No health and good cheer.

Erica is going to be away for a couple of weeks celebrating her older sisters birthday.

Caitlin McIntyre is joining the Birley Pilgrimage to the Dominican. She is excited about this.

Dr Tom is happy to have his hearing aids recently tuned as he is bulletin editor. Also his painting group is having an art show at the Cambridge Centre for the Arts. It starts next Wednesday, Nov 21. If you are hungry or lonely or want to buy good art, come to the reception 6-8 pm Nov 21st.  He also said that this years Camp Enterprise meetings were moving along and Rotarians should think about participating as chaperones or drivers. Also mentioned in Pres Linda's address later on in the meeting.

 

Paul needed a PG  rating for today due to the young folk present. So he told a somewhat thread bare  joke about the plane crashing with 4 people and only 3 parachutes. The first to jump was Hilary Clinton and being the astute quick thinking Democrat she grabbed one and jumped but it was just a back pack. I have heard it told with Donald Trump but he jumped without anything.

Today's programme was multi-faceted.

Firstly Steve Brand and Dr Kim Beaucage were inducted into our club. Prez Linda and members of the Board officiated at the induction ceremony. The finer points of Rotary and Rotary Fellowship were mentioned. Becoming a Rotarian is also a  responsibility. They were accepted into the fold and we all shook their hand.

 

Next up was Larry Brokenshire. For 19 years Aecon has been doing a Charitable Golf Tournament. Money from this fundraiser has gone to Kids Ability on several occasions. Today Larry presented Tara and Deborah , representing Kids Ability , with a very generous cheque for $37,000.00. Tara said they were thrilled to have this money and also thanked us for our ongoing support. They have helped 2000 kids this year at the new Kids Ability site on Langs drive. They have room for more programmes and an accessible playground.

Tara shared Leigha's story with us. Leigha had problems with jaundice shortly after birth, then at around one year they noticed problems with her motor skills. She is diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. Leigha is very enthusiastic about attending Kids Ability. Tara was thanked by our president.

President Linda said it was our pleasure to support  Kids Ability.

 

Next President Linda did ' Board Updates'.  Sort of  a half term Presidential Address.  I will hit the high points.

Treasurer is Tom Everett. He is doing a great job and sorting things out with an eye to having our finances becoming more electronic.

Membership is Jim Johnson but he was not present. We have approximately 55 members and growing. They are putting together the concept of a ' Family Membership'.  There are 17 different ways for a member to become involved in our club ( apparently).

 

Our Foundation chair is Erica. Erica and Linda want to raise awareness of our foundation....both to members and to the community. We have recently had a bequest from the estate of a former club member. Plans are for a District wide fundraiser for Polio called My Fat Rotary Dinner coming sometime this winter.

One of our members has made a donation to the Foundation and with this donation a bursary has been established in partner with Conestoga College to support small business startup in our community.

Chad Gagne is the Vocational chair. Linda also spoke about Camp Enterprise coming up in May 2019. We support 9 students from three High schools for this business camp. Chad, Randy, Caitlyn M, Brian W. and myself are currently involved. Let us know if you want to help. We also present Vocational ( Academic and technical)  awards to students at seven high schools. Sometimes we need help with presenting the awards.  We also sponsor a RYLA attendee at the Ecology Retreat Centre and give an awards at Conestoga College for deserving ECE  students.( Al Gmelin Award).

 

International Chair is Rebekah Shoop. We have several ongoing projects and now are adding a microfinance project in Honduras and flood relief in India . Dennis Birley DR project also falls under this committee.

Fundraising is in the very good hands of Paul T and Todd Lyons. We have 4 annual fundraisers ( roses, best bites, fun run and the veterans golf tournament) and Linda is planning another charity dinner in conjunction with Chef D.

 

Our technical chair and wizard is Brian Waddell.  He is the #1 facebook poster in the country. Linda says he is a ' Rockstar with a camera'. Say no more!.  The tech team is currently creating a landing page for all 3 Cambridge clubs. Fasten your seatbelts.

 

Our club secretary is the very humble  and hard working Megan Davidson.  We now have a ' Rule of 85'  for mature long attending Rotarians in our club. ( age plus years of service = 85 or more). Yes!

Wilf Rieck now has honorary membership status.

Megan will be updating Alternate Attendance forms in Clubrunner.

 

Rena Hawkins is our Community Service chair. She has been working with Langs Community Centre.

 

Prez Linda then spoke about her theme for this year which is Engagement. She got 38 responses from her ' health check survey'  She  feels that  17 or so of our members are not engaged whereas 37 members are engaged. Interestingly there are 17 ways to get involved...that number keeps cropping up, it is a Prime number. Linda will be working on getting people engaged. It will not be too painful.

The Pod process is improved and Mike Thomas has put structure into the Bulliten editor roster.

Linda would like 70 members in our club. She would like to have one social event / month . She would like to see more cooperation with the other 2 Rotary Clubs.

She would like more Rotarians at the weekly meetings.

This is all possible.

Prez Linda was thanked for her efforts by Paul T Cody.

 

That's it in a nutshell.