Submitted by Will Arscott 

 

 

This was a Zoom meeting with nineteen members in attendance. Thanks to Paul Gauthier for organizing the invitations and having the necessary feed and special screens ready to go. It has become quite seamless. Thanks to Gary Rusu for arranging the duty roster.

 

Gary Rusu was the MC for this meeting and began by welcoming the members present. Paul put up the Canadian Flag graphic and the meeting opened with ‘O Canada’. Adrianna Van Duyvendyk was very brave and offered to sing the anthem. Unfortunately, the music was incredibly soft and then disappeared completely. Adrianna soldiered on and we thank her for her yeoman effort.

 

An appropriate blessing was asked by Avis Hardy addressing the fear in the world because of the time that we are living through.

 

The club also recognizes the contribution of Wayne Palmer as our cashier for the meeting. The funds raised from the meetings are an important portion of the club finance.

 

 

 

Our special guest was District Governor Gailmarie Anderson from Melfort. She was formally introduced later in the program.

 

We had one visiting Rotarian Dale Worall of the Riverside Club. 

 

Darcel, Graham’s wife, joined Graham for today’s meeting.

 

Jennifer Lawrence our prospective new member was present once again. I believe we can expect to hear more about Jennifer over the next meetings.

 

Adrianna Van Duyvendyk was present for her second meeting. Adrianna was a member of our club who had to take time off due to other pressures. We sure hope to continue to see Adrianna at future meetings.

 

Arlene Jule was also at the meeting. Arlene is a club member but has not been to a meeting in a while. It was good to see her.

 

           

 

We were unable to get a report as there were issues with Gary’s audio feed. President Paul promised to contact Gary and pass along any news. It was reported that Mike LeClaire’s son is in the hospital.

 

 

District 5550 virtual conference will be held on May 15 to 17.   All are welcome and you can register online at the district website. There is a $50 registration fee which will be reimbursed to you by the club when you present your receipt. There are going to be excellent speakers on a variety of Rotary topics. There will also be entertainment.

 

New Member Jennifer Lawrence will be accepted into the club at one of the May meetings.   We are looking forward to learning more about Jennifer and welcoming her to the club. Her membership is being sponsored by Tammy Pshebylo.

 

Mike LeClaire has volunteered to be the District Indigenous Person representative for our club.   This is an important district initiative, and we thank Mike for his interest and look forward to a report in the future.

 

District Grants:  President Paul reported that a review of our foundation donations shows that we have contributed the $2,000 US needed to qualify for District Grants. Thanks to all members who have contributed.

 

Literacy Award: President Paul reported that our club once again qualified for the District Literacy Award. We have several projects that touch on literacy issues.

 

Grocery Cards Donna reported that we only have about $4,000 left in grocery cards.  More than $1,000 worth were quickly spoken for. We are now out of Co-Op cards.  With Co-Op there is a set upper limit on how many cards we can obtain. Our club will not have additional Co-Op cards until the fall. It would be great to get the remaining Sobeys cards out to the members.

 

At the end of the announcement period a survey was undertaken as to how many of the members present would be willing to meet in person at the Saskatoon Club. The result was that 62% were not ready and 38% were ready. It would likely require at least eight people to be willing to come to the Club to make the extra effort of a split meeting worthwhile. President Paul and Gary Rusu will take the results of the survey under advisement for any decisions.

 

 

 

In our Rotary minute we were introduced to a new project from the Winnipeg Rotary Club.   This project is taking part in a remote area of South Africa with several South African and Canadian Rotary clubs participating. The purpose of the project is to make water more accessible in rural villages and make obtaining daily water a less time consuming and onerous task to the villagers, particularly the women and young girls.

 

In many situations water must be hauled a distance from its source to the people’s homes where it is consumed. This job can take several hours in a day requiring a difficult walk over rough terrain. The job of obtaining water is traditionally the job of young girls and women. We have likely all seen pictures of women walking with large jugs of water on their heads. Having this duty can make it difficult for women to participate in other activities or young girls to attend school.

 

At the center of the project is an invention called a hippo roller. This is simple technology of a plastic roller remarkably like a beer keg attached to a yoke. The carrier can use the yoke to roll the keg of water behind them. With this device a person can move about five times the quantity of water per trip with much less effort.

 

Using this device will allow water to be brought not only for regular needs but also to water small garden patches to grow much needed food. COVID has made food security in these areas of Africa much more difficult. The survival garden kit includes a hippo roller, several basic gardening tools and seed packages. The value of a kit is about $250. The project has already started to distribute these kits, but demand far outstrips supply.

 

Rotary districts can participate through the Winnipeg Rotary Club. The Winnipeg club will match club and individual donations. Our executive has approved providing four such kits and funding is coming out from donations made and saved from club activities that were not used due to the pandemic. In Saskatoon, the Riverside Club has already announced they will take part.

 

 

 

Our guest speaker was introduced by Gary Rusu. Gailmarie comes originally from Cape Breton.   From a young age she had an abiding interest in international service. She met her husband Lorne serving as a CUSO volunteer in Africa. They eventually settled on his farmland near Melfort and raised a family. Gailmarie is a masters graduate of the U of S College of Education and has worked as a teacher, PR director and gallery manager. Her educational interests have centered around literacy.

 

Gailmarie joined Rotary in Melfort in 1998. She and her whole family have been involved in long-term student exchanges and Rotary vocational exchanges. She has organized outgoing exchanges from our District including the education group to Ethiopia that my wife participated in. Gailmarie has served as president of the Melfort Rotary club.

 

Gailmarie began her presentation by saying she had always been a passionate Rotarian.  Her year as DG has been very strange. Normally the DG tries to visit all the clubs in the District early in the Rotary year. Her time as DG is drawing towards the end and she has only been able to meet in person with one club. The club she met with was Saskatoon Nutana Rotary who held a special meeting in Rotary Park.

 

In the pandemic some clubs in the District are doing much better than others. Some have been unable to meet, and others have embraced technology and forged ahead. She complemented our club as falling into the latter group. She is also pleased with the amount of both international and local activity that is taking place in the District despite the restrictions.  New ways are being found to do things. Communication is the key. The successful clubs will be the ones who keep their members connected. Covid is stressful for everyone and we all need fellowship even if it must be in a somewhat different form from what we have had in the past.

 

There have been several major initiatives at the District level to keep Rotary relevant in our district. One of these are the Thursday evening talk shows that are available online. These have been well received and all our members should check them out. The next event is on May 6^th at 7:00 pm. The subject for the evening will be youth services with several speakers working in this area. The talks will address Rotaract and the youth exchange programs. You will receive an email about this event, or it can be accessed through the District 5550 website.

 

The District is also publishing a monthly newsletter. These newsletters are all still available on the Website. If members want to know more about a project in the District such as the Survival Garden Project, there is much more information available on the website and in the newsletters. 

There is lots of committee work continuing at the District level. PETS has been changed and moved online. This program is now available to develop leadership at all club positions and is not just for incoming presidents.

 

There is also a series of four webinars on the Rotary Four Way Test. The first session on ‘Is it the Truth?’ has taken place. The second one will go on May 25 and deal with the second test ‘Is it fair to all concerned? ‘These sessions are being organized by Jim Gillis of the Saskatoon Nutana Rotary Club. Based on the first session these sessions will be thought provoking.

 

As mentioned in the announcements the District Conference will be online from May 13 to 15.   There will be talks, discussions and even entertainment. The theme of this year’s conference will be “Family of Rotary.” A keynote speaker will be Chris Beaudry a survivor of the Bronco bus accident. Aboriginal issues will also be a feature at this year’s event. This can also be checked out at the District 5550 website. [again, there is a $50 registration fee which is refundable by our club.]

 

The District AGM will take place after the District conference and will not be part of the conference.

 

Gailmarie ended her presentation by stressing that every situation can be an opportunity. We seem to be in a COVID age and need to ask how opportunities can be of use to us. She thanked us for our work as Rotarians.

 

After her talk Gailmarie fielded several questions from our members: Jim Weber asked about an upcoming virtual gala for the Rotary Foundation. This is not a District event but is being planned at the zone level with several zones participating. It will be an online event with a cost of $100.   The full amount will be a Foundation donation and a tax receipt will be issued. The gala will take place on May 12 in the evening and will include speakers and entertainment. There is more information on the District website and President Paul has promised to forward information to our members. Jim thought this looked like a worthwhile event that should be of interest to our members.

 

President Paul thanked our speaker and remarked about how hard the District is working to keep Rotary going. Many Rotarians are making tremendous efforts. We will make the regular donation to Bethany Homes on behalf of DG Gailmarie’s presentation.

 

Gary Rusu closed the meeting reminding us that ‘We weren’t sent here to be perfect. We were sent here to make a difference.”

 

Next Meeting – May 12, 2021. Speaker will be Galen Heinrichs from City of Saskatoon Water and Sewer Department.