do this by encouraging those around us to open up and talk about it.

The Rotary ‘Don’t Bottle it Up’ campaign is part of this. He said that we can help by doing four things:

1.Speak up about mental health

2. Speak to family and friends, let them know it’s OK to not be OK and that it’s OK to ask for help.

3. Learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of a mental health challenge.

4. Continue to build social connections

He also said that more information on this can be found on the Rotary website ragonmentalhealth.org.

Brent then went on to talk about the Rotary Foundation Annual Fund and the Polio Plus Fund and encouraged all of us to make contributions to these funds and they enable Rotary to support many different causes around the world. In addition for every fifty million the Polio Fund raises, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation adds another one hundred million to this cause.

In closing he said that Rotarians many times create hope in the world just by showing up to help, and told a story of a woman in Thailand who had lost her home and family in the tsunami a few yeas ago and when she spoke to some Rotarians who had just arrived to help them, said that they had already helped by just giving her hope.

He then encouraged us to keep going with helping others, because we haven’t come this far, to only come this far.

WP Wagner Interact Executive Visits our Club

Posted by Vi Hughes on Nov 16, 2023

WP Wagner Interact Executive with Rotary Club of Edmonton Strathcona and Rotary District 5370 Executive

WPW Pres Shafi Iqbal, WPW Treasurer Arman Khunkin, RCES Pres Elect Loida Lumanlan, District 5370 Asst Gov Jeanette Bancarz, District 5370 DG Brent Collingwood, RCES Youth Chairperson Carin Jansen van Vuuren and WPW Marketing Ved Thakar

Don't Bottle it Up

Dr Denise Larsen, Creating Hope in the World

Posted by Vi Hughes on Nov 09, 2023

This week we welcomed Dr Denise Larsen, who is a Professor of Counselling Psychology with the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta and a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association. She is also a co-director of Hope Studies Central along with Dr. Rebecca Hudson Breen. Hope studies Central is a thirty-one-year old research unit at the University of Alberta dedicated to understanding and effectively using hope in education, counselling therapies, and health contexts. Dr Larsen has published over 100 articles and books, has offered invited lectures around the world and works with a team of scholars, professors, graduate and undergraduate students.

Dr. Larsen said that hope is the ability to envision a future in which we wish to participate, but which we are not sure may actually happen. It is something about which we are pessimistic. She said that we all need hope in some form to be able to face a sometimes difficult reality. It has been found to be associated with life satisfaction and even with better grades in academic studies. Hope is one of the most commonly used words in the English language.

Things we hope for are something that are easier for people to talk about than hard goals, but at the same time they are something to keep looking forward to or working towards. Hope can help people find a way to live meaningfully. Hoped for things can be large or small. Hope can be many different things. We may not hope for things we know are not possible such a surviving a terminal disease but still hope for small things such as a visit from a friend.

Hope Studies Central has several different programs that teach others about hope and the use of hope in educational and health care settings. SHARP (Strengths, Hope and Resourcefulness Program) is one of those programs developed for use by teachers for use in grade 2 to 9 classrooms. It was developed to provide sustainable, effective mental health programming in schools. They have found that even very young children can have a pretty good concept of hope in their lives. Some of the activities they use to build hope are having children make collages of pictures showing things that they hope for, writing short messages of hope using sidewalk chalk on the entry sidewalk to their school and writing down the hopes that family members may have for them. All of these things have been found to create and build hope. These things can also serve as a reminder of hope for better times when they are feeling down in the future. In health care settings they have found that fostering hope can help people living with chronic pain and disability find a way to live meaningfully in spite of their difficulties.

We would like to thank Dr. Larsen for her very interesting and enlightening talk on the changes that having hope can make in our lives.

W.P. Wagner Interact Club Coat Drive for Hope Mission

Posted by Carin Jansen van Vuuren on Oct 31, 2023

The W.P. Wagner High School Interact Club collaborated with our club to collect coats and winter clothes for Hope Mission during the month of October. On Tuesday, October 31 their contribution was picked up. Thanks to all the W.P. Wagner students and faculty.

Ron Dobbin Scholarship Presentation

Posted by Carin Jansen van Vuuren on Nov 02, 2023

Club Youth Committee Chair Carin Jansen van Vuuren presenting the Ron Dobbin Scholarship to Zane Franchuk

Every year the Rotary Club of Edmonton Strathcona gives out $1000 Ron Dobbin Memorial Rotary Scholarships to students who are all-round achievers, have shown leadership qualities by being involved in the life of the school and provided service in the community while overcoming significant challenges. These funds are raised by the club members who place a high value on education. Austin O’Brien student Zane Franchuk received his scholarship on Thursday November 2, 2023 at their Awards Ceremony.

Ben Gomez and Rhonda Smith, October Clothing Drive

Posted by Vi Hughes on Nov 09, 2023

Club members Ben and Rhonda reported that their clothing drive was a big success with about 2585 items collected. Rhonda said that they advertised the drive throughout their neighborhood and each morning they put out a box and by the time they returned in the evening it was full. Our club members also contributed to the drive. The items were then sorted and divided between Hope Mission and Coats for Kids along with a few other smaller charities.

Club History, The Old Strathcona Caboose

Posted by Vi Hughes on Oct 26, 2023

Old Strathcona Caboose

Opening Ceremony for the Old Strathcona Caboose

In 1992 our club, under the leadership of President Eric Germain, decided to support the Old Strathcona Foundation in their project to restore a heritage (1949 Model) caboose donated by CP Rail and then install it as a Tourist Information Center in CP Park at Whyte Ave (82 Ave) and 103 St. This was the site of the original CP rail station in Strathcona where the first train into south Edmonton arrived in July of 1891. The caboose was part of their project for the End of Steel Interpretive Center.

Our club made a donation of ten thousand dollars towards this project. The restored Caboose was unveiled on July 1^st 1992. In return our club was granted rights to use the caboose for social events and occasions. We occasionally also supplied volunteers to staff the Travel Information office in the Caboose. The Caboose was later moved and reinstalled in the End of Steel Park on Saskatchewan Drive and Tommy Banks Way (near 104 St.) where it still stands today.

Polio Plus Society

4-Way Test

RI link: 4-Way Test