Submitted by Will Arscott

 

Membership Committee Chairman Peter Voldeng

 

The meeting was held back at the Bessborough. The meeting was presided by President Mark Gryba.

 

Greeter - Jack Brodsky

Cashier - Wayne McGillivray

Visitors and Guests - Gary Rusu

Set-up - Al Morton

Grace - Avis Hardy

 

O Canada was led by Wayne McGillivray

 

Grace - Avis Hardy gave grace and reminded us of our responsibilities as Rotarians and as citizens to our community, our country and the world beyond.

 

Visitors and Guests - Mike Giesbrecht

Huey-Ming Tzeng brought two guests from her work -

Sarah Bolton

Steven Jones

Huey-Ming is introducing them to Rotary and we hope they might find it a fit for them.

 

 

Next week is the annual Saskatoon Rotary Club Christmas Party. The time is past to express your attendance and number of guests. If you can get word to President Mark quickly we may still be able to get you in. Wayne McGillivray announced that Betty Ann Arscott had been confirmed to be our piano player for the event. I also have been led to believe that Santa himself has been booked.

 

It is our tradition to make a donation to Bethany Homes in conjunction with this event. Please try to bring something next week. Warm clothing such as scarves, socks and mitts are welcome. Toiletries for women are also needed. We should try to send the Salvation people home with a good supply of gifts.

 

January 8^th will be a report on Hope for Malawi with Elaine and Peter Zakreski

January 15^th will be a report on the possible amalgamation of the five Saskatoon Rotary clubs into one club for management purposes. Each club would continue as a chapter. There is more on this below.

January 29^th we are again serving at the Friendship Inn. Peter Z will have the usual sign-up sheets out in the new year.

 

The KG Christmas Market is a go. Sufficient volunteers have been confirmed. Thursday morning is expected to be the busiest time and we have ten volunteers ready to go. There are eight volunteers for the afternoon and clean up and seven volunteers to set up on Wednesday. Though there are sufficient volunteers there is room for anyone who would like to show up and be part of the project.

 

Gary Rusu was very busy selling grocery cards. Please buy some and support our club. Gary was pleased to announce that $5,500 of the inventory of $10,000 have been sold. Please do what you can next week and further reduce the inventory.

 

 

Enchanted Forest: Dave still needs help particularly on the weekends and between Christmas and New Year when things are busiest. Dave reported that things have been very busy at the forest to date. Several records have been set including one on the first walking night.

 

Grocery cards: Unfortunately, Gary Rusu reports that the rate of sales is down. We were planning to purchase $10,000 in Sobey’s cards but it wouldn’t make sense to do so if they cannot be sold in a reasonable time. Please buy some cards. You need groceries over the holidays. You can also express to Gary your intention to buy cards in the new year so he can estimate our needs and purchase cards accordingly.

 

Interim Report of the Nominating Committee - presented by incoming president Paul Gauthier

 

In the last Rotateller it was reported our club election was on hold pending the outcome of the work of the amalgamation committee of the five Rotary clubs. The requirements for elections will change dramatically if this change is adopted. Paul spoke to the requirements within our club. A report had been printed and was distributed on the tables. For those unable to attend it appears below:

 

The pending decision on the amalgamation of the five Rotary Clubs into one central Rotary Club of Saskatoon with five associated chapters has made establishing the leadership roster for the 2018-2019 Rotary year a challenge.

There are two concurrent realities underway. One is that the decision on the 5-club amalgamation will not be finalized until sometime in January 2018 or possibly later. The second is that the requirement to file Club President and Club Secretary Names to the Official Directories for District and Rotary International is January 31, 2018.

In light of this, the Nominating Committee has decided to file an interim report at this time which provides for either scenario: Our club continuing as an Autonomous Rotary Club; or moving forward as the Founding Chapter of the Amalgamated Rotary Club of Saskatoon.
 

The operations of the Club would continue much as they have in the past. However, many of the Committee Chairs indicated to me that a condition of letting their name stand as Chair of their respective Committee is that they will serve in the context of being a team leader. Many of them expressed to me that their career commitments or personal commitments or both will not allow them to undertake all of the responsibilities associated with their committees without the strong engagement of fellow members in the Club.

 

Your committee believes it is the responsibility of every club member to step up and help your fellow board directors in providing services to the club. For example, the program director position can be very demanding if everyone just sits back and expects a great program meeting after meeting. However, by joining the committee and just providing program ideas and contacts will make the task so much easier. More hands make light work!

 

A membership list is attached for each of the program/service areas of our club. We are not totally certain of the accuracy of this list; so please bring to our attention any errors or omissions. For our new members, it provides an overview of the many activities and areas of focus that you can become directly engaged and share your passions, expertise and experience.

 

I also wish to caution the readers of this list, that this list does not represent the total engagement of our membership. There are many other activities and projects in which our members actively participate. Examples are: Badge, Shield and Star dinner; Restorative Action Program; King George School; Salvation Army Christmas Kettles; Kiwanis Apple Drive; Friendship Inn; Club Christmas party; Rock for RAP; Enchanted Forest; and many other fund-raising events and community activities.

 

C. CHAPTER OF THE AMALGAMATED ROTARY CLUB OF SASKATOON

 

As a chapter of the amalgamated Rotary Club of Saskatoon, it is anticipated that the scope of the programs/services would be reduced to those that pertain primarily to the operations of the chapter.

 

Any programs/services that have a broader Rotary connotation would presumably be the responsibility of the Amalgamated Rotary Club. The responsibility of each chapter would be to appoint a representative to sit on those Amalgamated Rotary Club committees. Although none of this has been finalized in any way, for purposes of this report, your nominating committee assumes that the responsibilities for Membership, Public Relations and Rotary Foundation will fall under the centralized purview of the Amalgamated Rotary Club.

 

Also the four Rotary leadership positions would no longer be required at the chapter level; namely, President; President-Elect; Vice-President; and Past- President. Again for purposes of this report, your nominating committee has assumed that the President and Vice-President positions would be replaced at the chapter level by a Chair and Co-Chair. The Chair and Co-Chair would be responsible for the overall coordination of Chapter affairs.

 

So with the above assumptions in mind, the leadership positions anticipated under the scenario of operating as a Chapter of the Amalgamated Rotary Club are summarized in the table on the next page. You will note that we added a proposed position of Chapter meeting host. This position would be similar to individual members who serve on our weekly duty teams. By revolving this task around to all members, it gives all members an opportunity to serve in a host capacity and takes a lot of pressure off the Chair/Co-Chair positions. Just something to think about.

 

 

In addition to these leadership positions, our chapter would need to appoint a representative to each of the following Amalgamated Rotary Club Committees (per the assumptions above) or any other committees that the merged club would deem necessary:

 

 

At this point in time, it is assumed that the members who let their name stand as Board Directors under the Autonomous Rotary Club scenario for each of these areas would be the chapter members appointed to the Amalgamated Rotary Club Committees.

 

There is one last requirement under the “Amalgamated Rotary Club” scenario. Each chapter will probably be required to appoint at least two chapter members to serve as a director on the Amalgamated Rotary Club Board of Directors. Jack Brodsky has agreed to let his name stand in the position of Past President for the Amalgamated Rotary Club. It has been suggested that as incoming President, in the case of operating as an autonomous Rotary Club; and Chapter Chair, in the case of operating as a Chapter of the Amalgamated Rotary Club of Saskatoon, that my name should be put forward as a second representative. I am agreeable to this if it is the wish of the members.

 

CONCLUSION

 

As was stated at the outset, this is an interim report. Its intent is to set a certain degree of certainty into the future operations of our Club/Chapter, regardless of the final outcome of the 5-Club amalgamation discussions and voting. Please forward any comments to Paul Gauthier, President-Elect at pgauthier@sasktel.net.

 

 

 

- President Mark was fined for not being able to find his name tag.

- Huey-Ming Tseng was fined for not being assertive and particularly for not saving a seat for the sergeant.

- Peter Z was fined for talking while the President was talking and for indicating to guests that it was not necessary to listen to the President.

- Every member was fined a dollar and told to stand up and say something they liked about Christmas. Several members said nothing and they were fined two dollars.

 

- Those who had brought guests were fined. I am not sure why. I thought we wanted guests particularly guests that might become members.

- Peter Z was fined for sending long emails and Wayne S was fined for not responding to emails.

 

 

- not much action in this area for this week.

 

- Jim Weber offered a happy dollar on his return from New York City where he had seen several musicals. His favorite by far was Come From Away about Gander on 9/11. Your scribe also thinks very highly of this show.

 

Guest Speaker - Peter Voldeng of the Membership Committee

 

Peter is new to his position and is still feeling his way in.

 

All our members are proud to be Rotarians and give freely of their time, talent and money to make our club possible. But as members, do we talk to others about our involvement in Rotary and the place it takes in our lives. Unfortunately, not many of us to this. We all need to do more. We need to talk about Rotary and ask others to join us. If our club had more people we could do more and each of our members could put in less time. Peter distributed a list of 20 things we can do to boost membership. This list is attached.

 

Peter expressed that it is local projects that attract people in initially. We need to advertise our local projects to prospective members. At this time people, particularly younger people are more like to join in support of a particular project than to make an ongoing commitment. The ongoing part comes later once they are socially networked into the club.

 

We have between five and ten possible new members now. It would be great if we had a particular project to ask them to join. Our signature local project, RAP, does not provide for a lot of hands-on activity.

 

Al Morton asked whether thought had been given to re-institute ‘fireside chats’ to bridge new members from joining to integration into the club. Al had seen these chats as being useful in the past.

 

There will be a new member and prospects meeting early in the new year. Moving individuals from prospects into members may require multiple contacts from multiple members.

 

Part of membership is keeping existing members. In this area we might want to promote the Rotary groups that already exist for people with special interests in wine, skiing or other activities. In this connection we can also stress the international connection with our members being welcome in Rotary in all parts of the world.

 

In conclusion, Peter stressed that all members are invited to help on the membership committee. If amalgamation goes ahead we may have more members moving between clubs. This should create good cross pollination.

 

Peter was thanked by President Mark

 

Adjournment