Opening and Introductions:

President Rick Merritt opened the meeting.
Grace was said by Reverend Graham Kennedy

O Canada was begun with his usual panache by Don Shaw, followed by a toast to Her Majesty the Queen and Canada.

The head table was introduced, including Chris Blake, Chair of the Youth Leadership Committee, table filler Harold Nash (very well dressed indeed!), President Rick, Sergeant-at-Arms Peter Mahoney, Committee in the spotlight chair Ron Sloan, and Mike Pihura, who introduced our guests.

Mary Margaret Murphy

The head table was introduced, including Dave Butler, speaker introducer, Speaker Stuart Butler, President Rick, Sergeant-at-Arms Peter Mahoney, Member in the spotlight Bill Williams, and Mary Margaret Murphy, who introduced our guests.

Guests:

• Visiting Rotarian Willie Heidbuechel from the Lakeshore Club
• Daphne Maziar, guest of Karen De Roche
• Mike Lethby, guest of Betty Lou Souter
• Judy Reed, guest of Liz Palmieri and Wade Stayzer
• Bob Southall, guest of Wendy
• Maxime Jean Louis, guest of Lezlie Murch

Bill Williams

Member in the Spotlight:

William (Bill) Williams

Bill joined Rotary March 16, 2006 and was introduced by Doug Geddie

He has 4 sons: Andrew, James, Kevin and Robert

Bill retired as VP of Marketing and Sales at QUNO (formerly Ontario Paper Company) after 40 years in the pulp & paper industry. He is, or has been:

• volunteer for 10 years with the St. Catharines General Hospital Foundation
• Director of the Niagara Symphony
• director of Ina Grafton Gage Foundation
• President for 2 years of the Canadian Pulp & Paper Association-newsprint section
• Director-international Churchill society of Canada

His interests include music, reading, theatre and travel.

Committees:

Sergeant-at-arms
Literacy
Charitable trust

Birthdays:

June 18 - Carol Stymiest, June 22 - Dave Feasby, June 25 - Ross Burns, June 28 - Bill Cole and June 29 - Terry Wilkes. In an effort to ensure payment of the requisite $10 birthday ransom, President Rick announced both this and next week's birthdays, however only Dave Feasby and Terry Wilkes were in attendance.

Terry Wilkes & Dave Feasby

President Rick then asked Larry Iggulden to come forward. (He tucked in his double chin for the photo.) Larry is chair of the Foundation Committee, and told us how, in 1957 Rotary International decided that anyone who donated $1000 to the Foundation should be considered a Paul Harris Fellow. He spoke about the Every Rotarian Every Year (EREY) campaign that is ongoing in Rotary, and actually is a vehicle for accumulating the $1000 credit. Larry therefore presented George Doty with his fourth Paul Harris Fellow award, and praised George for all he does and has done for Rotary.

Larry Iggulden	President Rick, PHF George Doty, Larry Iggulden

Rick then asked Betty Lou Souter to speak. Betty Lou was chair of the major grants committee this year, and was thrilled that the budget now allows grants to be up to $5000 before special club approval is required. The committee received a request from R.A.F.T. (Resource Association for Teens) to assist with capital expenditures required for moving to new premises. Betty Lou presented a $5,000 cheque to Mike Lethby, the Executive Director of R.A.F.T., noting that R.A.F.T. has made great strides since Mike took over. Mike then told the club a bit about R.A.F.T. and how it has gone through many transitions since 1994. They will be moving in November to 17 Centre Street , where our donation will be used to outfit the new kitchen. Currently, R.A.F.T. serves dinner to between 15-40 youths daily, and Mike thanked the club for our generous donation.

Betty Lou Souter & Ron Sloan

President Rick, Betty Lou Souter, Mike Lethby

Ron Sloan is chair of the Charitable Trust Committee, and he came to the podium to present a $5,000 cheque to Betty Lou Souter for Community Care, noting that the increase in the limit per grant is well used. Betty Lou came up for the cheque, and also received a big smootch!

Liz Palmieri

Announcements

Liz Palmieri advised that the Communications Committee met recently to discuss the scope of our website, and the committee will be canvassing committee chairs over the course of the summer to find out how the website is currently used and to collect ideas for increased usage.

President Rick then gave the highlights of this week's board meeting, advising that short leaves of absence have been granted to Norm Kreger and Lezlie Murch, medical leaves of absence granted to Peter Kudreikis and Alex McKee. (...he's baaaack!) The board also accepted, with regret, the resignation from the club of Nancy Ferris-Hostick. In light of her continued interest and desire to help out with fundraising, Nancy was granted and honorary membership, to allow her to keep in touch.

This week's 7 th annual Rotary/Algoma Golf Tournament was a great success, with perfect weather, a great course, and $50,000 raised. Proceeds will be split evenly between the Niagara Peninsula Children's Centre and the Niagara Health System Foundation for the new Regional Hospital . Rick thanked Earl Alton and the entire organizing committee.

Gregory Bogogh-Darte

Happy $:

Gregory Bogogh-Darte carried the basket today, and was happy to have attended a Christening last Saturday...of a boat! He seemed very impressed by the food, too.

Jim Denham was happy to have attended the Grade 8 graduation of his stepdaughter from Woodland School , and he and his wife were surprised to learn that their daughter had been awarded the "most improved student" award.

Tom Pekar was very happy to present the club with a cheque for $6,887, being the proceeds of his "Smiles for Life" campaign.

Wendy Southall had an apology dollar for Rick, as she is unable to attend the farewell dinner next Thursday, because they are hosting a dinner for her son's new family. He is getting married the following Saturday, and Wendy also had a Happy Dollar for this, as it means "No more kids at home!"

Rick Evans was happy to report that his son has just graduated from Brock, with a degree in French and Spanish. He will be leaving shortly to teach English in Brazil .

Chris Bangham reported on the B.A.R. group's foursome at the recent golf tournament. The group consisted of Chris, Roger, Henry, and newcomer John Nitsopoulos. The group has decided to allow makeups, and John, in fact, did 7 makeups that evening, to become a member in good standing of the B.A.R. group. The group will not, however, allow virtual makeups, as it is felt that this would "lower the bar". Knowing that, as of July, President Rick will have more time on his hands, the B.A.R. foursome has challenged Rick to a round, with the foursome of Rick's choosing. Cheers!

Betty Lou was $2 happy, saying thanks for the cheque, as she had come expecting to present one, and was happy to also receive one. She was also happy to have attended a Canadian Citizenship Ceremony this morning for one of her staff, and found it to be an incredibly moving experience.

George Doty - "Quelle surprise pour moi!" was happy for his Paul Harris, and told us a story about a priest going through customs.

Art Wing is happy that he and Jackie will shortly be going to Bulgaria for the inaugural meeting of the newest Rotary District, which will be comprised of 74 clubs. The meeting will take place in an old Roman theatre, and Art's friend will be the first district governor. Art will be taking some icewine as a gift from our club, and the new district will be involved in our group study exchage next year.

Colletta McGrath was happy to have attended a meeting in Toronto where the speaker was a noted psychiatrist, Dr. Clinton. Her subject was "the adolescent brain" (which is apparently still under construction!) and Colletta found the entire talk fascinating, suggesting that our club should try to invite Dr. Clinton to speak.

50/50 Draw:

John Burroughs had the right ticket, but drew the 3 of clubs, thereby missing the $152 pot.

Program:

Dave Butler introduced Stuart as the son of loving, dedicated, (etc. etc.) parents...

Stuart Butler

Stuart Butler's first life changing Rotary experience happened in 1987 when Dad/Dave was president of our Club. He was quite I surprised to arrive home the summer after 3 rd year University to find his parents were going to the Rotary convention in Munich for 2 weeks. Apparently, it was like winning the lottery and Stuart had 30 or 40 of his closest friends come to help look after the house.

Stuart spent most of his childhood in St. Catharines though he was born in Toronto and spent a few years in Peterborough before moving here for the start of grade 2. He attended the now defunct Captain John Decew public school.

Stuart has three brothers: Bradt who is the principal at Prince of Wales in Thorold , Don who lives in Toronto and works in the air purification business, and Davie , who lives in Collingwood...something about winter lifestyle, but is going back to Honduras for one more year.

The family grew up across the street from Art Wing and his family. Stuart seemed to remember some shenanigans there the year Art was president. Speaking of adolescents, (as Colletta did) Stuart suggests that they all should encourage their parents to become Rotary presidents...

Stuart attended Sir Winston Churchill for high school, and had lots of fun doing the sports thing...football, baseball, rowing etc. He also did the "over the river" thing, and mentioned a few haunts. He worked my summers at Fairview driving range,which was located right across the street from the Holiday Inn, right where the Depots are (Business and Home). People still ask why he is so jumpy - because when the ball hit the protective cage on the tractor he would jump 8 feet. It seems everyone aims at the ball collector guy. Stuart's only regret was not taking music. The guy with the guitar always got the girls at the bonfire, whereas no one wanted to watch him catch a baseball. He still maintains a core group of friends, many of whom left the region like himself but have now come back, enticed by the inexpensive real estate, family business, or certain guy/gal

Next it was off to Trent University , where he went to row, but didn't , enjoyed the small class sizes beautiful campus etc. Stuart was somewhat taken aback at his first meeting with our club last year to find President-elect Tom Arkell here. Tom was the senior Don responsible for Stuart's residence, and was very understanding of the first year students' antics.

Stuart enjoyed Trent , particularly the diversity of international students, and that led to his interest now in Rotary. His degree was a joint major in Macro Economics and International Politics, and his final paper was on Horizontal vs. Vertical Nuclear proliferation with a focus on relations between India and Pakistan . (Yikes!)

He finished his degree almost on time but had to spend an extra summer for one more credit, which turned out quite positive because he met his wife Michelle. They have now been together for 19 years and married for fifteen.

Michelle's last position before the crippling cost of day care forced her to take a sabbatical was fund raising sales. She attended meetings for every type of organization imaginable including all the animal ones, Lions, Moose, Eagle etc., and always found the Rotary meetings to be the most professional and accommodating and she was keen supporter of Stuart's joining Rotary.

They have 3 great kids, Kylie 10 (aka Miss World), Robbie, who is a great student and apparently has his father's knack for disrupting the whole class while still completing all his work, and Jake, 4, a cute happy guy, who enjoys his "bounce-o-line".

Stuart is also a scout leader.

As regards the "classification" portion:

Stuart is starting his 4 th year with the Butler group at ScotiaMcleod the wealth management division of Scotiabank. Dave apparently mentioned at least ten times to mention that they are no longer JUST Stock Brokers, but rather do financial planning, estate planning, Insurance products, and access to CFP's, CFA's, CA's and trust lawyers. In essence, they are the relationship managers for their clients. They operate strictly on referrals from clients and "centres of influence", as Stuart does not "believe in marketing.

Stuart's first job, in university was "Student Pools" for which he got a government grant to start a small business and only had to pay back half. After university, he did BNS management training, however he and his manager agreed that banking was not for him, and the manager helped him to get employment with Xerox, where he undertook 5 weeks of sales school, then "spin selling and cold calling in downtown T.O."

He then had a job selling Dental Equipment, which made him an expert at Root Canals, and met lots of interesting people as well as traveled a lot.

At Scotia McLeod, he has become a sponge, still attending seminars whenever possible.

Stuart then gave a brief overview of the current investing climate. In a nutshell, the Canadian dollar will continue to rise and will eventually reach parity with the USD. Canadian interest rates will climb in the near term, and India is currently a great investing environment.

Glen Norton thanked Stuart for a great presentation, which struck a fine balance between personal and business

Stewart Butler & President Rick

President Rick also thanked Stuart, and the meeting was adjourned.

Next Week: President's Farewell Dinner at the Niagara Culinary Institute at Niagara College - 6 p.m.

THERE WILL BE NO LUNCH MEETING AT THE GOLF COURSE.