Acting President Tom Arkell

While President Rick was basking in the sun in Mexico, President Elect Tom Arkell called the meeting to order. Stuart Butler led the room in grace and Don Shaw started us out in the right key with O Canada then we toasted Her Majesty the Queen and Canada.

President Elect Tom introduced the head table: To introduce our guest - Mike Pihura; Our guest speaker; Catharine Swift; Sgt-at-Arms - Bill Williams; To introduce the Guests – Vicky Rudachuk; Rotarian-In-the-Spotlight - George Darte.

Vicky introduced our guests and all members joined in to sing Happy Birthday for Nancy Ferris-Hostick, Terry McDougall and Sam Walters.

Birthday Girl, Terry McDougall

President Elect Tom called on George Darte to make the first of several announcements.

George reminded Rotarians of their membership requirements. Rotarians are expected to comply with meeting attendance requirements and if they miss meetings he reviewed the ways members can make them up. Rotarians are expected to contribute to society either locally or internationally.

George Darte

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Janet Johnston

Tom indicated that the Capital Projects committee would be meeting on Thursday April 12 at 5:00 PM.

District assembly info: DATE: Saturday April 14th, 2007 TIME: 8:15 a.m. Registration; 8:45 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Assembly Itself LOCATION: Niagara College, Glendale Campus 135 Taylor Road, Niagara-on-the-Lake L0S 1J0

COST: $25 US; $30 Canadian per Rotarian

Members are also reminded that the Annual Conference is being held at Grand Island the first week of May.

Tom also reminded all members that next weeks meeting is a joint meeting and is on Wednesday and is at the Parkway not the Golf Club.

Mary Margaret Murphy introduced us to new member Karen Deroche while Oraine De Rosa introduced us to new member Serge Paquin. The introduction of these two new members fit in well with the presentation of our guest speaker as they both run their own successful business. Their background in business development and information technology respectfully will be great assets to Rotary endeavours.

Acting President Tom Arkell, Karen Deroche and Mary Margaret Murphy

Acting President Tom Arkell, Serge Paquin and Oraine De Rosa.

Tom Pekar announced that his Smiles For Life program is about to kick off again and is looking for better participation from our Club as the AM club participation rate was greater than ours. Remember that proceeds go to our Club.

Tom Pekar

HAPPY DOLLARS

Oraine De Rosa tested her new skills from the Dale Carnegie Course and led us in Happy Dollars.

Ken Taylor was happy to remind us that the reason the AM Club out performed us in the Smiles For Life program was because they still had most of their teeth.

Brian Stewart was happy to announce the arrival of his third son. All three sons were made with Toyota precision and weighed the same at 8 pounds 12 ounces.

Ron Basset was happy to announce his retirement from the Banking Business and has now jumped into the Insurance Business.

Judith Barker is looking for interesting pictures from last years Rifest to be used in this years campaign.

Doug Geddie was happy to participate in the Hamilton Bay Race.

Oraine’s daughter stole a Looney from her mom’s purse to announce that she is now employed as a reporter for the St.Catharines Standard and is on the lookout for good stories.

President Elect Tom drew Judith Barker’s number in the 50/50 draw but unfortunately Judith did not draw one of the four aces.

Program

Mike Pihura

Mike Pihura introduced our guest speaker Catharine Swift who is CEO of The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

Catharine is an Economist by profession. After graduating with her MA in Economics she held several positions with the Federal Government in Ottawa then joined TD Bank as Senior Economist. In 1987 she joined CFIB and I 1997 she became CEO.

Among Catharine’s responsibilities is coordination of policy issues at both the federal and provincial levels of government and representing CFIB with politicians, government, business and other groups.

Catherine Swift

Catharine pointed out that according to polls, small business is the most respected group in Canada. That is because small and medium size business now represents 50% of the Canadian Economy and now command the respect they are getting form all fronts. They now influence decision making on all political levels.

She pointed out that CFIB now have an on line polling system where members can vote quickly on issues to be addressed. As an example, the members supported the Harper Governments proposal to lower the GST but they currently drew up a list of Member implementation concerns using the on line system. As a result of their lobbying all the CFIB issues were addressed in the legislation.

Catharine said that past studies profile small and medium business people as being; independent and like to be their own boss, sometimes anti establishment minded, mostly first born, courageous and optimistic and have a good representation of immigrants and women. They compare with Americans in all these characteristics.

After 5/11 Canada’s economy outperformed largely as a result of the performance of Independent Businesspeople.

One of the issues being addressed by CFIB is to reduce red tape and to reduce the tax burden on small and medium size business people. The Harper Government will be making significant progress next year at reducing red tape.

There was testimony from the audience for CFIB’s past history of helping small business and Rotary thanked Catharine for her great presentation which was often sprinkled with good humor.

Catherine Swift and Tom Arkell

NIGHT OF 1000 DINNERS

Rick Merritt, Sgt. Jonathan White, Marg Jarrell and Scott Fairweather
Sgt. Jonathan White	Marg Jarrell
Chris Bangham being serenaded for his birthday.
Point Made!