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Program: Denis Beaulne & Dan Langdon, Engineers without Borders.
The meeting was opened by President elect John Snowling, a moment of silence was observed for the passing of President Tom Arkell’s father, who died this week. Grace was offered by Steven Tenyenhuis. O Canada started by Don Shaw.
The head table was introduced by President elect, John Snowling, Jim Denham introduced our guest speakers, Denis Beaulne and Dan Langdon. Sgt Bill Campbell,
Introduction of Guests by John Chabot.
Today’s guests included Sheila Gillies, guest of Eugene, Nick Dubanow guest of Serge Paquin, Alexis de Wolfe, guest of Roger Segalin.
Charitable donation receipts are now available.
Marg Jarrel announced that the land mines committee will be holding a joint dinner fund raiser April 23rd at John Michael’s. Please call for tickets and information.
John Lehnen notes there will be a half page advertisement in the weekend Standard about the Rotary’s Clubs community involvement and fund raising activities. This includes all the programs we support.
We were pleased to have the President of the Brock University Rotaract Club tell us about their up coming novel fund raising project that is aimed at providing chemotherapy for young people having a 95% mortality rate. On the 20th of March they will be bringing Samosa’s at $2. Order forms are available.
Monday evening at City Council our Club will be presenting a proposal regarding the Rotary Tree Park. Attendance of enthusiastic members would be appreciated.
10 Day Notice
Alexis De Wolfe, sponsored by Roger Segalin. Alexis is Information Systems Assistant with Early Childhood Community Development Centre. Classification is Information Technology.
Ken Wright – February 24th
John O’Connell – February 27th
Walter Senzik – February 28th
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John Potts, John O'Connell, Walter Sendzik |
Happy Dollars was hosted by Carol Henderson.
Angus Adams forgot to introduce his wife, Gaye. After 65 years of marriage he handily slithered out of that one with a toonie.
Tom Pekar participated in the Canadian Air Piston Grand Prix against Olympic teams from five countries.He finished dead last but won the gold metal for personal achievement and enjoyment. Tom will have tickets next week for the April 5th Jeffrey and the Juniors Dance in Merritton, sponsored by the Merritton Community Group.
Aurora Tancock is back from the Caribbean, so is Kim Whiddicomb, who learned that sharing gas between airplanes may be a Rotary sharing experience but creates nervousness at the margin of fuel safety.
Janet Johnson and John Snowling just back from the Caribbean.
John and Janice Potts off to South Africa.
John suggested that we designate March 20th as an official Rotary Samoa Fest for the club lunch.
Terry Wilkes is off go kart racing in Florida.
Bill Finlay attended his grandchildren cleaning up gold metals in ski racing in Alberta.
Kelly Buckley is planning a trans continental flight to Beamsville to participate in the Celtic Festival this weekend.
John Nitsopoulos back from the Dominican Republic.
Bill McKay reported listening to CBC radio where St. Catharines was featured as a depressed manufacturing area. He was heartened by Betty Lou Souter’s buoyant plans for a recovery strategy.
Dave Butler is off to Chile
This was attempted by Janet Johnson.
Chris Blake
Chris was born in Pembroke Ontario and moved to Niagara in 1994 from Stratford, Ontario. Chris has been a member of this club twice, in 1997 to 2002 and then again since 2005. He was introduced by Foster Zanutto. He has been :
- an actor at both Shaw and Stratford festivals
- fund raiser for Niagara College
- Deputy Mayor in the City of Stratford
- Executive Director of the Governor’s General Performing Arts Award in Ottawa.
He works as a Marketing and Communications Consultant, currently under contract with the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Niagara Economic Development Corporation, working, on a project known as Destination Niagara to bring unity to the messaging and marketing of the tourism industry in Niagara. He is married to Colleen Blake who is Executive of the Shaw Festival and has two daughters, one who is an actress in England and one who is studying at McGill in Montreal. IN our club he has been chair of the program committee and has been involved with the Easter Seals Committee(when there was one) and is now chair of the Youth Leadership Committee. This runs a series of programs to offer leadership training opportunities to young people in St. Catharines.
- Operative Slapshot – a weekend training program for high school students in April
- RYLA a weeklong leadership course for college/university students in June
- Canada Essay Contest for high school students, Junior Achievement and Science projects
- Rotary Metals for outstanding students at three St. Catharines high schools
- Director for 2000 and 2002
- Committees, Program Chair, Auction Advisory, Rotary Foundation
- Bulletin, Long Range Planning, Marketing, Membership classifications
Interests: Chinese Studies, cricket, golf, reading, flying, reading, travel
Eugene Gillies had the pleasure of introducing our newest Paul Harris Fellow. This is the highest honour that our club can give to recognize a person whose life demonstrates a shared purpose with the objectives and mission of the Rotary foundation to build world understanding and peace. Our recipient is Grace Carley Adams, better known as Gaye Adams. She was counselor to young people with a local Girl Guides Troup and a Sunday School teacher. She, being a dietician worked with adults and families as an active leader and convener of dinners, banquets for over thirty five years. Also an avid gardener, supplied flowers for her church every Sunday. She was a member of the Board of Albright Manor and the Albright Garden Cottages in Lincoln for 17 years and served as Secretary of the Board. She was also involved in establishing in Lincoln the Meals on Wheels Program and was the first co ordinator and treasurer, serving meals five days a week. She served as a driver for twenty seven years until the program as taken under government direction. She has recently been recognized by the Town of Lincoln for her community service, a celebration of the inception of the Meals on Wheels program. She assisted Angus in counseling and feeding several Rotary from Japan while they were attending Brock University. One of her greatest feats is to have been married and looked after her own Angus for over 65 years. They have a daughter named Linda Gaye who is living in Florida. Gaye totally unprepared for this recognition thanked the club in her usual shy and self effacing way. Another tiny but mighty member of our Rotarian family.
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Eugene Gillies, PHF Grace Adams,
Acting President John Snowling |
Our guests were introduced by Engineer Jim Denham, who told us a talking frog story.
Our guest speakers, Denis described their organization, whose goal is to end poverty by bringing information and technology to the world’s poor. Their goal is to decrease the number of people living on a dollar a day by 50%. There are twenty seven students and seven professional chapters across Canada. Both speakers are from McMaster University. They liaise with existing grass roots agencies overseas. They brought information about their recent four month trips to Malawi and Ghana.
In Ghana Dan lived with a rural family in the poor northern part of the country where 94% of the people subsist on agriculture with a 16% literacy rate. He did teen training, computer training, was an extra pair of hands as needed, taught biology and taught women’s groups. Working within the infrastructure of a Canadian government project that had three focal points:
1. food security, to raise soy beans, establish a grain bank, raise sheep and goats and sell excess for profit
2. business initiative to teach participants from 1. how to use bank accounts and reinvest into the community to create independence
3. education and training in computers and other vocational skills.
In Malawi the warm heart of Africa, Denis worked under a program called Moving Beyond Hunger with Physicians. He interviewed, providing inputs for farmers, of 500 beneficiary households. For example, when there was an excess of groundnuts, was it better to sell in bulk or manufacture peanut butter as a finished product? From the seed bank, James the gardener, of some excellence, managed to create a thriving farm gate business. Ernest managed to care for his six siblings, go to school and co ordinate international studies with fellow students. This is a lot for someone whose main goal in life was to reach eighteen.
Dan and Denis acknowledged and thanked our club for supporting their efforts the past two years. John Snowling thanked our speakers and presented dictionaries.
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Dan Langdon, Denis Beaulne, John Snowling |
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