Gary Shilling spoke at a February meeting, outlining the many improvements that have been undertaken at Patricia Theatre since it has been purchased by a society, making it eligible for grants that were not possible under private ownership. 
Gary visited Powell River over a decade ago and fell in love with the area. He and his wife purchased property here and moved in in 2015. He became enamoured with the theatre and has spent many hours writing grants for funding much needed maintenance for the building that is nearly 100 years old. 
Over the past few years, the efforts have resulted in 100s of thousands of dollars coming to the project, including a private mortgage to help buy the theatre. The theatre company started in a tent further down Ash Street in the early 1900s.
The roof has been repaired and more improvements are planned, including reconstructing the original canopy on the front of the building as well as replacing the fire escape from the balcony so it can be used again for a seating area. 
Seats need to be replaced but that will require a huge amount of money. In the meantime, Gary suggested with a chuckle that people bring a pillow. 
He commended Brooks Interact for donating $250 which will go to help replace a urinal in the men’s bathroom which will cost $1,000. 

MIKE ROBINSON AND ARTHUR ARNOLD
Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy president Michael Robinson spoke to our club on January 11 and was joined by founder Arthur Arnold who entertained us with a selection on his cello.
Robinson bought property in the Saltery Bay area in 2004 and has lived there since 2016. He has been a PRISMA board member for seven years. 
Robinson spoke about the economic and cultural benefits of PRISMA to our region with financial spinoffs through wages and suppliers, hotels, retailers and restaurants as visitors flock to the two-week event. An economic multiplier of 2.3 is used to define the financial impact. 
Like other cultural festivals in Canada, PRISMA relies heaving on values unique to this community with its cadre of enthusiastic volunteers.
Arnold mentioned that last year audience numbers were 65 percent of those pre-COVID and he expects them to increase this year. He is looking to breaking through a “glass ceiling to bring more joy” through music to the community. 
“It could only happen here,” Robinson quoted from his annual report that will be presented at the upcoming AGM.PRISMA takes place June 12-24, 2023.

A group of Rotarians helped PRISMA move its office space at Town Centre Mall on February 4. It is just one of the many ways our club supports this major cultural event in qathet region.

 

Foundation director Don Logan arranged for a fundraiser for Polio-Plus at Royal Zayka on November 16. Rotarians, spouses, other family members and guests filled the restaurant.
Don said he was touched and humbled by the turnout, a proud to be a Rotarian.
During his presentation Don said that polio is caused by a virus not a bacteria and scientists Jonas Salk created a vaccine in 1954 and Albert Sabin created an oral vaccine in 1961.
At age eight, Don contracted polio and it was “pretty scary.” He spent two months in hospital and was fortunate that it did not affect his legs and cause paralysis as happened to hundreds of thousands of other children. His brother was pulled from school and a quarantine sign was put up on the porch of their house. Their dad had to move into a hotel to conduct his business. When Don was released from hospital, all the neighbours came to see the polio victim but didn’t come to close to him. 
A second Rotarian, Jan Gisborne, also contracted polio when she was a year and a half old but had little lasting effect. Her father drove polio victims in an ambulance to Victoria where they were placed in an iron lung from Nanaimo where she lived, and it’s believed that is why she got the disease. 
Rotary’s fight to eradicate polio started with a single Rotarian in the Philippines, sitting at a meeting asking that his club raise funds to buy vaccines. It became a Rotary International goal in 1985 when some 350,000 children in 125 countries came down with polio every year. Today there are only two countries where wild polio virus is endemic, Pakistan and Afghanistan. 
In Canada between 1949 and 1954 when the population was 15,000,000, 11,000 people were paralysed by polio. 
After she joined Rotary, Jan participated in a National Immunization Day in India in 2004. Thousands of Rotary and community volunteers administered over 200 million doses of vaccine in a day. Someone asked if India would ever be polio-free, and the answer was no. But in 2012 the country was declared polio-free. Some children had been vaccinated up to eight times, but many suffer from chronic diarrhea, so it needs to be repeated. 
Gisborne went on a second NIDs trip in 2008 to Nigeria where the teams travelled to areas where there were no maps and impossible to traverse roads. 
She said there is concern that cases have appeared recently in New York state, the United Kingdom and Israel. “As long as there is polio virus anywhere in the world, it is just a plane ride away from us.”

 

 

 

 

 

John Berry and his wife Pat began their visit to Powell River on October 26 with a tour of various Rotary projects with President Ross. Following that they met with members of the board of directors where John outlined his approach to his position, stating that he recognizes that clubs are the foundation of Rotary. He also mentioned that our club is performing very well on many levels.
Following the meeting, held in the same room as the dinner at Town Centre Hotel, John participated in several parts of the agenda in addition to giving an address to members and guests. PRISMA founder Arthur Arnold played the Ukrainian national anthem and then everyone sang the Canadian anthem. They also sang Happy Birthday to Pat who said the day was the best birthday she has had in a long while.
John then presented Jan with an additional Paul Harris Fellow in recognition of her continuing contribution to Rotary Foundation. In turn, Jan presented him with a certificate of appreciation for his program speech. Fraser East, accompanied by membership director Scott, was then inducted into our club by John. 
A highlight of the evening was the presentation of a cheque for $9,000 to Susan Cathcart who represented Grace House and Powell River Transition Society by organizers of the Wunderbread Dance and Silent Auction. 

What fun to have our two Rotary booths at Blackberry Street Party on Friday, August 19, where youngsters could fish for prizes or colour. We bought 400 prizes for the fishpond booth and ran out at 9 pm, a testament of its popularity. Kids and parents loved seeing it again after a two-year pandemic hiatus. 
We were assisted by two members of the former Sunrise club which initiated the popular booth for kids on the street which mainly features music, meet, greet and eat. 
For the colouring contest, a random draw was made for a one-month family pass to Powell River Recreation Complex and individual age prizes.'

Darryl Jackson
Darryl Jackson was the first in-person program speaker for a regular weekly meeting at Julie’s Airport Café on October 6. 
When he began, he told his audience he speaks using his hands a lot and had a tough time condensing his personal history in the time allotted. A linear path has never been his path; he has always been a “What’s next?” kind of guy. 
He was born in Nanaimo and grew up in nearby Cedar. In high school he wanted to do everything and was terrified of choosing something he would later regret. His goal was to see what the world had to offer so he ran away with a carnival in his late teens. 
He has had multiple careers including cook, firefighter, fisherman, commercial diver, fish farm worker, entrepreneur who owns an ice cream truck and power engineer to name a few. Each has a lengthy story behind it. He said there was no way to fit all the stories into his presentation so we received the Reader’s Digest version. 
When he arrived in Powell River to start over again, he didn’t know anyone but found people so open and so friendly. His “What’s next?” was gone and this was the first place that actually felt like home. Everything he has always wanted is here. He has two kids, two dogs, two cats, a wonderful wife and the best career of all being a grandfather. 
And he is looking forward to becoming even more involved with his community through Rotary. 

Kelly Belanger 
Kelly Belanger was born in Bonneville, Alberta, the first of five brothers and one of 30 cousins. 
A family on the move, his changed locales 42 times in three years. For the first year of his life, Kelly lived in a drawer. 
When he was five, his mom said it was time to settle down and they did that in Edson where he started kindergarten. 
At the start of another oil boom, they moved to Fort McMurray with his mom who was then single. 
A Red Seal chef, Kelly has been cooking since he was 12 with his grandmother as his instructor. If he made a mistake, she would whack him with a wooden spoon. She also taught at a culinary school where he eventually attended. She was upset when he said he was going to enroll because she wanted him to hate cooking so she retired the year before he started. Kelly says he know more than a lot of the instructors and pulled off the highest mark in the class. 
Cooking doesn’t pay 
as well as working in the oil patch so eventually he went to work there for seven years, going to night school to become a power engineer.
He decided he wanted to reconnect with his father’s family and moved back to Bonneville where in 1994 he met his future wife. 
Ten years later things became to go awry. Kelly, who is gay, said he came out because he was done with lying to himself. He had been traumatized at the age of 12 when he witnessed his first gay bashing and jumped into the closet. 
The first person he told was his son and then daughter who had hoped their parents would get back together. They came around and are now the best of friends.
He met his future husband, JP, in 2007 and they were together for 13 years and married for eight. 
The couple came to Powell River where Kelly saw that The Old Courthouse Inn was for sale. He loved its Tudor style and fell in love with it the moment he stepped into the building. 
When he found out the price, he two days later he was the owner. The realtor told him it was the fastest sale he had ever done. 
Kelly had redecorated all the rooms and serves breakfast every Tuesday through Saturday from 9-1 in Edie Rae’s Café. If he could find more staff to complement the wonderful employees he has, he would open more often. He’s also looking for housekeeping staff. COVID has been hard but this summer was the best one he has experienced and the inn has been full right through to last week 
Serendipitously, years ago he had bought a pen and ink drawing of the courthouse by Powell River artist Courtney Cressy. It now hangs in his private quarters at the inn.
Kelly said his marriage was great, then got a little rough and then ended.  
He loves Powell River which has so much to offer with the outdoors and many new friends and guests who have also become friends. He has felt so accepted here, unlike a lot of small towns. 
He joined Rotary because he was to give back to this community and feels being a Rotarian is the way to do that.