Member Bulletin October 12th, 2022 (Oct 12, 2022)

Our club meeting on Friday, October 7^th, was a particularly good one. Here’s a snapshot.

WE’VE SWITCHED THINGS AROUND AT THE ICC

We’ve literally switched the room setup around, and the experiment is working well. For years, our room setup for club meetings had us facing the side wall with the head table and podium on a dais at the front, and we always had to swivel our heads to peer at the presentation slides projected on a side screen some distance away. The new room setup has us sitting closer to and directly facing the screen (at the kitchen end of the room), with a small raised dais for the podium and microphone (no head table) to the side. With this setup, the presenter’s slides show up right next to them – so much easier to see. We’ve also vastly improved the sound quality. We've been renting a speaker this month from Long & McQuaid as a trial, and the sound is much improved. No complaints. We’re probably going to buy the speaker outright for our club use. We’ve also provided the presenter with a remote-control gadget that enables them to change their own slides on the computer. At the front desk, it’s now a routine option for meeting participants to pay by debit or credit card, or good old cash. For those of us more in tune with paying electronically, this is a welcome efficiency. Members seem very pleased with all these changes. Kudos to our volunteers in Club Service that have made these changes happen.

WHAT A SPEAKER THIS WEEK! DOLF DEJONG, CEO OF THE TORONTO ZOO

What a fantastic, accomplished and entertaining speaker. While he shared fascinating insights and goals regarding the zoo’s conservation and animal welfare programs, he also shared his remarkable personal experience as a Rotary Group Study Exchange (GSE) participant sponsored by our District 7080 several years ago. He said the GSE experience had been life-changing and pivotal in his career, forming personal bonds that continue to this day. In fact, a fellow GSE participant on that trip, Chris from the Rotary Club of Burlington North, was also in attendance at our club today. Tim Mau thanked Dolf and described him as a transformative leader at the Toronto Zoo. At the time that Dolf was selected as one of four young professionals aged 25-40 for experience in a foreign country, Tim was serving as Chair of the District 7080 GSE Committee and is gratified many times over to hear about the long-term impact of the Rotary GSE experience from someone like Dolf. The GSE program no longer exists and has been replaced with other Rotary exchange programs that you can read about here. Thank you, Program Committee, for continuing to bring us such wonderful speakers!

CALL FOR PROGRAM COORDINATORS

Speaking on behalf of the Program Committee, Anne MacKay is looking for members to help organize speakers at our club, to keep up the exceptional programming that we enjoy with top-notch presentations from guest speakers. Email Anne.

CALL FOR ROTARY MENTORS

Speaking for our Club Membership committee, Tracey Curtis asks members to email her if they are willing to be a “mentor” to new members, to make them feel especially welcome and engaged in their first year with us. Email Tracey.

CALL FOR LIGHT-TESTING VOLUNTEERS ON OCTOBER 15th

Volunteers are needed for the annual “light testing” workshop at Bob Ireland’s place, on Saturday, October 15 from 8:30-11:30am. If you haven’t done it before, don’t miss the opportunity. It is an easy few hours and a lot of fun in a warm place and getting to know other members while working side-by-side. It involves taking each strand of Christmas lights out of the storage tubs, unwinding them, plugging them into an electrical socket to determine if they still work or need repair, winding up the strand and placing it in the appropriate bin. Repeat. October 15th happens to overlap with the District 7080 Rotary training in Kitchener, so some of our members are already booked to be there and are not available for light testing. Everyone received a personal email to sign up. Do it.

POLIO FLAG RAISING AT CITY HALL ON OCTOBER 19

Details are below.

NEXT FELLOWSHIP GATHERING ON OCTOBER 19

Join us at Fionn MacCool's on Wednesday, October 19, from 6-8pm. It’s a great way to get to know fellow Rotarians. Just show up – no RSVP required.

JOIN THE ROTARY BLOOD DONATION CHALLENGE OCTOBER 25-29.

Details below.

OUR ONLINE CHRISTMAS MARKET WILL RUN FROM DECEMBER 1-17, 2022

You’ll be able to do Christmas shopping online this year and support our club fundraising at the same time. We already have a good number of items that had been assembled for the Lobsterfest auctions, but with that event having been suspended this year, we’re going ahead with an online auction of those items … and we are looking for even more goodies! We’re looking for items in the $100 range, and if you have no items to donate, you can also donate cash (tax receiptable) that Ruth and Rosemary will use to buy auction items that have proved popular in the past.

BOARD MEETING SUMMARY

Kerry Johnson, our longstanding Club Secretary, gave a wonderful update on topics discussed at the club’s last board meeting on September 27. Here are some highlights:

Thanks to Rosemary for hosting the board meeting at the Expedia office.
Agreed that we should arrange a Christmas Dinner for the club – details to follow.
Agreed that our club will cooperate with other local clubs to reinstate the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. Martin Litchfield, president of the Rotary Guelph South Club, spoke to this cooperation as well. Andrew Johnson was delighted to announced that one of our newer and younger members, Georgia Lavarini, has accepted the role of leading our Youth Service Avenue and she will be representing us in these related activites. Thank you, Georgia! We look forward to working with you!
Barb Holmes reported on the Vocational Service team connecting with Guelph’s Career & Education Council (CEC). Do you know that the CEC was actually started by our club, over 30 years ago? It’s going strong on its own, and is offering very good “vocational service” opportunities today. We're looking into how our members could be of help to young people by sharing our own vocational experience.
The annual board election process is coming up. The board has approved running this process online again, as we have done successfully in the last couple of years.
Three new club members were approved and will be introduced to us soon.
The board approved grants totalling $27,000 based on applications from existing club committees. This is the last time that grants will be handled in this way. Our new grant application process will be launched shortly, calling for grant applications to be formally submitted this fall (by November 30th) for disbursement next spring.
Our club’s draft financial report for 2021-2022 was approved by the board. It will be shared with members soon.
Board meeting dates have been scheduled for the coming months. You can find them on our club calendar on our website under Events at RotaryGuelph.ca. In between board meetings, the Club Executive team holds regular meetings to stay on top of things.