Meeting of April 24, 2012

The Rotary Club of Oak Bay Bulletin for April 24, 2012                          

Reported by Lynne Murray

The meeting was called to order at 1215 by President Joan Peggs.

Joan’s comment of the day concerned March being Magazine Month. Our monthly magazine, The Rotarian is available in electronic format. Perhaps we should consider receiving the magazine electronically.

Our national anthem was led by Tom Lidkea who we are happy to have back.

The Johnny Appleseed invocation was sung to us by Jim Force. That was a nice change.

Visiting Rotarians and our guests led us to the delicious Greek style buffet.

Peter Lawrie introduced the visiting Rotarian, Bruce Hooker from the Saanich Club and the guest of Anne Sims, Wendy Townsend.

Eugen Bannerman announced that David Philip is back in the Royal Jubilee Hospital. He also told us that he will be off to Switzerland for the month of May. Tom Croft will act as the Sergeant  at Arms during that time.

Jacqueline Mealing took a few minutes to tell and show us about some of the work she did while in Guatemala.  Besides helping with the dental work,  she was involved in  the  health, nutrition and hygiene  education  of 150 new mothers. She is needing to raise an additional $1000 to buy an industrial sewing machine for the women’s centre to enable production of marketable items for  sustainability. $1000 has already been raised. She had a lot of bags on show that had been woven by the Guatemalan women. The sale of the bags will add to the $1000 needed. Another project was the opening of  the new women’s centre. There are a lot of classes on family planning. Enough money was raised to purchase 120 energy efficient stoves. This will be an ongoing project for ten years. In the future it is planned to build a simple latrine for the women’s centre.

Jim Force reminded us of the April Club in the Pub, this Thursday at the Penny Farthing at 5pm. He needs help this weekend to take the 5,000 books to the Victoria Curling Club for the Times Colonist Book drive.

Lorna Curtis gave us the final reminder about our Springtime in Tuscany event on 4/28. There are still 20 tickets to sell. She then told us she is leaving on Sunday to finish her Asian trip. She will be going to Hong Kong, Thailand (for the RI Convention), Taiwan, China, then once again to Australia and the USA.

Peter Lawrie announced that Oak Bay High’s Interact  Club is holding two fundraisers on May 5^th. The first will be the 1^st Annual Hunger Games starting at 10:30. Their event is called Wild Games. The proceeds will go to Rabbits for Rwanda. The second event is Interact at the Movies. The movie being shown is UP. Those proceeds are going to the Malawi School for Girls.

Tav Macpherson told us of the upcoming Golf Tournament to be held during the District Conference. Those proceeds will go to Polio Plus. The tournament will be at Highland Pacific  Golf Club at 2:30 pm on June 21^st.

Next up was our favourite fines master for April – Dallas Chapple. She was able to extract quite a few dollars from most of us! Tom and Wolf paid for scooting. She was sorry Phil was ill but he didn’t arrange someone to set the meeting up. She fined  all those who did not donate books,  who did not bring in an auction item or bottle of wine and who are not attending this Saturday’s fundraiser. Last week was Ted Chambers and Tricia Timmermans' birthday. Today is Bateya Westler's birthday so we sung our rendition of Happy B’day to her. Renate Gibbs gave 2 happy $$ because she is off to India for 2 months with 14 Nursing Students. Heather Ached gave 2 happy/sad $$ since Vancouver has finished its NHL season. Eugen Bannerman also paid happy $$ because he’s off to Switzerland. Tom Lidkea. is always happy to spend time with his grand daughter.

Peter Lawrie won the 50/50 but drew the black alley – better luck next time!

The speaker today, our own John Edgell was introduced  by Jerry McLean. John very graciously stood in with 20 minutes notice - for our intended speaker who had to cancel his talk. John’s presentation was about the La Jola Kindergarten Project in La Penita Mexico. Last Rotary year, this project was one of our International projects that benefited from a matching grant. Because our Club had already received matching grants for two other  international projects, Royal Oak Centennial Club decided to get a matching grant to continue the good work started by John last year. The project was to build a fenced, walled play area, a proper latrine facility with 2 separate toilets and sinks with a water tank installed on the roof plus storage space. The talk was interspersed with lots of photos of the project underway. There was a celebration at the end of the project. Pictures showed the happy faces of students, families and very pleased Rotarians. John was thanked by Lori McLeod.

There being nothing further for the good of Rotary the meeting was adjourned after the singing of God Save the Queen.

Oak Bay Rotary Bulletin April 17, 2912

Reported by Renate Gibbs

President Joan welcomed us with a promise of a very full program, and we joined in singing O Canada with resounding voices followed by Heather Aked saying grace.

Presentations:

·      Guests included visiting Rotarians: Andy Anderson from Brentwood Club and Walter Moore from Berry Australia.  Joan Firkins began the introductions of guests of the club: Cleeve Dhenshaw, Claire Helm, Heather Van Tassel, Emma Thomson and Tom Croft introduced his guest Gail Price Douglas followed by Leslie introducing her husband David Warnock.

·      Eugen Bannerman introduced Claire Helm, with Jack Petrie representing Claire’s sponsor, Barry Mutter.   Joan P, Ron B, Jim F and Leslie R-W came forward to each respond to aspects of Rotary in order to induct Claire officially as the newest (and sorry Corey, our youngest) member.

·      Representatives from the Interac Club; Heather and Emma presented a comprehensive overview of their experience attending RYLA – sharing highlights of various speakers and inspirational comments, workshops and skits – and thoroughly thanked the Rotary Club for sending them.

·      Tav Macpherson commented on the generous donations to the Paul Harris Society by bringing Heather Aked and Anne Simms a token of recognition (wings) for their ongoing annual commitments.  They join 6 other club members with the same intent.

Announcements:

·      Andy Anderson described the Brentwood Bay Rotary club event this Sunday, April 22^nd, 10:00 – 4:00PM “Antiques Re-Visitied” where every type of Antiquities and Collectables except one’s spouse is welcome to be brought for appraisals by expert appraisers.

·      Heather A reminded us to continue to stay with the practice to notify Lynne Murray with planned absence or the addition of bringing guests so that we don’t experience difficulty planning for lunch numbers.

·      Joan Firkins and Lorna C brought us up to date on the progress of the Tuscan Dinner, with only 39 tickets left to sell and finding 3 ready volunteers to complete the roster of needed help, this event is closer to being a complete success!

Fines Master: 

·      Dallas Chapple brought attention to Perry, Lorna, Joan F and Leslie R-W for failing to sign in, with substantial hints to identify the 2 personalities on the Polio Wake Up and those who hadn’t purchased a Tuscan Dinner ticket were all fined.  Birthdays for Tav and Ted Chambers, Tom’s efforts to collecting shoes, and various events of the week were appreciated with happy dollars!  Joan F was the lucky 50/50 ticket holder!

Speaker:

·      Tav Macpherson introduced Cleeve Dhenshaw as author, sports writer for the Times Colonist and supporter of Island athletes.  Cleeve shared his experiences from his early start in sports writing 31 years ago which began with a keen interest in what other people are doing.  He reminded us about the power of the written story and changing priorities that occur with examples such as when he wrote about Ron Bowker’s vision in 1986 to have Victoria host the Commonwealth Games, and when covering the Atlanta Summer Olympic Games he followed competing athletes Derek Porter and Silken Laumen but this story was soon relegated to 3^rd page after he became the first to relay the news to Canadian sources about the bombing in Centenial Park, Atlanta. 

·      Cleeve spoke fondly of covering hockey in BC’s interior in small venues, and meeting athletes such as Steve Nash, David Calder, Simon Whitfield and George Pathos in their early years to follow their illustrious careers and achievements.  He finished by identifying three changes he’s observed over the years:  the growth of women’s sports, fringe sports becoming mainstream (ie; mountain biking & the triathalon) and that more people are achieving to have ‘sport for life’ – noting those over 85 years and still active and involved in sports.  Neil Madsen thanked Cleeve for his numerous and interesting anecdotes.

Closing:

·      God Save the Queen – led ably by Tom Croft and the closing bell announced the end of our meeting.

Oak Bay Rotary Bulletin April 10, 2012

Reported by Will Carter

President Joan opened the meeting at the Oak Bay Recreation Centre Sports

Lounge.

Jacqueline Mealing spoke to us about her recent trip to Guatemala where she

helped establish a women's centre in San Lucas Toliman, Lake Atitlan. Exciting projects

were installing energy efficient stoves and teaching courses in dental

hygiene and nutrition.

John Edgell, wearing a spiffy blue Rotary shirt that he picked up for $25,

told us about projects he attended in Mexico - new metal roofs to replace

the shoddy tin roofs, a water and sewage system, and secure storage.

So far, 138 tickets have been sold to the Tuscan Dinner on Saturday April 28

at the Monterey Centre.  See Lori for your tickets.  Joan Firkins is passing

around the sign up sheet for volunteers for the dinner.

Celebrations Master Dallas Chappel fined Vicky Pitt for looking too good,

anyone with shoes showing bare toes, David Maxwell for driving down Oak Bay

Avenue with his top down this early in Spring.  And she should have fined

Joan Firkins for starting her happy dollar speech by saying, "Here is $5

because Ron Cooley isn't here ....."  Before she could finish, the hooting

had started, and the real message was alas, lost.  Oh yes, John Edgell

naturally won the 50/50 draw.

Speaker: Darlene George

Mary Canty introduced guest speaker Darlene George, Site Manager for NAV

Canada at the Victoria control tower.  NAV Canada also operates air

controlllers in all BC communities including the harbours at Victoria and

Vancouver.

NAV Canada operates the control towers without any government funds.  Their

revenue comes from airlines and private pilots who use the airports, and

from overflights of the control tower areas.

At Victoria airport, planes are directed into one of 3 zones to disperse

ground level noise.  Victoria operating hours are 6 am to midnight, and

outside of those hours, Kamloops handles Victoria traffic.

In earlier days, controllers relied upon pilots to keep them informed of

location and elevation, but today, satellites are used to monitor Atlantic

crossings with the result that aircraft on that route may now be spaced

apart by 10 km rather than the earlier spacing of 80 km.  This of course

speeds up the traffic.

Ms. George was presented with our Rotary coffee mug upon which is the four

way test of the things that Rotarians think, say, and do.