|
“President” Cindy Mewhinney called the meeting to order today at 12:35 pm at the St. Catharines Golf & Country Club. Grace was said by Scott Crocco, who would make a fine minister, and Rick Evans gave us the perfect note to begin O Canada. Seated at the head table were:
Speaker Introducer: Doug Foss
Classification talk Speaker: Serge Paquin
“President”: Cindy Mewhinney
“Sergeant-at-Arms”: Steve Tenyenhuis
Rotarian in the Spotlight: Bill Ford
Guest Introducer: Jinnie Gordon
Today's Guests were
VISITING ROTARIANS
Willy Heidbuchel – St. Catharines Lakeshore
John Boot – Summerland BC
OTHER GUESTS
Murray & Sally Coulter – guests of Lloyd Buckley and Angus Adams
Alexis DeWolfe – guest of Roger Segalin
Joel Chatterton – guest of Tom Arkell
Frank Coy – guest of Rusty Kruty
Alex Evans – guest of Rick Evans
Fatima & Marcello Baretto – guests of Kelly Buckley
|
Marcello and Fatima Barreto and Alex Evans |
Jinnie then told us about our oldest member, Bill Ford. Bill was born in Milton, moved to Hamilton, and then to Peterborough . During the Second World War he enlisted as a private soldier and served with the British Army as part of Canloan. After the war, he returned to Peterborough and worked as a manager at Silverwood Dairies. He was transferred to St. Catharines with Silverwood's in 1959, and became a member of our club the same year, having been introduced by Gerry Wooll (although he was previously a member of the Stratford club). Bill earned his CA designation at the University of Toronto , and has also earned a degree in Philosophy and a Bachelor of Arts from Brock University . When Silverwood's closed, Bill joined the ranks of McGillivray & Partners as a chartered accountant, and worked there until his retirement. Bill served as president of our club in 1968, and was awarded a Paul Harris fellowship in 1978. He has served on pretty much every committee. In addition to his Rotary Service, Bill also served as President of the Ontario Association of Colleges of Applied Arts & Technology. Bill was married to Edith for almost 50 years, and they were widely known for their skill on the dance floor together. Son Ron lives in Ottawa , and son Terry in Regina , and he has six grandchildren. Jinnie pointed out that Bill's accomplishments make him a shining example to us all.
We celebrated Rachel Delaney, whose birthday was January 13.
A card was passed around for Don Shaw, who has been in hospital with flu-like symptoms, and is expected to be moved from ICU shortly.
There will be a Children's committee meeting on Tuesday January 29 th at 5:00 pm at the offices of Sullivan Mahoney.
Greg Bodogh-Darte continued his scalping of tickets for this Sunday's Ice Dogs game at 2 pm. Call him quickly if you want to attend this family of Rotary event.
There will be a World Community Service meeting on January 23 rd at 5:15 pm at the offices of Sullivan Mahoney.
John Crossingham announced that there will be a Group Friendship Exchange to Australia for two weeks beginning October 27, and there is room for one or two more couples. He will be hosting an information meeting shortly so contact him if you are interested. The Australians will come here first, in late June and July. Also, he is asking anyone who still has a bottle or two of Rotary Icewine to consider selling it to him to present to host clubs in Australia.
Murray Coulter, former Rotarian visiting today with his wife Sally took the podium and immediately realized that he had left his notes in the car. George Darte said he preferred to hear from Sally anyway. Notes or not, Murray first of all thanked our club for his Paul Harris Fellowship. He talked at length about the early years of the TV Auction, working with Jack Sebeslav, and told everyone how much fun it was then (it still is Murray !). He poked a bit of fun at Roger Segalin, who was with
Maclean Hunter
Cable at the time, and then told about hosting Len Fenig at the the anchor desk after he and Jack had taken their pants off (but with suit jackets and ties firmly in place showing up on the TV. The major change he noted in our club is the inclusion of ladies, and he is certain that we are much more organized now (right on Murray!).
He and Sally now live in Charlotte , North Carolina , which is experiencing a population boom (approximately 6,000 newcomers per month right now), many from the northeastern US and from Mexico . He told a story about how a Charlottean, a Yankee, and a Mexican were all drinking in a bar one day. The Yankee was from Corning New York . He drank down his drink, then threw the glass in the air, pulled out his gun and shot the glass out of the air. “We have so much glass in Corning , that we never drink out of the same glass twice”, he explained to his astonished drinking buddies. The Mexican then promptly downed his Tequila and threw the bottle into the air, whereupon he pulled out his machete and hacked the bottle to bits! “We have so much Tequila in Mexico , we never drink from the same bottle twice”, he explained. Whereupon the Charlottean pulled out his gun and shot his two drinking partners. “What the heck...” said the bartender! “We have so many damned Yankees and Mexicans here in Charlotte we never have to drink with the same guys twice!” Welcome to the U S of A, Murray.
|
|
 |
Reunion photos |
Murray also talked about commercials for a certain pill (how does he know they're purple) and pointed out that if he had an erection lasting more than four hours as noted in the commercial's disclaimer, he wouldn't call his doctor, he'd call the newspaper. In any event, he told us that the business of Rotary is serious, but we sure have fun doing. He finished with a very old joke about Pastor Fluff, which I won't repeat here.
Rick Evans then came forward and introduced Fatima Baretto, who was our inbound exchange student in 1975. She was happy to have brought her son Marcello from Brazil , and she is staying with the Evans family for 5 weeks. She is happy to still be in touch with us after more than 30 years, and commended Rotary for the Youth Exchange program, which she says changed her life. She still feels that her host families are her own family, and invited all of us to visit Brazil , but not all at the same time.
Were solicited by Carol Henderson who was happy just to have the honour of carrying the basket.
Pat Rooney paid a buck to announce that the Program Committee will be meeting on Wednesday January 23 at Bob Gosselin's house at 94 Haig St . at 5 p.m. Please let Pat know if you are able to attend.
Tom Arkell was happy to have the meeting completely taken over by new members, and was happy to be able to actually eat his lunch.
Foster Zanutto was happy to have spent two weeks in Paris for a combined business/pleasure trip. He likened his trip to the Opera to having dinner as a kid...four hours of yelling in Italian. He then told an interesting story about buying rings on the street...
John Potts as membership chair, was proud of the new members running today's meeting. He also announced that the Niagara Grape and Wine Festival's Icewine celebration, will be taking place over the next three weekends, first in Jordan , then NOTL, then St. Catharines , with lots of outdoor festivities.
Roger Segalin was happy to see Murray and Sally
Peggy Davidson was happy to be going to England for a visit next week and has even secured an invitation to lunch with the Rotary Club of Epsom, Surrey.
Angus Adams broke the mic, but was happy to say hello to Murray and Sally after many years.
Murray Coulter had a very old dollar bill which he was happy to contribute.
Guest Frank Coy was happy to see Murray and Sally.
Ray Bukovec had both a happy and sad dollar. The sad dollar was a follow up to last week, when he was happy to be listening to everyone's travel stories, and advised he was taking a trip to Thorold South. Unfortunately, his passport expired, and he ran into some difficulties with that trip, with some Scottish policemen...(?) The happy story, however, was that his daughter recently won two Mercedes and $25,000 in the Cancer lottery, and now she doesn't know him! Although she did offer her condolences about the Thorold South trip, and offered to buy him a ticket on a cruise...from Port Weller to Lock 7!
Lloyd Buckley was happy to see Murray and Sally again, as they were apparently neighbours for many years. He was also happy to see Fatima, whom his family hosted when she was an exchange student here.
Rick Evans was happy to be hosting Fatima, as he and Jayne have been empty nesters this year, since their son Alex went to Brazil . Alex was here today, but is going back to Brazil and getting married later this year.
Larry Ross paid $5 to tell us about his trip to Brazil in 1981, when he had dinner with Fatima and her husband. Also listening to Murray reminded him of the first TV auction when he was president, and he didn't do anything.
Fatima was happy to be here.
Eugene Gillies was happy to have Murray and Sally here, and was grateful for all the great humour generated.
Kelly Buckley was happy to meet up with her favourite sister from Brazil , and her new favourite nephew. She also reminisced about growing up next to the Coulters and all their wild parties. Murray said he didn't remember those...
Lezlie Murch was happy to be going to Tucson shortly, where she is meeting up with a former exchange student from Alaska whom she met during her exchange year in Bolivia .
Steve Tenyenhuis was happy to get the mic back in working order, and advised that his second child is expected in August.
Don Fraser took a while to find his winning ticket but he did not find an ace in the pack. The pot was $226.50! Not sure how that happened.
Doug Foss introduced today's Classification speaker Serge Paquin, who joined Rotary April 5, 2007. He was introduced by Oraine Derosa. He is married to Jolanda, and they have three children, son Ricky 13, daughter Janna 3, and most recently, son Noah, who was born in December. Serge's classification is IT Consulting, and he is a member of the ribfest advisory, program, and auction advisory committees.
Serge was born in Powell River , British Columbia and lived in a little place called Lund . He was an only child, and his dad, Bob, is a shellfish fisherman. His mother Pat is an artist. At the age of 5, he and his mum moved to the Niagara region, while his father still resides in Lund. He spent summers in BC until about the age of 12 but has lived in Niagara ever since. He attended Niagara District Secondary School in Niagara-on-the-Lake for grade 9 and 10 and Lakeport Secondary School in St. Catharines for the remainder of high school.
When he was 12, he joined Air Cadets in Niagara-on-the-Lake and was a member until he was too old at 19. During that time, he went on various summer courses to places such as Cold Lake, Alberta and Bagotville, Quebec for different summer camps. At 17, he joined the Lincoln and Welland regiment and served in the reserves for 2 years. During his time in cadets and the reserves he learned the importance of serving his country and community and being part of something bigger than himself.
After being out of school and working for a couple years he decided it was important to go to college. He attended Niagara College and took the Computer Programmer Analyst course which is a 3 year course with a 1 semester Co-Op which he served at the law firm Chown Cairns. He graduated in 1999. He also met wife Jolanda that year and they were married in 2002, purchased a house in Fonthill - and are still living there today. Jolanda already had a son named Ricky who was 5 years old when they met – so along with a wife he also gained a son. Instant fatherhood. Now, with Janna and Noah, needless to say they have a fairly busy household these days.
His hobby is SCUBA diving. It's something he had wanted to do for a very long time and he and Jolanda got certified in 2001. She thought it was ok but really doesn't dive much and only has about 15 logged dives. Serge, on the other hand, was “totally hooked” from the outset and has done close 1,000 dives since 2001 and taken many more different SCUBA courses. He then scared the hell out of us with tales of Ship Wreck diving in the great lakes, ICE diving where they dive under ice-covered lakes and rivers and gain access by chain sawing through the ice to get to the water.
He has seen many memorable shipwrecks such as the Joy A Jodrey which is a 640' Algoma Laker which sank in 1974, sits in 160 to about 240' of water in the St. Lawrence seaway right by Rockport, but the most memorable was a trip he did to Morehead City North Carolina where he spent a week of diving many different wrecks but the highlight was U-352, a German UBoat which was sunk in combat during WWII. During He managed to squeeze himself inside of the UBoat, and while it was filled with silt, he got a good look at it from the inside. Even scarier, most recently he has started Cave diving and has taken a couple trips to North Florida to dive different cave systems there, exploring the rock formations and penetrating down different passages, up to 1,700' from the surface. Yikes...
As regards work, Serge knew early on that he wanted to work with computers, and started Sky Computers when he was in grade 11. He built and supported computers for friends and family. For many years this was a part time job. After graduation he was soon hired at cartrackers.com a local Niagara internet company. Then he worked for the Business Education Council of Niagara where he managed all of their IT along with helping launch the YourNiagara project. He then set out on his own full time and I turned Sky Computers into SkyComp Solutions and it has become a full time venture. He has worked hard and has now hired a part time receptionist as well as bringing on a full time technical employee.
The company specializes in outsourced IT for small to medium sized businesses and typically manages clients servers and work stations as well as recommending and implementing technology solutions which help make offices more efficient. The company also provides many website and email hosting solutions to assist businesses in meeting their goals.
Tom Arkell thanked Serge for his talk and pointed out the value that we all get from Classification talks. “President” Cindy added her thanks and presented Serge with the dictionary which will be donated to an inner city school.
|
Serge Paquin & "President" Cindy |
Cindy then thanked the club for the opportunity to host the meeting today, and reiterated the value of actually becoming a Rotarian, rather than just being a member of Rotary.
Robbie Burns Day
|
