Volume 36 - Number 06 (Aug 14, 2018)

Sep 11, 2018

Matt Heffernan (Alberta Room)

Technology Conversion

Sep 18, 2018

No Luncheon Meeting (unGala Evening)

Bowness Community Association Hall

View entire list

Barbecue - Beat Beethoven

Fort Calgary - Volunteers Required

Sep 13, 2018
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Pulling for "U"

Cathy Freer-Leszczynski

Sep 16, 2018

UnGala

Bowness Community Centre

Sep 18, 2018
6:30 PM – 9:30 PM

COG Volume 36 - Number 06

August 14, 2018

The Rotary Club of Calgary Downtown is comprised of professional and community leaders brought together in fellowship to create a better future.

Birthdays for the Week of August 14

Ali	Gursoy	August 15
Wing-Kee	Chan	August 17
Gordon	Dixon	August 17

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included in the COG Newsletter sent to all members,
displayed on The Rotary Club of Calgary website for one week.

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Comments on the COG should be addressed to the COG Editor cog@rotaryclubofcalgary.ca.

Cheque Presentation from the Stay in School Program

$50,000 Comes Back into the Rotary Community Service Fund from the Stay in School Progam

Highlights of the August 14, 2018 Meeting

Incoming and Outgoing SIS Graduate Chairs

Enjoy Yourself!
It's Later Than You Think

Michelle DeCecco-Zuk Introduces Carl Smith

Carl with SIS Students and Grads

Club member Ryan Morrison delivered the invocation following club President Tim Heaton's call to order and our a cappella singing of O Canada.

Thanks go out to our front entrance volunteers Larry Martin, John Seigner, Murray Young and Tom Howard.

Tim Heaton's sing song for this week was Enjoy Yourself (It's Later than You Think), which certainly fits the definition of a popular song. Written by Carl Sigman and Herb Magidon in 1949, the song has been covered many times, with notable versions including those by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, Doris Day and Louis Prima. Thank you Ralph Lundberg for the additional lyrics!

There were many visitors and guests this week, including a number of alumni of the Stay in School program, and friends and family of our honouree Carl Smith. We also had visiting Rotarians from the Rotary Club of Wolfville-Mud Creek, and from the Rotary Club of St. John's Northwest. After introducing our visitors and guests, Carmen Goss announced the three club members celebrating birthdays this week.

President Tim had three announcements this week. First, club member Gord Cumming has moved into Tudor Manor in Okotoks. Many newer members will know Gord from his having served as one of our regular front entrance volunteers.

Secondly, UnGala is fast approaching. This event will be the club's primary fundraiser this year, and replaces our regular luncheon meeting on September 18. We are still looking for silent auction items to ensure the success of this event.

Finally, don't forget to mark your calendars for the 13^th Annual Calgary Airport Tournament of Diamonds and Shoot-Out on August 29. Rotary Challenger Park is a major beneficiary of this fundraising event.

Michelle DeCecco-Zuk introduced Carl Smith, founder of the Rotary Club of Calgary's Stay in School program. As Carl is handing over the reins of the program, this was the perfect time to honour Carl for his unwavering dedication to the program since its inception in 1992.

Additionally, this was also the perfect time for the Stay in School program to return the $50,000 initial investment made by the club to the Stay in School program.

President Tim presented an honourary Paul Harris Fellowship to Carl on behalf of the club in recognition of all of his hard work since 1992 building the Stay in School program into the success it is today.

Although he is handing over the reins of the Stay in School program, Carl still plans to stay involved with the curly Galbraith Global Memorial and the Small Donations committees.

At the conclusion of his presentation, President Tim thanked Carl for his inspiring history of the Stay in School program.

History of the Stay in School Programs

Posted by R. Carl Smith on Aug 14, 2018

Carl Smith Tells the SIS Story

A Paul Harris Fellowship for Carl

Don Campbell, Early SIS Builder with Tim Heaton

Today I am going to talk to you about the origination of our Club’s Stay in School Program, where the Program is today, future plans for the program, and a surprise.

In 1992 when I was a member of our club’s Board of Directors, I was attending a board meeting when Ed Duke, a fellow Board Member was telling us about transporting students to various companies so that they would get an opportunity of seeing possible careers. ED also got other members involved including, Tim Heaton, Lowell Frodsham and Bill Gillot with taking students skating and reading to students. Muriel Gillot arranged for our Rotary Anns to read to children at Valley View School. I was intrigued with all of this and slid a note to Ed saying what about providing a scholarship to one or more students. And Ed sent the note back saying, let’s talk after the meeting. Ed and I talked about this idea which got me thinking about how to do this and this was the germ of my idea of a Stay in School program with scholarships to selected students.

I put together an ad hoc group of folks consisting of Ed Duke, Jake Longmore, club member and retired Public School Superintendent, the principal of Valley View Elementary school and Norma Piche, a friend and retired teacher. I produced an outline of a possible program, circulated it among this group for feedback, expecting them to kill the idea. Rather, they came back with positive suggestions, so I produced another draft, circulated it and got more positive feedback. I then produced draft 3 which my team liked.

At that time, Rotary Canada was trying to develop a National Program known as “Canadian Rotary Clubs Stay in School. Curly Galbraith and Don Campbell were very involved in this initiative, so I provided each of them with my draft of a possible Stay in School Program for our club. They each made positive suggestions and encouraged me to keep going with this initiative.

With what looked like a workable Stay in School Program, I made a presentation to the Board. I asked for $125,000, to cover 5 scholarships for 5 years to establish viability of the proposed program. Bob Junker, President at that time and the Directors liked the proposed program, however were not able to provide these funds.

So I had what looked like a viable program with no funding. But I did not give up. I wanted to establish funding for the program separate from other club finances so I tried to get The Hon David Anderson, Minister of National Revenue to provide our club with a tax number separate from our Community Service Fund. I had the support of Senators Dan Hays and Joyce Fairbairn with this. However, I was turned down, as our proposed program did not fit within Government guidelines. We couldn’t freeze funds over a long enough period as we needed some funds each year to pay students some money for passing their grades. I have my submission and Governments decline documentation in my file dated in 1994.

What do I do now? I spoke with The Calgary Rotary Clubs Foundation and established they were not in a position to handle accounting for my endeavour. I then went to the Executive Director of The Calgary Foundation and talked him into breaking some rules by paying out funds for students passing their grades each year from an endowment.