Our Rotary club was the successful bidder among six organizations interested in leasing the former Scout Hall at Timberlane Park.
Dan Devita took the lead in submitting our application back in March and the announcement from city council was made in September.
The building needs a lot of work but as Dan mentioned in the application, we have the human and financial resources to accomplish that.
There are several other buildings on the site including the army, navy and air cadet corps, fine arts association, square dancing club and soccer club that have been renovated.
Our club had its own building for years until it burned down. 
One of the pieces of information that city council liked in our application was our willingness to rent out space to other organizations for a reasonable fee. 
Once a lease is received from the city and approved by directors, a plan for renovating will be put together in the near future and work parties will commence.
Major upgrades will be required for the kitchen, bathroom and entrance to make the building accessible.

 

Great food and fun games were on the menu at our club's Pot Luck and Decadent Dessert Derby September 6. Many thanks to Carol Brown and Melanie Munroe for providing members and guests such a fun social evening. 

After a hiatus of three years, our club was able to resume Adopt A Highway, cleaning up from Alberni Street to Brooks school. There was a terrific turnout followed by a barbecue steak dinner cooked by Scott and Dan. 

 

 

It was a complete surprise to members of The Rotary Club of Powell River when the announcement of the Outstanding Club of the year came on the last night of the 5040 District Conference. For the first time in its 68-year history, Powell River was deemed recipient of this honour. 
Asked about the honour during his year as president, Ross Cooper replied, “I am only a representative of a club that’s very productive. The benefit of being president is at the conference, I got to lead the group of members who attended from Powell River as we all took the stage after our club’s name was announced as the winner.”
While word got back home fast, Cooper still had the satisfaction of announcing the award to the rest of the club at the first regular meeting after the conference.  Then everyone celebrated again May 17 when the embroidered banner arrived with the club’s name on it and it was presented by Ian Grant, Assistant Governor of our district. 
“It’s a confirmation of a club that operates well, is impactful to our community and to our international programs,” Cooper said. “We are very pleased. Our motto is Service above Self and it shows in the many projects our club has contributed such as the Westview Viewpoint and Rotary Pavilion at Willingdon Beach. Our club hasn’t stopped and is currently erecting a gazebo shelter at Palm Beach with another on Texada Island coming this summer.”
 
 

 Our club meeting on March 15 had a busy agenda with two program speakers.
Townsite Jazz Festival founder and artistic director Paul Cummings attended our March 15 Rotary meeting and outlined the 10 ticketed concerts and guest musicians who will be attending the 2023 event. 
The music educator has long been a jazz fan and loves to expose his students to that genre. His love of jazz began when he was in Grade 9 while studying trombone at Courtenay Youth Music Camp with the likes of Phil Dwyer and Diana Krall. 
After growing up in this community and leaving for education and career opportunities, Paul moved home in 2000. He began teaching music at Brooks Secondary School and Powell River Academy of Music. He loves combining music with travel and has taken his choirs and bands on 17 international tours. 
His enthusiasm for the jazz festival he created is shown in his statement “there is nothing like it on earth,” adding that it follows the Festival of the Performing Arts, Kathaumixw and PRISMA.
Three high school will have groups open for the professionals who will be in town April 14-16.
More details can be found at townsitejazz.com.
 
Powell River Community Foundation Alston Miller reported on the most recent Vital Signs report that was released recently. It was the third Vital Signs conducted after the initial one in 2011 and second in 2015. The third was delayed because of COVID-19.
Information is compiled from a survey of residents, organizations and Stats Can as well as other provincial and local studies and reports. 
Population is 21,496 in qathet region with13.943 in the city of Powell River.
Alston presented some of the information from the report including the top languages spoken at home after English. They were Punjabi, French, Italian and Mandarin. 
A living wage here is now $23.33 per hour, up from $16.31 six years ago.
Employment is highest in healthcare, followed by retail and construction. 
There are 3,020 people living below the poverty line, including 460 under the age of 18. Some 28 per cent of seniors are impoverished. 
70 per cent of people reported that have excellent health and wellness. 
94 per cent were satisfied with arts and culture and 83 per cent were satisfied with the community’s diversity. 97 per cent were satisfied with sports and recreation activities available. 
94 per cent shopped at Quality Foods, Freshco and Save-On. 42 per cent grew some of their own food. There are 50 farms that generate $3 millions in revenue.
26.4 per cent of all calls to police involve, thefts or B&Es, mental health issues, assaults for impaired driving. 18 people died in the last year from opioid overdoses. 
The report is available online at prcommunityfoundation.com/vital-signs.

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.