Submitted by Will Arscott

 

 

The meeting was held at Westmount Community School hosted by their community development coordinator Anne McClelland. Due to the need to feed children at noon, our meal was delayed. We began with Simon Trujillo our Rotary exchange student and guest speaker. For the purposes of this Rotateller the meeting will be reported in our regular order. The meeting was presided by President Mark Gryba.

 

Cashier - Joanne Fisher

Visitors and Guests - Peter Whitenect

Grace - Clare Heagy

 

We were served a meal cooked at the school by the ‘Kookum.’ It was truly excellent and well balanced. The rice and cabbage dish was excellent and the chefs at the Bessborough could learn something about cooking chicken to make it tender. The meal ended with a German chocolate cake which was as wonderful as it was rich. We learned later that the salad dressing was done in house using plain yogourt that had been donated. The ‘Kookum’ is very adept at planning her menu around the donated food stuffs. The editor gives the meal the full Michelin three stars.

 

O Canada was led by Wayne McGillivray

 

Grace - Clare Heagy asked us to be thankful for all that we have been given and to be responsive to needs in our own community.

 

Visitors and Guests - Peter Whitenect

Anne McClelland - Westmount School Community Coordinator

Simon Macias Trujillo Rotary exchange student from Pereira, Columbia

Art Postle who brought Simon and is a Meewasin Rotarian

 

 

- Meeting next week (May 14^th) will be at the Bessborough. The subject will be the Saskatchewan Heavy Construction Association with Shantel Lipp.

 

- May 21^st NO MEETING for the Victoria Day holiday.

 

- District 5550 Conference will be taking place 24^th to 27^th of May in Regina. You can still register for another week. Go to the District 5550 Website and follow the links. A day registration is possible if you only have one day available.

 

- The Regina Rotary Golf Tournament is taking place at the Torr Hill golf course on July 6^th. If you would like to participate please contact President Mark.

 

- Board Meeting this Wednesday at 7:00am at the Saskatoon Club. All members are welcome.

 

- LobsterFest Tickets we receive $45 per ticket we sell for our own club. The event will be on Saturday 2^nd of June at the soccer centre on Attridge Drive. Please consider attending it is always a good time. Volunteers are also needed so if you can give a couple of hours please see Dave Sundby.

 

 

- Steve was short and sweet. He suggested that every member present should, before the next meeting, phone a member who was not present and encourage them to attend next week. He further suggested that the sergeant next week fine any member who fails to undertake this suggestion.

 

- He also fined anyone who had been out golfing for too much enjoyment of the nice weather.

 

 

 

- H President Mark for getting out in his yard gardening and getting his raspberry bushes trimmed so they can be enjoyed by the golfers later in the season.

 

- H Wayne McGillivray for the first men’s golf night being played later in the evening.

 

 

Simon is from Pereira, Columbia a city of about 600,000. It is located in Rotary district 4281. Simon arrived on the 28^th of August 2017 and will leave for home July 16^th. He has had a great experience and has been the guest of the Saskatoon Rotary clubs. His host families have been based in Warman and he has attended Warman High School. He reports his visit has been a great experience to date.

 

Life in Warman is very different from life in Columbia. His city has a population of around 600,000 while Bogota has a population of about 10,000,000. Simon lives with his parents in a fourteenth floor apartment. He does not have any siblings or pets.

 

Neither of his parents are Rotarians. He learned of Rotary from an aunt who is a Rotarian. He was convinced to apply for the trip when he met a group of exchange students in Columbia. This has been his biggest trip. He has been to other Spanish-speaking countries with similar climates but he had never seen snow before. He said snow was initially very exciting. It became less exciting as the winter wore on. He was glad when things finally melted though it looked grubby and all the trees looked like they were dead.

 

Simon had graduated High School and even taken a semester of University before leaving Columbia.. He has enjoyed Warman High and has become quite involved in drama. He appeared in the musical ‘King Arthur’ and was in a drama competition with the ‘Thirty-nine Steps’ by Alfred Hitchcock. He has obviously enjoyed the drama. For sports he is trying our track and field doing the 800 meters as well as discus and javelin. In school in Columbia there is much less opportunity to pursue extra-curricular activities.

 

There are sixteen exchange students this year in our district. He has had several trips with the other students. He is the only Spanish speaking student in the district this year, though he has some French and his English is excellent. The trip to Churchill was memorable. They saw polar bears even when they could have left to go out on the new ice. He also met the outgoing students for this year in Russell. In one week the students leave on their big western trip through the mountains.

 

Simon has enjoyed how friendly Canadians are - people will smile at you in a store and are polite. It is not always like that in Columbia. To close Simon answered some questions from our members:

 

- He has had two host families each with siblings and pets and has enjoyed both experiences.

- Learned English at an academy school and by watching English media. All students must study English but they do not become fluent and the English that is taught is stilted.

- His skating skills are limited. He can propel himself and turn but cannot stop except to run into something. He skied at Table Mountain and Wapiti but really took to snowboarding (to Wayne McGillivray’s disgust.)

- He has graduated high school in Columbia and has completed his first semester of University. When he gets home he will return to University to study biology.

All in all Simon is a great ambassador for Columbia and for Rotary.

 

 

 

Anne McClelland explained that Westmount has an extensive nutrition program. They have a smaller breakfast program, a large lunch program and provide snacks morning and afternoon to all students. Students know that food is available if they are hungry. The number of students receiving food varies with the time of the month.

 

She was most appreciative of our club’s contribution. Previously, they had been cooking using two residential stoves. We have provided a commercial electric unit. The cost was the unit itself plus the necessary electrical upgrading. The commercial unit provides much greater capacity particularly oven capacity. There are further needs particularly for a commercial dishwasher. Westmount is but one community school in Saskatoon so the needs are considerable. Hopefully we will do more in the future.

 

Adjournment