Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.

Our Christmas meeting started with a change. We all took a seat before the start. There were many festive hats, one Santa tie and some bow ties, plus an Elf in attendance.

John Edgell Introduced most of the guests (some people did not sign in their guests).

We had one Visiting Rotarian, Allison Reed of Edmonton Riverview;

Other guests were Jill Croft and Nils Jensen, guests of Tom Croft; Ray Parks, guest of Renate Gibbs; Heather Aked’s son, Alexander, who introduced his grandparents, Ethel and Maurice Aked, as Grandma and Grandpa.                                                  .

Joan Firkins announced that the Italian Night fund raiser will be held on April 28, 2012. We need silent auction items and a bottle of Italian wine from everyone. This is a great time of the year to start thinking about auction items. If you receive any gifts you do not need or want, please consider donating them.

The current Italian night Committee is finished this year; we need New People to take over.

President Joan announced that Tom Croft, John Edgell and Lynne Murray had sponsored a glass of wine each. Thanks to each of them for the Christmas Cheer.

Perry Bamji announced that our club had received 4 matching grants this year and 2 for last year, a new record. Thank you for all of your good work on behalf of the club.

Our Chief Elf (Rod Sim if you did not recognize him) fined us for the following

• $1 if you had no family at the table as it is Rotary Family month
• $1 to Brian Lamb for 36 years of service to Rotary Club of Oak Bay
• $1 to an absent Barry Mutter for 11 years of marriage. Renata had the second ticket drawn and took home the big prize.

There was a group photo for all the people wearing hats. The Santa tie and Bow Tie wearers were discriminated against with no photo.

Corey led us in Grace.

Lunch was ham and all the fixings plus pudding. Excellent!

After lunch, we were treated to word scramble by President Joan.

We ended the meeting with Christmas Carols accompanied by Carolyn Tsao from the Victoria Conservatory of Music.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.

Reported by Ron Cooley