Submitted by Will Arscott 

 

 

This was a Zoom meeting with some twenty-one members in attendance. This was the last regular meeting for this Rotary year. The final meeting will be a social in-person meeting and a chance to thank President Paul for all he has done this year. 

 

Thanks to Paul Gauthier for organizing the invitations and having the virtual feed and special screens ready to go. Thanks to Gary Rusu for arranging the duty crew and to Wayne Palmer for acting as virtual cashier for the meeting.

 

Heather Clysdale was the MC for this meeting. The meeting began with the playing of

‘O Canada’ and an original blessing by Linda Petrow. 

 

 

 

 Jim Gillis of the Nutana Rotary Club who was introduced later in the program.

 

We had one visiting Rotarian Dale Worall of the Riverside Club (it is becoming strange to include Dale as a visiting Rotarian when we see him more often than some of our actual members). 

 

Fred Solomon also joined us as a guest of Jenny Lawrence.

 

           

 

Prior to the meeting Gary Rusu had been in contact with Vic Dubois. Vic is now home and in recovery from two surgeries.  He is doing well but will be convalescing for some time. He is doing some work by email and is taking calls. His hip replacement is still booked. I hesitate to be more specific in this newsletter, but I am sure Vic would be pleased if people reach out.

 

 

President Paul Kicked off the Announcements:

 

Paul reported that a letter had been sent by our club to our District to thank District Governor Gail Marie Anderson for her service over the past year. It was not an easy year to serve in this capacity as the clubs were less active and unable to meet in person. The district events had to be moved online and new events created to maintain interest in Rotary. Gail Marie met this challenge, and our District was well served. Our club also sent a cheque for $500 to District.   This is a tradition and can used towards a project at the discretion of the outgoing DG. It can also be used to help with the final costs of the virtual District Conference.

 

Tammy Pshebylo was announced as the new membership person for our club. Please give her a hand. The summer would be a good time to think about possible new members for our club.

 

It was announced that Dave Sundby would not be renewing his membership.  Dave has made a huge contribution to the club for more than twenty years. This means there is an opening for someone to run the Golf Pool.  Dave is more than willing to help that person. This has been an important fundraiser for our club. Dave says we will see him as a worker bee in Rotary projects going forward.

 

It was announced that there were only $700 in grocery cards left. These were quickly spoken for, and the club will show no grocery cards in inventory for the end of the year.  We owe gratitude to Donna Gauthier for coordinating this fundraiser. The plan is to take a short break and have cards available again in the fall.

 

Like an Olympic relay member, President Paul then turned the announcements over to incoming-president Mark Gryba:

 

It was announced that the new program chair for the club will be Marc Cheriyan.  Again, as with Tammy, please help Marc with his new position. Marc is looking for owners of new or unique businesses in Saskatoon to come and present to our club. Our club thanks Gary Rusu who is stepping down from this position but has already been helping Mark get settled in his new role.   

 

The club will take the month of July off and will have our first meeting of the new Rotary year on August 9^th.  A hand vote was held and there seems to be overwhelming support for a return to in-person meetings at the Saskatoon Club. The plan is to offer a zoom alternative for regular meetings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, we were an incredibly happy bunch, and a significant amount of money was raised for the club.

 

 

Jim was introduced by Gary Rusu. Jim is a long-term member of the Nutana Rotary club and has served as president. He is a recently retired lawyer. Jim also has a major interest in music and can be seen playing with many groups around town. He is the proud father of two daughters one of which, Wendy, is a reporter for the Toronto Star.

 

Jim has undertaken a project on behalf of our District to create four videos to discuss the four sections of the Rotary Four Way Test and put them in a contemporary context. The first two sections on the first two tests ran in the late spring as online events. The second two parts will appear in the fall. Jim’s plan had been to have us watch the first video and perhaps talk very briefly afterwards as it was a relatively long video.

 

Unfortunately, the audio came through very poorly and was exceedingly difficult to follow.   Open mics in the audience made this even worse. In the end your scribe had to decide not to try to make notes as it was just too difficult to follow. I heard just enough to know that this video would be well worth your time to watch.

 

The good news is that the video is available through Dropbox:  There are two ways to obtain it.  You can go to drop box and request FenwickMcKelvey.mp4 (Fenwick McKelvey is the Concordia professor Jim interviews in the video.) If this does not work, you can contact Jim directly at jimgillis@sasktel.net and he will send you the link.

 

We will make the regular donation in honour of Jim’s presentation to Bethany Homes.

 

 

Next Meeting                                                                    

 

August 9^th likely in person at the Saskatoon Club. Have a great summer!