Submitted by Will Arscott 

 

 

This was the first Virtual meeting of the Rotary Club of Saskatoon. It was a success. The club owes a great thanks to those who set it up particularly Paul Gauthier. Paul surveyed who would be coming and the email they would use. The link was sent out in time for the meeting and, for the most part, the meeting ran smoothly. At the height of the meeting we had twenty-seven members present. There will be more about the reaction to this meeting below. This will not be our last Virtual meeting and it is even possible we could use this format in part even after the current crises is past.

 

We did not have the traditional duty roster. President Vic Dubois presided over the meeting. The meeting opened with the Canadian flag graphic broadcasted to all our members’ screens and the playing of ‘O Canada’. Grace was missed this week but there was a discussion on grace later in the meeting and we can expect grace to continue even in the Virtual meeting form.

 

 

There were no visitors or guests present. The members more familiar with Virtual meetings and ZOOM may want to consider how we could invite guests and other Rotarians to our Virtual meetings. It is obviously unrealistic to expect everything to be completely in place for our very first Virtual meeting.

 

 

Badge Shield and Star Dinner:  Is now cancelled as Saskatchewan Regulations will not allow an event of this size at the present time. The cancellation of this event together with the cancellation of the Master’s golf pool has left a very large hole in the club Budget. Members are being asked to please contribute the amount they would have paid for tickets. The money should be paid to the Saskatoon Rotary Charitable Trust.  Because there is no dinner involved the full amount of your contribution will be receipted as a charitable contribution. Please see if this is possible and contact Allan Lebiszczak to arrange your payment. You can pay by cheque or using a credit card.   Allan asks that credit card information not be sent by email.  You can email Allan at allan-leb@shaw.ca. He will then contact you for your card information. The good news is that $2,875 has been collected to date.

 

Master’s Gold Pool:  Is now cancelled due to the postponement/cancellation of the Master Gold Tournament.

 

President’s Dinner:  Is still scheduled for July 7^th onboard the Prairie Lily. The boat will not operate under city regulations until after June 30^th. This could well be extended and our event cancelled. Please watch this space for further updates.

 

Becas Meeting: Will take place on Tuesday April 21^st in a Virtual meeting. This is an important meeting.  It would be great to be able to continue the scholarships to all that are in the program but sponsors will be lost in the current circumstances. Jim W would like to have as many as possible to contribute in the discussion.

 

Getting up and running with ZOOM:  Peter Voldeng offered to help any members with getting set up for virtual meetings. Peter can be reached at psvoldeng@sasktel.net

 

 

 

Mark Gryba - was happy for being able to meet in ZOOM and was appreciative for the work Paul G. had done to make it possible. Made some snide remarks about several members’ appearances in cyberspace: Doodle’s I-Phone, what is that about Dave?

 

Dave Sundby (Doodles) - Sad for events in Nova Scotia. Happy that his son Niels has found a full-time position with the City of Saskatoon.

 

Wayne McGillivray - Sad – The horrific shooting in northern Nova Scotia with the resultant waste of life. As well Betty Ann and I were once again preempted in our attempted offering of ‘O Canada’, this for the second time in our Rotary lives.  Happy: With the way our various Canadian systems have responded to this once in a hundred years event – COVID -19. Spring has finally sprung so that we can at least get out and walk the dog.  And finally, Bev and I have a little gym set up in our front room and we are actually using it. 

 

Jim Weber - Happy for his recent anniversary.

 

Vic Dubois - Happy for doing work outs at home. He reported doing a good set of floor exercises Sunday although he was unable to get up afterward.

 

Graham Pearson - Put in $100 for being away. Sad as his Dad passed away quite quickly. Told a story of his daughter managing to get back for his funeral from Mongolia, a trip made particularly difficult by the onset of the COVID-19 crises.

 

 

 

The proposed club budget for the 2020-21 Rotary year was presented by Wayne Palmer.  The budget had been distributed to members by email before the meeting.  Paul was also able to put the pages under discussion up on our monitors. This is where the issues with Virtual meetings appeared.  Despite his best efforts, Wayne’s internet connection was less than robust and he kept freezing up and disappearing. The editor would encourage the members to examine the proposed budget for themselves as some of Wayne’s presentation was lost.

 

The budget for this year will not be met due to the COVID-19 crisis. Without the Badge Shield and Star and the Master’s Golf, our fund raising will be way under budget. The club holds a reserve of $46,000 for the purpose of protecting the club and its projects in the case of such an event. At the last Board meeting a motion was passed to authorize Wayne to make transfers as necessary to cover our operations. In this regard, members should note the request to contribute in lieu of the BSS as these donations will directly reduce the amount of money that has to be removed from our reserve.

 

For the next year our revenue streams will be projected as restored and are similar to our revenue expectations for this year.

 

There was an extended discussion of dues for next year. The dues were set in the budget based on a club of 40 members of which two are on leave. This leaves just 38 due -paying members. RI Dues are up for this year while most of the other costs in the dues are the same as last year. Overall the proposal is to raise dues from $310 to $315.   Members will be invoiced soon for $335 with a $20 discount if the fees are paid by June 15^th.

 

Peter Whitenect spoke that there was a limit to his commitment to Rotary. These are uncertain times and for anyone living on investments this has been a difficult period with no immediate end in sight.  He cautioned the club that we need to be careful about the financial demands we made on our members.

 

Jim Weber spoke to dues. He pointed out that some of our members may be under significant financial pressure at the present time. He spoke of the experience in Hawaii when many clubs were lost after the melt-down of 2007. Jim pointed out the RI can be rigid in their rules and failed to make allowances for the situation in 2007 with a result that was harmful to Rotary overall. We want to keep members and maybe some arrangement should be made to keep members who would have trouble paying the dues. Jim suggested that his matter be discussed at the Board level and President Vic agreed.

 

Mark Gryba wondered whether people could drop back to a ‘friend of Rotary’ status if they did not pay regular dues. They could still participate and move back to regular membership when the situation allowed. Dave Sundby wondered about people taking leave in this situation. It was pointed out that we have members on leave all the time.  Currently we have two members on leave.

 

The discussion was left that members will be invoiced as above.  If you have a problem with the dues your initial contact would be with Wayne Palmer. This matter is to be discussed further at the Board level.

 

Wayne spoke briefly about the cancellation of the Pavilion project. We had been awarded a District Grant of $2,500 in connection with this project. A new proposal is being written to assign this grant to the development of the Saskatoon Rotary website.  Indication from the District is that this would be acceptable.

 

The discussion of the budget led seamlessly into a discussion of several issues before the club.

 

There was a discussion of the meetings and moving everything onto the computer so that there is a minimum of paraphernalia such as flags to store and set up. It was suggested that we need to train more of our members to run the laptop and that this function may need to be part of the duty roster for meetings. Members liked the Canadian flag graphic but would rather sing than just listen to the anthem. Having ‘O Canada’ sung seems universally popular among our members.

 

Following this there was a long discussion about grace at meetings. This is a larger topic as our society becomes more secularized. President Vic spoke to the restrictions on blessings at civic events. Many members spoke and your editor is not going to attempt to give responses of individual members. What follows is the writing of this editor and can be taken as an editorial:

 

Grace at Rotary meetings is a potential divisive issue. In many situations public blessings have been ended for fear of giving offense to one group or another. Within our club there is a very strong majority opinion that grace should continue at our meetings. At the same time there is a recognition that Rotary is an international movement that welcomes and includes members from all religious faiths or no faith at all.  I believe there is a recognition that all of us, as members of the Saskatoon Rotary club, are blessed.  We all live a life that is beyond the reach of most in our world.  We share a common humanity with all others in the world. I think our members feel that it cannot be wrong to remember our blessings and our common humanity.

 

The membership would like to see us get back to asking members to say a blessing before meals. It is important that these blessings not be narrowly denominational. I would propose the test is that, if you were to be the only Islamic, or Jewish or Atheist member at the meeting, would you be comfortable with what was said.

 

It makes more work in organizing the duty roster to have a person scheduled for grace but in the past this practice has enriched our club. Jim Weber will seek to obtain some short blessings that can be kept in the meeting box for use by members who may be asked to say a grace and are not prepared. What surprised this editor most was the broad agreement on this matter within our club.

 

A suggestion was also received from Gary Rusu that the club do something to recognize the additional needs of our community associated with the pandemic. He asked if we could make a substantial donation ($5,000) to the Friendship Inn, in honour of Peter Zakreski, to aid them with the additional pressure they face. The food bank would also be a worthy recipient. This suggestion will be taken up at the next Board meeting.

 

 

At the end of the meeting President Vic remarked about how well it had done for our first cyber meeting. He suggested we should do it again. Out next speaker is scheduled for May 25^th which is a month away.  Based on meetings every two weeks we would have a meeting on May 4^th. Gary Rusu will attempt to schedule a speaker for this meeting. A suggestion was made that there is not enough club business to justify a meeting in the absence of a speaker, but other members felt that a meeting shouldn’t just be about a speaker. Watch you email for an announcement.