Rotary Club of Oak Bay Meeting of 16 June 2015 - Joanne McKechnie from RESTOR International

Reporter:  Joan Firkins – reporting from the Victoria Golf Club!

Opening:   President Jim recounted a tale of 20 pounds of strawberries he had recently turned into wine and Perry was the lucky recipient of the bottle of strawberry wine as a reward for his work on the PR Committee.  The 37 members and guests assembled then sang a rendition of O Canada!

Wolf Schopper gave the invocation.

Guests: Steve Sharlow announced the Visiting Rotarians (Dr. John Snively) and Guests (Eileen Lavigne and Mandy Pui) .

Announcements:

• Bob Schelle indicated the sign-up sheet would be going around for the Installation Dinner on Wednesday, June 24^th. Let’s get everyone out to support incoming President Heather – tickets are $48 – contact Bob Schelle asap if you haven’t already!
• President Jim advised the car raffle crew is looking for traffic marshals on the day of the draw, August 9^th in Oak Bay – see Jim if you wish to volunteer
• .Jack Petrie reminded everyone of the Victoria Soul Gospel Choir performing at Willows Park on Tuesday June 30^th from 6:30-8:30 pm. We are partnering with the Kiwanis Club and the Oak Bay News and we should be out supporting what promises to be a great night of Motown, R&B and Gospel music! A reminder that there is NO MEETING NEXT TUESDAY given that the Installation evening is the following night.

Celebrations Master

Tav did a fine job of denuding everyone of loonies and toonies for various and sundry reasons– best fine of the day: John Edgell for not having enough hair to put into a ponytail to match the other two John’s who are also involved in international projects!  (Snively and Jordan). Tom Croft had the winning ticket number for the 50-50 draw but did not pull the appropriate marble for the big bucks! In true Rotarian fashion, Tom donated his winnings back to the club. Thanks Tom!

Guest Speaker:

Gordon Quigley introduced the speaker, Joanne McKechnie. Joanne came to us today from Kelowna to speak about RESTOR International, formerly known as Rotaplast Canada. Rotaplast Canada has a new name but the work remains the same – restoring lives in developing countries. Rotaplast formerly concentrated solely on cleft palate surgeries however after a number of missions it was apparent there was definitely a need for more than just cleft palate surgery, particularly in the area of burn reconstruction and repairs. The missions now include full surgical teams who are able to address these needs, as well as provide medical training on the ground in the countries where they work – to date, much work has been done in Ethiopia, Chile, China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam and they will be expanding to Haiti shortly. 

              

RESTOR International is a registered not-for-profit charity and funds are needed to carry out the mission surgeries. On average, $100k is required per mission and the missions to date have been made possible by sponsors, donors, Rotary clubs and volunteers. RESTOR is always looking for donations or volunteers (or both) to help carry out the missions on behalf of those who need the surgeries. Volunteer opportunities are available for both medical and non-medical people with the non-medical volunteers donating their time and travel/accommodation costs. Financial donations support the costs of hospital facilities and anesthetics, antibiotics, other drugs, equipment and supplies and many other items. They also set up teaching and public health clinics to help sustain the work after the team has left. A donation of $1000 can pay for everything necessary for one life altering surgery.

On a personal note, this seems like a good project our club could support – there was a good amount of interest in Joanne’s presentation with lots of questions etc.  It’s a Canadian non-profit basically in our back yard and I’m sure they could use the support of many Rotary clubs. There will be presentations at the District Conference this weekend in Nanaimo.

 Joanne was nicely thanked by Lynne Murray who herself has been on a Rotaplast Canada mission so certainly understands the needs in the developing countries.

Closing:

President Jim closed the meeting by thanking club members for their support throughout his reign this year and he indicated he thoroughly enjoyed his year at the helm!