Submitted by Will Arscott and incorporating the meeting agenda by President Paul Gauthier

 

 

This week we were at the Bessborough. The meeting was presided by President Paul

Greeter - Jack Brodsky

Cashier - Wayne Palmer

Set-up - Wayne McGillivray; Al Morton

Visitors and Guests - Wayne Storozuk

Grace - Avis Hardy

Sergeant - Mark Gryba

 

O Canada was led by Wayne McGillivray as per usual

 

Grace - an appropriate grace was said by Avis Hardy.

 

Visitors and Guests - Wayne Storozuk

Wendy Cooper guest of Gary Rusu and Prospective member

Darryl Isbister our guest speaker was introduced in the meeting

 

 

Our member Susan Blum continues to heal. She is experiencing much nerve pain and is on pain medication. Is enjoying staying up with the club through the Rotateller. Susan hopes to be back to the club in January. As always we wish her a speedy and full recovery.

 

Avis Hardy spoke briefly about Shelter Box. The need now is in Indonesia as a result of the earthquake and resulting Tsunami. In the first case, nearly 60,000 people were displaced. Now, much more need help. An assessment team has been dispatched by Rotary International. RI is working with the Indonesian government, local Rotary and other organizations to organize a relief effort. Please donate if you are able. Last year our club provided two boxes at about $1,500 per box. Remittance forms were on the tables. If you would like to donate please contact Avis.

 

There will be an AGM and dinner to celebrate the 15^th anniversary of RAP on November 22^nd. 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.’

 

Vic Dubois announced there has been a meeting of the five clubs public image committee. All clubs but the North were represented. The first project will be to raise awareness of World Polio Day in Saskatoon and the role of Rotary in ending polio. Al Muir (a North member who is wheelchair bound) will appear in various media to give our message. Vic will undertake to do the necessary press release. The efforts of Vic and others in this area are much appreciated and should pay dividends.

 

A new schedule of meetings has been prepared for the period beginning in the new year. It has been decided that meetings will generally take place on the 2^nd and 4^th Mondays of the month. Where statutory holidays fall on a Monday a meeting may be moved forward or back or even cancelled. The schedule was put on the tables. The details of the actual meetings are not known at this point.

 

Food cards are again going to be a project this year. This year’s program will be coordinated by Wayne Storozuk with Donna Gauthier as our order taker. You can place your order with Donna when she is at meetings, by calling, or by email. We will be sure to publish the email and phone number in the next edition of the Rotateller.

 

World Polio Day Event on October 24^th (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.

 

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

 

There is an opportunity for a hands-on Project at Bishop Mahoney high school in role mentoring. The hope could be to create a Rotaract Club in the school. If this was done there would be some significant set-up involved and Rotary knowledge would be an asset.

 

Mark Gryba announced from the floor that we would like to get a local community service committee up and running again. This might be part of a recruiting strategy in having more local projects to attract more local members. Several people showed interest so a meeting will be scheduled in the near future.

 

Dave Sundby made his first announcement about the Enchanted Forest Project. It will be organized fairly soon. Dave’s first need is for a volunteer to learn the project so we have two people available to manage. This project is very profitable and brings in about $8,000. It does require we run the gate for about 26 nights. Later we will need helpers for each of the nights.

 

The meeting next Monday will feature John Nasser speaking on the River Landing project and Victory Majors Investments Corp.

 

 

The decision has been made by the board to discontinue our tradition of having a Sergeant and encouraging more members to do happy and sad dollars. [this editor hopes our executive got out the Ouija Board and consulted on this decision with the ghost of Forrest Conklin - we would not want to have a haunting of our future meetings.] However, Mark Gryba got the honour of being our last Sergeant and announcing the end of this long-standing tradition.

 

H Gary Rusu for his guest Wendy Cooper joining him and for a two-week river cruise in Europe which he enjoyed greatly.

H Peter Whitenect for Jean completing cancer scan and being declared clear. He also announced that, while he wants to stay active in Rotary projects, the time has come when he only wants to be a worker and no longer wants the responsibility of project organization. Also happy for Wayne McGillivray’s singing at Husky games and how well he was received by the crowd in the beautiful new stadium.

H The said Wayne McGillivray for the honour of singing for both women and men Huskies in he beautiful new facility. It was a great experience to sing in the new building.

H Peter Zakreski for his 57^th anniversary.

H Maureen Torr for being home and having the grants for the Ugandan project completed. In her personal life, she is now a grandmother and her daughter has been accepted into medical school.

H Mark Gryba for the Hilltops continued dominance and the start of their play-offs.

H Paul Gauthier for prospective new members at the meeting.

H Vic Dubois for his daughter’s singing at Blade’s games and for Hilltops great season.

H Wayne Storozuk for the birthdays of two grandsons.

H Will Arscott for the ‘Riders not giving away any of their offence strategy for beating the Blue Bombers in the playoffs.

 

 

Darryl is now the Aboriginal Education Coordinator for the Saskatoon Public School Board. Darryl has been recognized widely for his work in training teachers in all aspects of aboriginal education. In particular, Darryl has been at the forefront of treaty education for all teachers.

 

Darryl greeted us in his own native aboriginal language (Michif). This is a language this is now spoken by anywhere from 100 to 500 people and is in danger of being lost forever. Darryl spends time on this language every day in the hopes that he can help keep it alive.

 

Although his family is from the Kinistino area, Darryl grew up and has lived in Saskatoon for all his life except a very unhappy year when he was a representative for a major food company. It was the food company experience that made him determined to go back to school and pursue education and have a job he could love.

 

Over his teaching career, Darryl taught in six Saskatoon high schools. His first school was Mount Royal and he was there when our first pilot RAP was introduced. He knows RAP well and considers it a game-changer. It is encouraging to all the RAP stakeholders that aboriginal students are accessing the program in greater numbers.

 

After regular teaching, Darryl went to the downtown office as an aboriginal consultant. He was very briefly back in the schools as an assistant principal. When the Aboriginal coordinator position was created he took that on and has been in that position for 5 years.

 

Aboriginal education is in crises in Canada and especially in Saskatchewan. Any solution has to start from a realization that school is different for aboriginal students than for other students. In Saskatchewan, aboriginals are the fastest growing demographic. The number of self-declared aboriginals is exceeding projections. In 2009, 18% of kindergarten students in the province were aboriginal. Today that number has grown to 23% and it will grow further. 50% of the aboriginal population is under age 25.

 

High school graduation rates among aboriginals are very low. There has been limited improvement recently but the rate remains a black mark on our society in general. What is worse is the low rates extend to all aboriginal communities across Canada including the far north. Darryl consulted in a nine-school district in the Beaufort Delta and they experienced the very same problems as the schools here. We have a moral obligation to change this. For an aboriginal person, high school graduation means an increase of $400,000 in lifetime income even without any further education. It is reliably estimated that we could put 90 billion dollars back into the economy of the province by increasing aboriginal education success. This is not just direct gain but the gains made by the reduction of costs for government services.

 

Improving Aboriginal education outcomes is imperative on three bases: moral, economic and historical. The culture of our aboriginal people only exists here. They must come to see themselves in history. In this regard Darryl spoke of his own experience: In school, he was taught about the North West Rebellion. One of his great-grandfathers that were among the nine Metis killed at the Battle of Batoche. He was only 32 at the time and one of the older men who had sent the younger men home. The events were presented as a criminal uprising in his schooling.

 

Growing up Darryl could not admit to his aboriginal heritage. If he did, he would be treated differently either explicitly or implicitly. He refused opportunities to take part in aboriginal cultural activities for fear of being found out. For much aboriginal youth, this situation is toxic to any sense of self-worth.

 

A big part of Darryl’s work as an aboriginal coordinator is training teachers on Treaties. There is now a two and a four-day training session. All education students in the province are required to take the two-day course. There are 160 teachers now who have the full four-day course. The idea is that treaty education is to be part of all subjects. There are five aspects:

1) How do you approach the subject?

2) How do you embrace cultural diversity?

3) How do you engage the community?

4) Is your approach holistic?

- physical

- intellectual

- emotional

- spiritual (not religious as such but who you are at your core)

5) Healing

 

Darryl could have gone on longer and had our rapt attention but time ran out and he was thanked by Gary Rusu.

 

Adjournment