MEETING RECAP - 26th November 2018
Submitted by Will Arscott
Our First Official ‘Discussion Meeting’
This week was our second meeting held in the ‘discussion’ format. The tables in the room were laid out in a rectangle to facilitate discussion. We had a great turnout with about twenty-five regular members and one prospective member present. President Paul presided.
Cashier - John Davies
Set-up - Al Morton & Wayne McGillivray
Grace - Avis Hardy
Visitors and Guests - Peter Whitenect
O Canada was led by Wayne McGillivray as usual. Avis Hardy did a wonderful grace she drew inspirational quotes from a book called ‘Life Lessons for a Red Serge’. It reminded us of our commitment to serving.
Visitors and Guests - Peter Whitenect
Donna Gauthier - guest of the club and wife of President Paul
Wendy Cooper - prospective member and guest of Gary Rusu
Happy and Sad Dollars
Your scribe needed to eat so their was no attempt to record all the happy and sad dollars. Overall we seemed to be quite an agreeable group. Wayne McGillivray gave his usual input and many others contributed. Jim Weber announced that tickets (formally called sergeant’s tickets) would still be available for sale. By giving your happy dollars in this form you can claim a tax receipt and have Justin Trudeau subsidize your happiness.
Announcements
Next Week’s Meeting (December 3rd) will be held at the Saskatoon Club
District Grant Seminar will be held November 27th starting at 6:45 at the Saskatoon Club. There are still spaces if you want to attend but please contact Mark Gryba and confirm as district need to know the attendees.
Grocery Cards are available from Donna Gauthier. Get stocked up for the holidays. Sobeys/Safeway are available. The Co-op cards are promised but have been held up due to the labour situation.
At the president’s council it was decided to add classification to the five club directory. It is hoped that Rotarians will consider other Rotarians when they need goods or services. Listing your occupation is optional. The listing is being circulated. Please add your classification. If you do not enter a classification you will appear without one.
A sign-up for the KG Christmas Market was circulated by Avis H. Please sign-up for a time. So far we have only two volunteers. Please make it easy on our organizers and sign-up for a shift early. Please start to bring your items. If needed, items can be brought to our meeting and given to Avis.
A sign-up was circulated by Dave Sundby for the Enchanted Forest Project. Please take one or more shifts. Nobody other than Steven or Dave should have to do more than two shifts. [This really seemed to be the week for circulating sign-up sheets.]
Another sign up sheet was circulated by Peter Zakreski for our shift at the Friendship Inn. This ‘hands on project’ will take place on Monday December 10th from 7:00am to 3:00pm. As usual, the day is divided into two hour shifts. [Please all hands on deck]
It was asked whether we have times for the Salvation Army bell ringing. Mike Giesbrecht was not at meeting and the times are not yet available.
DISCUSSION MEETING - Committee Reports
FOUNDATION: Mike Giesbrecht was not present so this report was given by President Paul. Our budget called for a target donation of $4,800 for this year. Of this, $1,000 was to go to Polio Plus where it would be subject to the double matching from the Gates Foundation. The remaining $3,800 was to go to the regular Foundation. We need to donate $25 per member in order to qualify for district grants. To date our club has contributed $483 to Polio and $785 to regular Foundation. Hopefully our members can catch this up by the end of the year.
PROGRAM: (Gary Rusu) Gary asked for possible speakers or topics for future meetings. A sheet was passed around so members could write down any ideas. He asked if there was interest in meetings at facilities or businesses where there could be a luncheon and a tour. There was interest in this idea. One possibility would be a tour of the New Belsher facility at the University. This job may not be as onerous starting next year as we move to fewer meetings.
TREASURER’S REPORT (Wayne Palmer) Wayne distributed the current financial statement to the members. I will not try to reproduce them here but members can email Wayne for a copy. We are finishing a period of some dislocation as the books are moved to the Quickbooks accounting system. This project began under Wayne Storozuk and is now almost complete. It is meant to reduce the work required in the future.
Assets: We have about $13,000 in receivables mostly money due from other clubs to do with the Pavilion project. We have been assured these funds will be forthcoming once construction gets under way.
Liabilities: We have a liability for fees paid in advance which will be removed with an accounting adjustment.
We have a new capital asset on the books fo the Pavilion that shows at a capitalized value of $54,000.
The club agreed that our books would not be audited but would be subject to an outside review. This was passed with overwhelming support. In future years Wayne wants to do statements on a semi-annual basis with interim statements in January or February.
PUBLIC IMAGE (Drew Byers) This committee was established in the last year under the leadership of Bev Johnson. Due to her health Bev has had to step down. The new committee under Drew is looking for some outside expertise. They want to determine who we are trying to reach with our message. They believe it is 40 to 50 years olds and the recently retired. There is another whole category that may include individuals who might not appear as the traditional type that have become our members. These are people that have a specific interest related to one of our projects. The work of the committee was temporarily held back due to the merger talk but will go ahead in the new year. Kaitlin Cholowski (who has worked on our BSS Dinner) has been approached about advertising and website strategies. Jim Weber spoke briefly about a ‘Rotary’ business card to make Rotary better known.
MEMBERSHIP (Jim Weber) Three new members were approved at the recent Board meeting. They will be inducted as part of our Christmas meeting on December 17th. Jim presented a specimen membership proposal form which is attached. This is to alert the club of the prospective member and is for club use. This does not replace the twenty year old membership application form.
NOMINATING COMMITTEE (President Paul) We need to fill the president elect and vice president position in order to move ahead. Gary Rusu pointed out that membership is really the problem and that new people are needed in the club. We may go to a new model where co-positions become more common. Jack Brodsky noted that the president position is quite demanding and requires hours every week and is continually a concern. Particularly, now that we have fewer members, the president is always concerned that the things that need to be done do get done. President Paul would like to see a commitment from each member of 150 hours per year. Depending on their position this could be done over the whole year or in a shorter portion of the year.
Paul circulated a new organizational model which will be our discussion topic at the meeting next week. It is built around six basic teams and requires the commitment of about 35 members to make it work. There are three pages in the attachment:
Please take some time with this model prior to our next meeting and come with your questions. The meeting on December 3rd will be at the Saskatoon Club.
