banner
Links
Links
VISIT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE
Meeting Venue Map
DISTRICT 5550 Website
ROTARY INTERNATIONAL
RAP Restorative Action Program
Quick time video of Paul Harris
HOPE for MALAWI
Speakers
May 22, 2017
ENJOY VICTORIA DAY
May 29, 2017
WILL THE REAL ROTARIAN PLEASE STAND UP
Jun 05, 2017
MEETING AT KING GEORGE SCHOOL
Jun 12, 2017
BECAS PROGRAM UPDATE AND PROGRESS REPORT
Jun 19, 2017
ABOUT THE MEMBERSHIP WEBINAR WE TOOK MAY 6TH
Jun 26, 2017
SASKATOON CLUB, COCKTAILS AT 6 DINNER AT 7
View entire list
Bulletin Editor
Will Arscott PHF
Stories
ROTATELLER
MEETING RECAP - 15th May 2017
 
Submitted by Will Arscott 18th of March 2017
MEETING RECAP - Meeting at Bessborough: Club Assembly and Update
Greeter - Mike LeClaire
Cashier - Dean Dodge
Set-up - Al Morton and Wayne McGillivray
Sergeant - Gary Rusu
Visitors and Guests - Clare Heagy
 
O Canada - was sung. It was good to see Wayne M back after some absences.
 
Grace - Avis Hardy reminded us of our opportunity for service and asked help for our endeavours to serve others.
 
Visitors and Guests - Clare Heagy
We had two visiting Rotarians at our meeting:
 
Rob Jasper of the Saskatoon Meewasin Rotary Club who came to make an announcement about Lobsterfest.
 
Rob Slinger of the Burnaby Rotary Club. Rob was a member of our club and is the son in law of long-time member Jim Beveridge. Rob has recovered from Aphasia and spoke briefly.
 
Announcements
 
Dues Are Now Due: You should have received an email with the invoice for your Rotary dues. Please get these in early or at least by June 15th. Forms were available at the meeting and members were challenged to complete using their credit card. Several members did so. Wayne Storozuk is very busy please help him out and get your dues in.
 
Meewasin Rotary Lobsterfest: Will be held Saturday June 3rd at the Sasktel Soccer Centre. The Meewasin club is inviting us to participate. Tickets are priced at $70 and our club will receive $40 on every ticket we sell. This is money that can go towards the projects of our club. If we could sell two hundred tickets we would raise $8,000 for our club. If you buy from Harold Empey it can count for our club. Also President Jack will have tickets. There is a digital flyer coming from Joanne Fisher. This event has always been a good time. The ticket entitles you to either steak or lobster but additional steak and lobster will be for sale.
 
Rob Slinger spoke on Aphasia: Aphasia is the loss of language due to a change in health most typically a stroke. Rob’s recovery has come a long ways over more than three years. He still has a ways to go but he is much better now. Rob distributed a pamphlet on Aphasia – Download a PDF of the pamphlet from: http://strokerecoverybc.ca/7-steps-guide/all-guides/ The pamphlet directs you to a short You Tube video featuring Rob and you can see the video at: https://youtu.be/ZIFUhuOrhWw .
 
Adventures in Technology: Steve Wilson was present this meeting and received applause from the club for the success of this project.
 
Grocery Cards: Gary R has these for sale. It was pointed out later in the meeting that, due to Gary’s efforts we have already had our second best year ever for the sale of grocery cards. We can do even better. For the next meeting we will offer a third meal option: For one week only if you pay $125 you will receive the regular meal option AND a $100 grocery card of your choice. We will also ask the Sergeant to go easy on members choosing the $125 meal option.
 
Truth and Reconciliation Five-Club Luncheon: This was a successful event and it was good to see so many of our members out. It was pointed out that when our members all sit together it kind of negates some of the purpose of a five club event. The truth and reconciliation commission is an important undertaking. Expect our club to address this in our future meetings.
 
Membership Seminar: The materials and full presentation is now available. Please see Joanne if you are interested. It will be sent to all Board members. Some of the initiatives will be discussed in future meetings.
 
President’s Dinner: Will be held at the Saskatoon Club the evening of June 26th. Mark Gryba is the organizer.
 
 
Sergeant at Arms: Gary Rusu
 
Gary played a game of Rotary Trivia. If the question was answered correctly by a member at your table all the remaining members at that table were fined. Gary drew out a number of greater and lesser known facts:
- While this year is the 110th anniversary of the Rotary Foundation it is the 50th anniversary of the Rotary Foundation in Canada.
- The first Rotary club in Canada was in Winnipeg.
- The international RI convention has been held seven times in Canada. The eighth time is upcoming in Toronto.
- There are now 723 clubs in Canada and about 24,000 members.
- We have the highest proportion of women in Rotary at 31.6% (of countries with at least 10,000 members). The Philippines is close. It would still be good to increase the proportion of women more.
- In our donations to RI, Canada carries more than its weight and is the 6th largest contributor of all Rotary countries.
- The Toronto Maple Leaf on the cover of the Rotary magazine supplement was Ted Kennedy.
 
Happy and Sad:
 
H Al Morton for passing his 75th birthday. [I didn’t know there was an exam.]
 
H Dean Dodge reintroduced himself to the club and declared he was glad to be back after an absence. He is excited about the YMCA expanding its daycare out to Martensville.
 
H Dave Sundby for being able to purchase two Westjet tickets for anywhere they fly for $800.
 
3H Wayne McGillivray for seeing Rob Slinger back at our meeting. Another happy for the Ottawa Senators (GO Sens with all of Canada behind you!). Happy for the current Board attacking dues and getting them in at the beginning of the dues period.
 
PROGRAM: Club Assembly
 
President Jack invited several committee chairs up to speak and bring the club up to date on their activities.
 
Mark Gryba
 
The President’s dinner with be held the evening of June 26th at the Saskatoon Club. We will provide our own entertainment in the form of a roast of president Jack. All are invited to participate so get those stories ready (I am told that fidelity to truth may be less important than entertainment value).
 
Plans are moving along for the celebration of 100 years of Rotary in Saskatoon. The RI president is expected to spend several days in Saskatoon and meet with various clubs. Tuesday August 15 is to be the big day of celebration. At noon the RI president will be dedicating a gazebo we have agreed to build in Rotary Park.
 
The gazebo will be a major facility approximately 40 feet in diameter. It will have tables that will allow it to be used as a picnic facility. The tables can be removed for additional uses. It will be available for organized events and booked through the city. The city has given its blessings to this project as has the Nutana Community Association. The total cost will be about $90,000 some of which will consist in kind donations. We need to raise about $50,000. The celebration dinner will support this project so please support the dinner. The dinner is not just meant to be for Rotarians. Please invite your non-Rotary friends.
 
The celebration dinner will be Tuesday night at Prairieland. Bev Dubois has the planning well under way. It will be a sit down prime rib dinner. The guest speaker will be the RI President. It would be great to find sponsors for the dinner. Please consider yourself or your contacts. If you have any ideas for sponsors please contact Bev or Gary Rusu or Sarah King of the North Club. If we could have an attendance of 400 we would raise $10,000 towards the gazebo. VIP invitations have been sent to government officials and other appropriate individuals.
 
The Rotary history project is progressing well under Vic Dubois and a short media presentation is being prepared for the dinner. All five clubs are contributing to this undertaking.
 
Programming - Dave Sundby
 
Dave said his hope for next year were to have fewer traditional speaker meetings and more meetings with club interaction. One special project might be five club bus tour of past Rotary projects in the city. The tour could end with refreshments. The possibility of a lunch meeting on the bus has been discussed but creates some logistical problems.
 
There will be two regular meetings in each of July and August as has been the practice for some years. Our first meeting in July will feature our new president Mark Gryba on the upcoming Rotary year.
 
Local Service - Joanne Fisher
 
Joanne’s big project at King George School is winding down and she will turn her attention to membership (remember: our meeting on June 5th will be at KG school). We still need a local service director.
 
The KG project has received a $2,500 grant from district. The project has good community partners such as Braid Flooring who donated a large piece of carpeting and City Carpet who did the seams on the install. This has reduced costs significantly. The teepee is up in the community room. The demographics of the school is overwhelmingly aboriginal. Elders will participate in our meeting June 5th.
 
Paul Gauthier - President Designate without portfolio
 
Our stale website has been greatly updated. There is now information about RAP including the new Tech Buddies program. There is information on Becas. Joy’s Home of Hope is one or will be shortly. Thanks goes out to Gord Menuz for posting the articles to the website. Information on Adventures in Technology will be forthcoming.
 
Paul has been working on a memorandum of understanding between the five Saskatoon Rotary Clubs. The possibility of continuing to operate as five clubs while centralizing the administration is being discussed. There is a feeling that, given the current size of the clubs, we are asking for too much volunteer effort in administration. People do not join Rotary to do administration. Rob Jaspar spoke briefly on this initiative and the interest in the Meewasin Club for exploring it. Stay tuned to this station for further updates.
 
Treasurer - Wayne Storozuk
 
[Wayne distributed statements for the period through to March 31st. They will not be reproduced here. If a member would like a copy please see Wayne.]
 
Our revenue through to March was down but our net income was up. Meals had created a small cost but this will be rectified with increased meal price. We should show a small profit on meals by the end of the year. Other fund-raising was up significantly due to Enchanted Forest while the Golf Pool does not yet show in the statements. To date we have made about $2,000 on grocery cards. This would be our second best year ever and we are not finished yet. A huge thank you to Gary Rusu.
 
On the expense side our remittance to RI is up do to exchange costs. We have $2,000 in designated funds showing in the statement. This is to go to the Joy’s Hope project to allow them to qualify for a Global Grant.
 
 
President Jack Brodsky - Final Comments
 
The big concern is membership and the shrinking of our clubs. We need to get the Rotary story out to the public. Jack intends to bring this up at the convention in Kenora. Perhaps district money should be used to raise the Rotary profile. Building profile needs to be done at all levels of Rotary. Dave Sundby talked of the importance of growing Rotary’s presence in cyberspace.
 
The second area that needs to be addressed is streamlining administration. If one central board were possible it would free a lot of Rotarian time for work on projects. Again, we want to reduce members involvement in administration.
 
Our club is up for several awards at the District Convention in Kenora. These include literacy and world service. We are a busy club and we are doing lots of things.
 
 
NO MEETING NEXT WEEK FOR VICTORIA DAY
 
Next Meeting: Monday May 29th at the Bessborough
 
Meeting June 5th at King George School
 
Adjournment
 
Read more...