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Program: Debbie Sevenpifer, Classification Talk
President Tom called upon Rob Reid to say grace and Don Shaw as usual blew the right note for the singing of O'Canada.
President Tom welcomed all and introduced the head table: Betty-Lou Souter, Debbie Sevenpifer, our guest speaker, Sergeant-at-arms Peter Mahoney, member in the spotlight John Snowling and Stuart Butler who introduced today's guests.
Guests: We had a number of guests:
Emily Schutten and Andrew Muraco - Brock Rotaract Members.
Steve Tenyenhuis, guest of Wade Stayzer, Anne Atkinson, guest of Betty-Lou Souter, Lynne Polland and Julie Upper - guests of Debbie Sevenpifer, Jinnie Gordon, guest of John Potts, Bruce Binch, guest of John Lehnen, Christen Clark, guest of Roger Segalin, Aurora Tancock, guest of Chris Bangham, Caroline Bourque Wiley, Lisa Morley, Angela Zangas and Frank DeMizio, guests of Bala Kathiresan.
Member in the Spotlight –John Snowling
Member in the spotlight – member John Snowling, the Club’s President Elect, is the member in the spotlight. John joined Rotary in May of 1980 and was introduced by Matt Fisher. John is married to our very own Janet Johnston. John has one daughter named Lesley.
John’s classification is real estate sales, and is an agent for Royal LePage Niagara Real Estate Centre Inc.
John was awarded a Paul Harris Fellow in 2005 and the prestigious Complin Cup in 1996. John is currently on the Board of Directors and is Chair of the Long Range Planning Committee. John has served on a variety of Committees, Rib Fest, Youth Exchange, Programme, Membership, Youth Leadership, Easter Seals, Career Retraining Classification and Auction Advisory.
John’s interests include scuba diving, skiing, and keeping Janet happy.
Birthdays –
A rose for Heather Combe for a November 3rd birthday. Unfortunately, Heather was not present to accept a birthday rose from Tom.
Announcements
President Tom informed the Club of the passing of Rotarian Robert (Bob) Williams. Bob was introduced to the Club by Robert McBeth in 1957 and was a member of the Club until 2002. Bob was awarded a Paul Harris Fellow in 1985.
The Club observed a moment of silence to remember Bob.
Sam Walters provided an auction update. Everything appears to be under control. Sam requires six volunteers to spend an hour and a-half to help with the inventory of gift certificates.
Also, if you have any suggestions of where we can place the acrylic stands, which hold the Rotary Auction TV insert, around the city please advise Sam.
Marg Jarrell needs six volunteer runners for Saturday, November 10th for pre-taping commitment, full day or half day.
John Crossingham informed us that next week's program is our Remembrance Day Meeting, which is always a special meeting. Our speaker will be Ralph Frayne, the only living member of the Haida Crew.
No early leavers next week.
50/50
Someone allowed a guest to buy a 50/50 ticket and not only was her ticket drawn but she showed us how easy it was to find the Ace. The pot winnings were $ 1,487. The names of the winner and the Rotarian who brought her will remain nameless.
Happy Dollars:
Doug Foss took the basket for his first attempt at happy dollars and entertained us with a story about his hips and someone else’s hands on his hips while standing in front of a urinal and followed up that gem with a story of how American beer is viewed by German travelers.
Norm Kreger – happy for the opening of Doug and his wife Heather’s Art Store, happy for vacations and happy for our guest speaker.
Paul MacDonald – happy dollar for Doug Foss.
Oraine DeRosa – happy for the recognition of the volunteerism of our own Mary Margaret Murphy and happy for the success her daughter is having in journalism, specifically with an article in McLean’s and her job working on the publication “Beyond the Hill’.
Jaquelyn Clark – had a nice trip to India where she and her husband helped with water purification project.
John Crossingham – alot of happy dollars to share his Portugal vacation highlights and providing several examples of “What’s in a name”.
Editors note – John, I would love to see some of your vacation home movies.
Liz Palmieri – happy with recent success of Chorus Niagara’s recital. They will be in Toronto on Saturday and playing at the Armouries on Sunday.
George Sheppard – with a firm grip on the happy dollar basket, George provided The Club with the good news that his Chemo treatments are going well and he is presently cancer-free!
John Potts – follow up to his vacation in Peru seven months ago – his wife Jan’s leg is on the mend.
Brian St. Hilaire – happy to be heading to Myrtle Beach on a golf weekend.
Chris Bangham – heading to Myrtle Beach. Just back from Malta, the home land of Mark Zammit. Chris and Anne had a great time, and Chris reported that even with the departure of Mark from Malta he saw alot of straight teeth. Also, happy to have survived for 10 happy years in his second career with London Life.
Steve Tenyenhuis – Steve is a potential new member and liked our tradition of paying $ 10 in recognition of our birthdays that he ponyed up $ 10 for his birthday next week.
Gregory Bodogh-Darte – happy to announce that the staff at George Darte Funeral Home have increased their contributions to the United Way by 74% over last year.
Doug Foss – being a Veteran, he is always happy to see the great display of poppies above our hearts.
Guest Speaker:
Betty-Lou Souter introduced out guest speaker today, Rotarian Debbie Sevenpifer.
Betty-Lou met Debbie in 2000 when she was the CFO of the Niagara Health System and was happy for Debbie when she became CEO in March of 2003.
Debbie has a difficult task to balance the needs of the community with the political climate at times but is committed to providing Niagara with an effective delivery service model.
Debbie is a graduate of Brock University and obtained her C.A. designation in 1988 and is truly one of their brightest and best.
Debbie has been recognized quite frequently for her work. She was awarded the Business Woman of the Year Award in 2004, Brock Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005 and Niagara College awarded her an Honourary Applied Science Degree.
Debbie stepped to the podium and hoped that our expectations of her for her classification talk were not too high because she is a boring person.
Editors note – I do not know any boring C.A.’s.
She is a true Niagara gal – being born in Port Colborne, living in Wainfleet and now Fenwick. She was raised on a dairy farm and was taught the proper ethics and integrity with which to live one’s life by from her parents. She believes it is important not to forget when your parents teach us to be courteous and nice, and the importance of education. Her mother was a registered nurse and that is where she gets her desire to serve. She has two older brothers who played hockey and she would volunteer often to strap on the goalie equipment to help her brothers practice.
She is married to Glen and has two sons, Daniel and David, who also are involved in hockey. She spends lots of time sitting quietly at the hockey arena. As a result of the fact she is often recognized by the public from her picture in the Standard, she will not leave the house without her hair done and her makeup on.
Growing up she sang in the choir, was enrolled in figure skating and was a member of the 4-H Club.
Both of her grandfathers were well known in the community and her grandmother was a concert pianist. Her grandmother taught her grade 9 piano.
Her first job was at Missener Shipping and she was a part-time accounting teacher at Brock. She then moved to the Welland Hospital as a Manager and started her climb to the top of the Niagara Health System.
She finds a career in health care extremely rewarding as it is an important field that impacts the lives of many – sometimes in a happy way and sometimes in a sad way.
She does not enjoy the politics of her job but has learnt it comes with the territory.
Debbie and her family like to spend as much of their free time as they can at the family cottage.
Debbie then gave us some insight into the New Health Care Complex
- 375 beds to replace the 2 existing sites downtown
- The Health Care Complex will be 850,000 sq ft, which will house a Cancer Centre, Mental Health Centre and Cardiac Catherization Centre
- The Complex will be on a 40 acre greenfield site with The Complex taking up 32 acres and 8 acres available for auxiliary uses
- The Complex will be the 1st “DBFM” project in the province
- 3 bidders are preparing cost estimates for the Health Centre
- 90% of the construction costs will be funded by the Province
- 10% of the construction costs will be funded by the community
- 100% of the equipment costs will be funded by the community
- 100% of the parking lot and retail space will be funded by the community
- The community’s share will amount to $ 100 million
- The RFP document was an 80,000 page document
- Mid 2008 – bids will be in
- Fall 2008 – contract to be awarded
- Late 2008 – construction to begin
- Fall 2011 – Health Centre Complex to be completed
Bob Lawler Thanked Debbie for telling us about herself and updating us on the Health Care Complex.
President Tom Thanked Debbie in the usual way.
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Debbie Sevenpifer & President Tom |
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Betty-Lou Souter, Debbie Sevenpifer & President Tom |
President Tom then provided us with a brief history on the Rotary Foundation’s beginning.
Next Week –
Remembrance Program - Ralph Frayne – HMCS Haida
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