Bulletin - Meeting of May 15 2012 - Joan Firkins - Women in Rotary

REPORTED BY HEATHER AKED

Led by Tom Croft in the singing of O Canada and Jerry Mclean with the invocation, we commenced our meeting on a bright sunny day. 

A warm welcome back to Peter Johannkecht (left) after a leave of absence and to Tricia also back from her travels.  Bob Schelle introduced our one and only visitor, Peter Sou (right), from the Sidney Rotary Club.  Mary reported on the health of the club…David Philip is improving, Ted Harrison’s nurse reports that he’s bright and ‘chirpy’ and David Sills is recovering nicely from cataract surgery.

A few announcements: It was reported that the Carnarvan park clean up this past Saturday went very well thanks to Wynn (below ... with paint brush), Joan P, David M, David’s son Jonathon and friend Bruce, Brian and Don (I hope this reporter hasn’t missed anyone).  President Joan tells us that the new installation at the park – a whale - needs a name. She announced that there is a ‘name the whale competition’ contest.

President Joan's photo of Wynn at Work at the Carnarvon Clean-up

It’s Club Assembly next week and the following week the meeting is at Don Mei’s in Chinatown; Anne will be collecting the money for the lunch which is $18 per person.  

Bill Burns announced that those receiving multiple e-mails from him are not really from him; he’s working on figuring out what the technical glitch is. 

June 2/3 is the Oak Bay Tea Party; Will Carter is looking for volunteers to help, so please sign up; he will have the sign-up sheet at the May 22^nd meeting. 

Peter Lawrie announced that the Smart-Board presentation to George Jay Elementary will take place on Friday, May 25^th at 9:30 at the school.  If you can be there that would be great.

Will was our Celebrations Master again this week and collected multiple fines from us - I don’t believe anyone was able to answer all five questions he asked of us. Birthday wishes to Eugen and David M and happy anniversary to Wolf.  Lynne was the lucky winner of the draw but not quite as lucky with the marble.

On to our program... Wolf introduced the speaker - our very own Joan Firkins talking to us about Women in Rotary. Joan began with an update on the Tuscan Dinner which she noted went very well and while we haven’t the final numbers as yet, it appears that we’ll be very close to our target of $20,000.

Some of our female members!
Tricia, Lynne, Joan P, Joan F, Batya, Jessica, Mary, Anne and Heather
Missing: Lorna, Dallas, Renate, Lori, Jacqueline, Vicky and Leslie.

May 4^th of this year was the 25^th anniversary of admittance of women into Rotary – a milestone to celebrate for sure.  Joan presented us with the timeline of the journey which began in India in June of 1950 when the Rotary Club of Ahmedabath proposed that the word MALE be deleted from the RI Constitution (which was overwhelmingly rejected); it ended on May 4, 1987 when the US Supreme Court ruled that Rotary clubs may not exclude women from membership on the basis of gender. In 1989, the Council on Legislation voted to admit women into Rotary clubs worldwide.  (Hurray!)

From 1950 to 1989, the Council had considered 13 proposals to allow women into Rotary.  Proposals were laughed at and rejected, however, in June of 1977, the Rotary Club of Duarte, California, admitted 3 women as members.  In March of 1978, RI officially revoked the charter of  the Duarte club, however they continued to meet as The Ex-Rotary Club of Duarte, and proceeded to file a suit in the US Supreme Court which eventually led to the 1987 ruling. 

On July 1^st 1987, Sylvia Whitlock became the first woman Rotary Club president. On July 1, 1995, 8 women became District Governors. In June 1998, the Rotary Award for World Understanding was presented to Dr. Catherine Hamelin. On July 1, 2005, Carolyn Jones (D5010) became the first woman Trustee of the Rotary Foundation, and on July 1, 2008, Catherine Noyer-Riveau of France became the first women RI Director…..next up... RI President!  Notably on July 1, 2019 Dr. Sylvia Whitlock will become a District Governor, 25 years after being the first woman club president in Rotary.

Following Joan’s talk there were a few comments and questions, and notably some very kind words from Mark who remarked that ‘allowing’ women into the Rotary Club of Oak Bay was one of the best things that happened to this club.

Rod Sim properly thanked Joan for her talk, and also recognized the strengths of the women in our Club.