September 25 meeting

Scribe – Heather Aked (filling in for an absent Bill Burns - Bill you're in trouble!)

Following O Canada our Greeter Wendy Townsend said Grace and we proceeded to fill our plates with food, to sit down and enjoy a salmon lunch.

Peter Johannknecht introduced our guests: Rotaract Student Natasha Kardos (left), guest of Joan Peggs and soon-to-be Oak Bay Rotarian, Marco Fernandes, guest of Claire Helm.

President Joan invited Natasha to speak to the Club about her experience with Rotary. Natasha told us about her time in the Comox Valley Interact Club, and her experience at RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Assembly), which helped her make the decision to go into Education at UVic where she joined Rotaract. She recently participated with the Rotaracters in the Raise a Reader fundraiser.  She enjoys being involved in the community.  Natasha also told us about the fundraiser that the Rotaract students are hosting: a run on Sunday October 28^th at UVic at 10 a.m. – similar to our December Merrython. Proceeds will go to  www.Water.org. Please think about attending. She concluded her presentation stating that Rotary has enabled her to enhance her leadership skills, develop a sense of community, build stewardship for the community we live in, and lastly consider being a future Rotarian.  There are about 30 to 40 Rotaracters at UVic.

Announcements

Jim Force reminded us about Club in a Pub at the Penny Farthing at 5 p.m. on Thursday the 27^th. He also recognized the Raise-a-Reader team: Ron C, Tom C, Tricia and September. More than $900 was raised by our team that morning. Tom C. added another $2 to the pot - a donation he collected at the office. Six members from other clubs participated. Over $40,000 was raised on Vancouver Island this year. A major sponsor was Peninsula Co-op. Jim stressed how much fun it was to be out there ‘hawking’ newspapers. Over $360 was collected in donations from Club members. And for all his hard work and for collecting the most individual donations, Jim was awarded a $100 gift certificate to Peninsula Coop – which he in turn is donating to Polio Plus. Thanks to all for coming out.  September has uploaded a video and photos toour Facebook page.

Celebrations Master Ron Cooley was called upon to dish out fines – his last week!  Ron fined Tricia for managing to stop 2 cyclists and sell them newspapers. [Incidentally, Tricia, who was busy counting money, didn’t know about this fine, so will ante up when she gets back week after next!]  Rod, Tom C., and Heather where fined for arriving late. John Playfair was fined for not wearing his new member red ribbon – John claimed that it was his wife’s fault. [That should have brought about another fine!] Jessica was guilty of a ringing phone two weeks ago. (On the side I heard Jessica say that she wasn’t even here two weeks ago…but she paid anyway). Anyone who didn’t donate to Raise a Reader was fined. Ron was amazed at the number of people he encountered who can’t communicate civilly at 7AM. Anyone who fell into that category was up for a buck. If you hadn’t read the bulletin the week before last and therefore had failed to respond to Mary re her birthday, you owed a buck. 

Wendy Heather (and Tricia) singin' and servin' the blues

Happy and sad $$s : $40 for 40 years for Tom and Jill and a birthday $ for Ron B. Happy $ from Joan to Heather for filling in as bulletin editor and a sad $ from Joan as her knee injury is actually a “shredded” meniscus. [Have you seen Heather's knee!] Batya had a happy  $2:  $1 as she’s off  to Israel to see her family and a $1 for her trip to Japan on a Buddhist retreat. Dallas paid a $1 to tell us she had received an e-mail from Joan Firkins who had just gotten off cruise ship in the Mekong Delta and was getting onto an ox cart! Jack paid a happy buck saying that he’s September’s mentor but in actual fact with all that September’s done for our Club since joining, she is now his mentor. Heather put in a happy $10 with a thanks to Tricia and Wendy for helping her with the candy floss sales at MacAulay Elementary last Thursday when $315 was raised. [Tricia still has blue blobs on her floors.] Wendy paid up for selling and buying a house in the same week and for something else that this writer missed (something about ducks – but I have no idea really). A happy $ came from Jacqueline – who says it is great to be back from Nelson.  $20 came from Peter J. happy that he now has dual citizenship – he is now officially Canadian!  [CONGRATULATIONS, PETER] And last, but not least John J. paid $2 for the plant sale that went really well - $950 was raised, which will support 7 grandmothers’ houses.  Wolf won the draw, but not the white marble.

John Jordan introduced the Speaker: Jim Laing, of our club. Jim (at right) gave us all a good run-down on his life. He started at a young age with a career in sports casting, dividing his time between a family business and radio broadcasting. But first he had to clear up a rumour that he had fallen out of a broadcasting box during a game, as well as one about him being the pacesetter for the prairie race champion, Tav McPherson. Jim’s story goes a bit like this:  The famous hockey broadcaster, Foster Hewitt, played a role in his career. Jim had listened to him for years, and 45 years later he found himself compared to Foster in a book – he was flattered to be remembered, let alone compared to Foster Hewitt. He began his ‘career’ in the family business at an early age – sorting coke bottles; following that he went back to school. His first real job was working at the Weyburn radio station and then the Estevan station a couple of years later.  Jim’s broadcasting career began after a comment he made to his father about the play-by-play being called on the local radio station. His father asked him if he could do better! So Jim’s career as a sports broadcaster began at the Estevan radio station – with a staff of one - broadcasting the play by play for the Estevan Bruins (a team that had an affiliation with the Boston Bruins).  In September 1966, Jim got the call to broadcast the play-by-play for the Boston Bruins - the year that 18-year-old Bobby Orr signed with the Bruins. Jim had the privilege of watching him play every game, recalling the game on December 14^th in Toronto when Bobby got the hip check that he never came back from. The Bruins went from first to last, never recovering - having rested their hopes on one player. Toronto went on to win the Stanley Cup – and  have never done so since. The following season the Bruins signed Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield - the worst trade in NHL history for the Chicago Black Hawks, and the best ever for Boston, as they went on to win the Stanley cup 2 years after the trade. Jim went back to Weyburn into the family business  and modernized and expanded the Coca Cola plant, building the largest Coke business in Canada which they then sold to Coca Cola in Atlanta. 

Jim’s closing comments centred on the NHL today and the dangers associated with it. NBC recently signed a $1 billion deal to televise hockey games – their target audience  being young males – it’s going to continue to be a roller derby out there. He added some precious bits about his personal life, most of which he probably doesn't want plastered over the Internet! But you can see pictures of Jim at a slightly younger age, and a few other gems here on our club's FaceBook photo stream. He was thanked for his presentation by Wolf Schopper.

At left, David and George enjoy some of Jim's memorabilia from his hockey-announcer days.