Due to the current COVID restrictions on in-person meetings, our club is using ZOOM to meet from the safety of our own homes. Please join us for these meetings. The first half hour is a social time with the formal meeting beginning at 12:00 noon. We meet on Tuesday every two weeks, starting on Jan 12, from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm. When members have the ZOOM application installed on their device (smart phone, tablet or computer) they can log in to our meetings by clicking on the meeting link that Graham Gilchrist has emailed to all members.
This Easter our club put together Easter Dinner boxes for the families in first stage housing at Wings. Our club provided twenty boxes of food, eight bags of clothing, socks and assorted makeup and jewelry. We would especially like to thank Audrey for organizing it all and Rose Marie and Maggi for helping shop and pack the boxes, as well as Arch Enterprises for donating the empty boxes and eight bags of clothing.
Each box contained a ham, mustard, potatoes, carrots, apples, cucumber, tomatoes, pasta and pasta sauce, fruit cups and cookies, buns, coffee and tea, apple juice, snacks and napkins. We also included a bag of assorted makeup and jewellery as well as a makeup bag and a pair of socks.
Rhonda from Wings picked up the boxes and said that they were thrilled with the donation. She said that they provide housing for the families, but the families supply their own food, and with the pandemic strain on their incomes, many families also need food, so our donation was greatly appreciated.
This week we heard from Judy Mill, a retired university professor of nursing who has spent a large part of her life working with and advocating for people in the HIV/AIDS community, both here at home and abroad.
She is currently trying to put together a media presentation that would tell the stories of three different advocacy groups that work in this area. The first group is GANG (Grandmothers of Alberta for a New Generation), which raises funds locally for the Stephen Lewis Foundation that supports health and human rights in relation to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in fifteen different countries in sub Saharan Africa. GANG has been operating for fifteen years in Alberta and has raised over one million dollars for the Stephen Lewis Foundation. The second group is CANAC (Canadian Nurses in HIV/AIDS Care) which is a specialized group of the Canadian Nurses Association, and the third group is HIV Edmonton. They are working on bringing the professionals from all three organisations together to a promote their common cause.
The video will tell the stories of what they do in relation to the AIDS pandemic and how their efforts have been impacted by the COVID pandemic. These groups provide such things as medical support, housing, food, help with grant applications and many other types of help for individuals and families affected by this disease. It will help with public education and to build public awareness of these three organisations and what they do.
This ZOOM meeting was a blast, with entertainment provided by Matthew Day and Tracie Gray. It was really nice to be able to have a different focus for our meeting this time. Matthew and Tracie entertained us with their musical and public speaking talents. They both have a different focus in their daily lives, Matthew works at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital using the power of music to help stoke patients, brain injury patients and people with other types of mental health issues. The methods he uses, such as cognitive stimulating games and things like musical bingo help people with all types of injuries to recover some of their memories. He says that is also gives people hope for the future. He has also developed a program called EASE (Enrichment Activities for Seniors Everywhere) that he uses to bring entertainment and enrichment to many different groups of seniors. Tracie Gray is a professional emcee with movie, TV and stage credits. She is a stand up comedian and public speaker who does customized presentations, corporate team building and morale boosting presentations for all types of groups. We truly enjoyed our time with them and hope to be able to do it again some time.
You can find more information about them and the entertainment they offer at MattDay.ca for music and speaking, GrayDay.ca for virtual team morale boosting and EaseMusic.ca for entertainment for seniors.
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ClubRunner
905.829.5299
102-2060 Winston Park Drive, Oakville, ON, L6H 5R7
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