MEETING RECAP - 22nd of October 2018
Submitted by Will Arscott
The River Landing Development
John Nasser Victory Majors Investment Corporation
This week we had a traditional format meeting at the Bessborough. The meeting was the best attended in a very long time. In particular female membership was well represented. I think everyone agrees the meetings are a lot better when there are more members present. The meeting was presided by President Paul Gauthier.
Greeter - Heather Clysdale
Cashier - Wayne McGillivray
Set-up - Wayne McGillivray; Al Morton
Visitors and Guests - Not sure but thank you anyway
Grace - Gary Rusu
Happy and Sad - Steve Wilson
O Canada was led by Wayne McGillivray as per usual
Grace - a proper thanks was done by Gary Rusu
Visitors and Guests -
Linda Petrow guest of Gary Rusu and Prospective member
Donna Gauthier - partner of our president
John Nasser guest speaker and member of our club who, after several years in the club, came out to his second meeting!
Announcements
Bev Johnson is waiting on the results of her chemotherapy. If things look good the next step would be surgery. She is feeling OK and is not in pain. The club hopes things will turn out as well as possible.
Jack Brodsky reminded us there will be an AGM and dinner to celebrate the 15th anniversary of RAP on November 22nd. This dinner will be held at the Crossmount Village with five club involvement. As a part of the dinner, the contributions of Clive Weighill will be recognized. Tickets are $50 per person and are available from Jack Brodsky. Jack had tickets at the meeting and they can be purchased at the October 29th or Nov. 5th meetings. If you are planning to attend why not reply to the email Jack sent out Monday.
King George School Joanne Fisher met with the school earlier Monday. There are new people in place both as a community school coordinator and principal. These new people are still getting up to speed. The population of the school continues to fall and is now down around 125. They are anxious to undertake the Christmas Market and it will be held on either Tuesday, December 18th or Thursday, December 20th. We can start putting away gifts and encouraging our friends and family to do the same. Last year we ran short on gifts for kids. Other projects were discussed and the reading program appears to be much needed. There has been a cut-back in the number of Educational Assistants assigned to the school so there is an even great need for people to go into the school and read with the kids. Joanne will continue to work on this. We also may have a luncheon at the school in the spring but no firm plans have been made at this point. The club thanks Joanne for her ongoing work on this project.
Food cards project This year’s program will be coordinated by Wayne Storozuk with Donna Gauthier as our order taker. Donna was introduced at the meeting. President Paul said he had used the massive powers associated with being club president to appoint his wife as coordinator of food card sales. Please place your order with Donna. Sobey’s/Safeway cards were available at the meeting with Co-op cards to follow maybe by next week. If you have a large order please indicate in advance so we can be sure to have a sufficient number of cards available.
Remembrance Day Traditionally the Rotary clubs of Saskatoon have laid a wreath at the civic Remembrance Day service. In recent years this has been missed. Our club will revive this tradition this year and pass it to other clubs in future years. President Paul will lay a wreath on behalf of all Rotary in Saskatoon. [the $75 expenditure for the wreath has been approved by the club.]
World Polio Day Event on October 24th (Wednesday). In connection with WPD, the Meewasin Club is holding a wing night at Sports on Tap. The event starts at 6:00 pm with proceeds going to the Rotary Foundation for Polio eradication. Vic Dubois reminded us that our new public image committee for Saskatoon Rotary will undertake to raise awareness of World Polio Day... Al Muir (a North member who is wheelchair bound) will appear in various media to give our message. Vic has sent out a press release to print media. Since the meeting, an email has been sent to members with the schedule of media appearances for the 24th. These will not be reproduced here as they will be passed by the time of publication. As promised Vic summarized the giving of Saskatoon Rotary. In the past five years, our clubs have given about $110,000. With the various matching programs and particularly the two to one matching program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, we have contributed as much as $384,000 over five years. In this area, the efforts of Brenda Banbury and the matching of her efforts by our own Jack Brodsky have been critical.
As we announced in the last Rotateller there are open opportunities for Rotary service.
I) Due to the health withdrawal of Bev Johnson, we need a Vice-President 2018-2019
II) We also need a Vice-President 2019-2020
III) Rotary Foundation Director - 2019-2021
IV) Club Service Director - 2019-2021 - Steve Wilson is a nominee
V) Website administrator to replace Gordon Menuz
These positions could be taken by a single member or shared between two members. This might be appropriate for those that wish to be involved but know they are away for a period of the year.
Happy and Sad Dollars - Steve Wilson
Steve began by announcing again that a decision has been made by the board to discontinue our tradition of having a Sergeant. Going forward we will be encouraging more members to do happy and sad dollars. Last week Mark Gryba got the honour of being our last Sergeant. At this meeting Steve presented a plaque to Dave Sundby declaring that the club has made Dave a ‘Master Sergeant at Arms.’ This was done in recognition of all the times on short or longer notice Dave has stepped up and been our sergeant. Congratulations Dave on your unique award.
There was one particular sad dollar from Clare Heagy who announced he would begin cancer treatment in the afternoon. The club has nothing but good wishes for Clare as he deals with the treatment and all its uncertainty. Clare did have a happy dollar for the health system which has been looking after him.
There were many happy dollars this week and football seemed to be on many members’ minds.
H Jim Weber for the Husky football on Saturday and the great victory. Jim announced he was a little miffed with Wayne McGillivray for saving his voice for singing and not fully cheering all of the Husky touchdowns particularly when they were ahead.
H Gary Rusu for Wendy Cooper who has applied for membership in our club. He is also happy that Linda Petrow is considering membership. And our prospective member Parm was also at this meeting and has applied for membership. It has been a while since we have had three prospective members at the club.
H Wayne McGillivray was happy for the ‘Riders and for Collaros whom even Wayne admitted had a good game. Wayne says he now regrets a description of Collaros he had given prior to the game that might have had the word ‘bum’ in it.
H President Paul for the turn-out and for the prospective new members. The club just feels better when more of our members are present.
H Vic Dubois for the Hilltop victory. [This editor doesn’t quite understand why these other teams even undertake the expense of sending teams to play the Hilltops when the result is almost certain annihilation.]
H Heather Clysdale for the Saskatoon SPCA and the family’s new rescue cat. As a result of their taking a cat, several neighbours are considering pets from the SPCA.
H Dave Sundby for his Dad’s 88th birthday and the opportunity for a visit.
Jim Weber raised whether both the men’s and women’s Husky hockey teams had been fully recognized in our proceedings. It was decided that both teams had great success last weekend. Time was called on the happy and sad dollars.
Our Guest Speaker John Nasser - President Victory Majors Development Inc.
[This editor has been asked by John not to reproduce the full story he presented at the meeting. John’s talk was a gift to our club but it was not intended to be ‘read’ into the public space. As a result, we will limit this write-up to a bit about John and the personal process he and his family have gone through in bringing the project forward.]
John Nasser was introduced by Jack Brodsky. Jack mentioned that he first got to know John last year when our Red Cross / Syrian luncheon was being organized. John is the son of Karim and Dora Nasser and is now president of the family business Victory Majors Investment Inc.
It was interesting that John sprinkled his talk with no fewer than three quotes from Sir Winston Churchill. The first was that a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity while an optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. John presented this as a paradigm for the River Landing Project.
What is now known as the River Landing Project has its originals as early as 1948 as a plan to re-develop Saskatoon’s South Downtown. It has been through a great number of iterations since then until it is finally being undertaken by Victory Majors and their partners at this time. It was impressive driving to the meeting to see the full extent of this project unfolding on the Riverbank between the Idylwyld bridge and the brand new traffic bridge.
Bringing this project forward has been a difficult and rewarding time for John and his family. Undertaking a project such as this means one has to make public financial disclosures of their affairs that one would not generally want to make. The project and every change have to be approved by regulatory authorities. This can be a slow and frustrating process.
The plan has changed many times. The current plan is maybe not the nicest or most ambitious version but it is one that makes sense financially. Earlier plans had, for example, included a large underground parking space under the whole development. Such a plan creates problems if it is started and then not completed. The current plan is designed to be accomplished in stages making financing more reasonable. This has caused many delays. The new plan, without the full underground parking, took eighteen months to produce.
I found the part where John talked about the mental ups and downs that went with the project most interesting. I have always known the Nasser family to be a family of strong people with strong values. Those values and resilience were needed. Those of us that have done sales or promoted a business know the sting when a great deal of work is done only to have a client reject the plan in the late stages. John explained the work that was done to develop a large anchor tenant for the office tower, to have that tenant announce publically that they would be moving to River Landing, only to receive a curt email that this would not be happening. When you have experienced this you know how difficult it can be psychologically. John spoke about how important family and lifestyle were in getting him through these difficult times. He also said that often you do not see the end of difficult times until you are already well past them.
John also spoke about his experience with Rotary. He said his Rotary business exchange to India in 2005 changed his life. He is proud to be a member of our club even if he does not attend meetings. Finally, John gave the club a $5,000 donation. This generous donation will be put towards the gazebo in Rotary Park. It will offer an excellent view of the River Landing Project.
John was thanked by Jack Brodsky and the regular donation will be made in honour of John’s speech to Bethany Homes.
Adjournment
