Submitted by Will Arscott 

 

 

It was a large group in the Battleford Room of the Bessborough. It was heartening to see so many members and guests out. We appreciate the patience of the late arrivals while two additional tables were set up. 

 

We continued our new practice of asking members to chair. This meeting we had the recent past-president Paul Gauthier conduct the meeting. 

Greeter was Heather Clysdale           

Cashier was Linda Petrow

Visitors and Guests introduced by Avis Hardy

Set-up  and take down was done by Al Morton

 

The meeting opened with Gary Rusu leading us in singing ‘O Canada’ and the Rotary grace.

 

 

Winston Blake - RAP Executive Director and speaker.

Jo Custead - Affinity Credit Union - guest of the club.

Tammy Pshebylo - Luther Care and guest of Gary Rusu. It was announced that Tammy who comes to us from Palm Desert Rotary has agreed to join our club. Happy news indeed!

Justin Swan - guest and possible new member for the club.

Donna Gauthier - please see Donna for all your grocery card needs.

 

Announcements - President Vic

 

There will be a regular meeting of the Board of Directors on Wednesday at 7:00 am at the Saskatoon Club. Vic emphasized that there will be important business to discuss at this meeting and he is hoping all members of the board are able to attend. Other members would be welcome.

 

Wayne Storozuk announced he is planning a Membership Committee meeting in the next week.  No time has been finalized. Members are encouraged to contact Wayne as to when they can meet. All would be welcome.

 

Wayne also reminded us that the Kiwanis Apple Project is on Saturday September 28^th. All members are encouraged to participate. Wearing the clown costume is optional. You can work morning or afternoon or all day. Traditionally we have worked the Lawson Mall but this is to be confirmed. Recently we have been joined by high school students doing their community service requirements. It is a good time and our club receives 40% of all donations we take in so it is also a good fundraiser. If you can help please contact Wayne Storozuk by email wayne@waynestorozuk.ca or his cell number is 306.222.4629.

 

Peter Zakreski announced our next work date at the Friendship Inn will be Monday October 7^th.   There will be no regular meeting that day. Shifts start from early morning to 1:00 pm and last about two hours. The sign-up sheet was circulated. Please sign up quickly as the spots are filling quickly.

 

North Club’s 40^th Anniversary Dinner will be held on Thursday September 19^th at the Travelodge. Happy hour starts at 6pm with a dinner at 7pm. Tickets are $25 and are available from Peter Sen peter.sen@shaw.ca. It would be great if our club was represented at this event.

 

 

2H       Gary R for great time at Marquis Downs hosted by President Vic and the Saskatoon Media Group. The food was good, the refreshments were good, and there was an opportunity to lose some money on the horses of which Gary took full advantage.

Also happy for Tammy Pshebylo coming to our club from Palm Desert. The paper work is to be completed this week and then we can expect a more complete introduction to our newest member.

 

H         Mike L for wedding of his daughter.

 

10H     Peter Z for 20 or so family members traveling to Italy for his daughter’s wedding. Both his daughter and the groom live in Montreal but wanted to get married in Italy. Peter wouldn’t say whether they were able to get the Pope to conduct the wedding.

 

H         Avis Hardy for participating in the walk for Ovarian Cancer. Also was proud of our member Joanne Fisher who helped with the event and is herself a survivor. Significant money was raised through this event.

 

H         Heather C for daughter arriving in Halifax to start a leg of her medical education.

 

H         Gary E for birth of first grandson.

 

H         Tammy P for joining our club and for the welcome she has received.

 

H         Prem for the pilot project in Nepal being underway and the leadership team being in place.

 

H         Will A for a great trip to the NWT. He would recommend a trip to the Territories to anyone.

 

H         Jack B for a trip he and Shirley took to some Haida Gwaii Islands (once known as the Queen Charlotte Islands). Jack had success at both Salmon and Halibut fishing.

 

H&S    Paul G for last two ‘Rider games against Winnipeg.

 

And a special club Happy to Canada’s new sports superstar Bianca Andreescu. It is also nice to see a female athlete capture this much attention.

 

           

 

Jack Brodsky began the RAP update. There is no space here to summarize Jack’s myriad contributions to our club. He serves as the chairman of the RAP Board and he and Shirley have been very significant benefactors of the program. The program is thankful to Jack and Shirley for making necessary things available at times when the program’s resources were stretched.

 

The Restorative Action Program or RAP is our club’s banner program. This year it enters its sixteenth year. From humble beginnings in one Saskatoon High School it has grown to a program in nine high schools across two school divisions and is looking towards further expansion. In the past year the branding of RAP has been much improved with many thanks to Vic Dubois and the Saskatoon media group. Expansion beyond Saskatoon is being looked at with Prince Albert as a possible expansion community. In upcoming months the RAP Board will be making contact with the Rotary Club in Prince Albert.

 

The RAP Board includes representatives from all five Saskatoon Rotary clubs. It also has representatives from the two school boards it serves (Saskatoon Public and the Greater Saskatoon Catholic). The Chief of Police, Troy Cooper, is also on the board. Chief Cooper’s support has been most important and may be influential if we expand to Prince Albert where he was Police Chief before coming to Saskatoon. RAP is also supported by the provincial government through the Department of Justice. Both Don Morgan and Gordon Wyant have been staunch RAP supporters.

 

Jack closed by saying that the strategic plan that was developed some years ago is moving along.  As one might expect we are behind in some areas and ahead in others. The evaluation work that is being done by the University and Saskatchewan Polytechnic is most important in justifying and selling RAP so that it continues going forward.

 

Throughout his presentation Jack emphasized that RAP must always remain a community based, bottom-up program. Some possibilities for expansion have not worked out because these conditions were not in place.  

 

The community partners are most important to the success of RAP. The Affinity Credit Union has been an important community partner of RAP. Affinity Credit Union is the 8^th largest with 791 employees. Once again they have agreed to sponsor RAP for this year. Rather than just mail us their contribution they were represented at our meeting by Jo Custead who is a volunteer on their District Council. Jo spoke briefly and said that RAP was a very good fit with Affinity Credit Union’s motto of ‘A Better World for Everyone Everyday.’ There was a photo taken of Jo presenting a cheque for $10,000, which is the maximum amount that can be given according to the Council by-laws, to Jack and Winston. Our club thanks the Affinity CU for their interest and support of RAP.

 

After the presentation Winston Blake came to the front and rang the Rotary bell to announce that school was in for a new year. He was welcomed and began his update of the program. He began by saying he has seen a huge change in RAP in the past couple of years. Originally the program was largely reactive and responded to events in the school and in the lives of the students. This was important and useful as far as it went. In recent years the focus has become far more proactive. Many potential situations are resolved before there is an event. RAP gives students tools to use to prevent conflict in advance.

 

Winston went on to reflect that though school began last week, the RAP programs began a week earlier as soon as the RAP workers were in the school, students began to filter in and talk about their summers and other issues. RAP is now part of the school community.

 

Winston pointed out that the job of educators is to produce citizens with the skills to contribute and find success. This is a demanding requirement particularly with classes of thirty students.   These are the goals of the educators and there is no time to provide social support many students require. It is the RAP Workers who have the time, expertise and commitment to provide social support to the students.

 

Many young students struggle in many ways. ‘Teenager’ is a category that has really only existed since the 1940s. Even in those days teenage issues were smaller, even trivial, by the standards of today. The issues our young people face are much more serious today. Young people have to deal with crime, illicit drugs and 20% will be diagnosed with a mental illness. Bullying continues to be a big problem and the cyber world makes it worse.

 

Students are connected to their phones and many sleep with them. This makes them available at all times for better or worse. One can say that they can avoid cyber bullying by going dark in social media but that is very difficult for young people to do. There are no easy answers in this regard. 

 

RAP started because of problems being experienced in one high school in Saskatoon. Winston quoted our member Mike LeClaire “What is present in a community is seen in a school.” Rotary created RAP to care about all kids.

 

Our RAP facilitators are special people who rise to the challenges they face. The fact that they have had success shows in the renewal of the program one year to the next. The school boards pay 50% of the salaries and they have many priorities. If the boards did not see value in RAP, the funding would be moved to some other program. The students obviously see value in our RAP workers as is shown by the increasing use of the program.

 

For the province the RAP program saves resources. Once a youth is in the criminal justice system there is an average cost of about $80,000 per youth. Our program saves the province significant money. The police service supports RAP as a method to support kids and avoid legal interventions that sometimes are harmful in the longer term. RAP advocates for change in youth and their relationships rather than functioning as a tool of punishment. 

 

There was a short question period after Winston’s presentation:

 

 We are now in nine of sixteen schools and are looking at ways to create a presence in the remaining schools. This may involve using nursing students from the U of R as interns. The expansion is not just for the facilitators’ time but will help decrease the strain on the administration of the system. There are also issues with expanding outside of Saskatoon because if Winston is the lead in this type of expansion, then who does his job here? To expand, we need to look at our capabilities in all these areas.

 

There has also been a Conflict Management Training workshop created for organizations outside of the school systems. Conflict is everywhere and leads to all kinds of lost productivity throughout society. Many working days are lost and organizations with major conflict problems ultimately have worker retention problems. These workshops are also designed to provide an additional source of Revenue to RAP. To date less income has been generated than hoped but SIGA has recently signed on for these workshops and it is hoped others will follow.

 

Winston and Jack were thanked by Paul Gauthier and the regular donation will be made to Bethany Homes. I am sure I speak for the club in saying that Jack and Winston’s presentations showed us how we are meeting our Rotary goals.

 

Next meeting will be September 23^rd when we will have a presentation from Stars Ambulance.