Gossip Sheet # 17 - October 28, 2004
Editor: Brian Stewart

The meeting began in the usual fashion with the singing of O Canada lead by Rick Evans followed by the saying of grace by Ken Wright and a toast to the Queen and to Canada.

Jaquelyn Bradshaw

The head table was comprised of Doug Geddie, Peter Partington, Betty-Lou Souter, Heather Combe, Dave Butler and Jaquelyn Bradshaw. Jaquelyn introduced the following guests: Ann Bangham, Andrew Bowles and Bill Howeland.

Birthdays:
Don Fraser and Glory Ressler both celebrated birthdays this week.
Nov 3 Heather Combe

Nov 4 Jos Nolle -Land Mine Presentation-“Night of 1000 dinners”
Nov 11 Remembrance Day
Nov 18 District Governor's Visit
Nov 25 John Crossingham-Melbourne Cup Day
Dec 2 Rotary Foundation & Rotary Centennial

Announcements

Betty-Lou described her experiences at last week's Rotary International meeting. A memorable moment was when the value of Rotary was described as meaning: I'm reliable, I'm dependable, and I'm committed to service.

Bill Oaks is still in the hospital and in our thoughts.

A letter was received from our friends in the Port au Prince club, in Trinidad. They acknowledged how grateful the Grenada club was for our $2000 donation for disaster relief.

Alex Elliott

Alex Elliott announced that in keeping with the President's theme of “Celebrate Rotary” It would be appropriate to honour an individual who has been in charge of celebrations and fellowship in our club for many years. Sam Walters was awarded a Paul Harris medal. Sam was very surprised and honoured but regretful that his wife was not here to share this moment with him.

Marg Jarrell reminded our club that next week we will be celebrating a night of 1000 dinners. Lunch will cost an extra $5 next week with all proceeds going to help clear land mines.

There will be a membership meeting on November 2nd at 5 pm in the CIBC building.

Nancy announced that as of last week 700 of the 1000 needed auction items had been received. If you need help getting an item in please contact either Nancy or Martha.

Marg Jarrell

Happy Dollars

John Crossingham

John Crossingham led off happy dollars with a story of how hard it is to buy a bottle of wine in Portugal on a Sunday.

George Park thanked our speaker of the day.

Don Fraser was happy to celebrate one more year.

Ian Ladd announced that Carstar is supporting Cystic Fibrosis foundation in raising $1 000 000 for research. To raise awareness he is donating glow sticks for kids to use while trick or treating on Halloween.

Dave Butler would like to see if there is any interest in starting a softball team within our club.

Don Fraser

Doug Geddie was delighted to see Sam as he slowly realized he was receiving the Paul Harris award.

Chris Bangham was happy that his S African project had received an $8000 US grant.

Marg Jarrell said that our Japanese exchange student is looking forward to her first Halloween.

Jagdish congratulated Sam on his award.

Nancy Ferris

Janet Johnson read a letter from our outgoing exchange student. He said how it is a life changing experience.

Peggy Davidson has happy to be retiring soon.

Norm invited people to check out his booth at the Pen Centre this weekend. Come on down and book a trip to Jamaica man.

Nancy congratulated Sam. Nancy also needs volunteers for pretaping on Nov 13th and script readers on Nov 16 & 18th.

Sam Walters & Betty-Lou Souter

Sam thanked the club for the award and also for 15 years of good fellowship.

Martha congratulated Sam. She was also happy to have experienced the RI meeting. She had a great time at the meeting and also enjoyed getting to know people, within our club, a little better.

Betty-Lou was sorry that Marianne was not here to share the moment with Sam but would have been hard to keep it a surprise. She also announced that her husband was looking for an AA meeting in Utah.

The Program
Issues and Challenges Facing our Region

Doug Geddie

Doug Geddie introduced Peter Partington as our guest speaker. Peter is the Regional Chairman for Niagara. His talk was to focus on the issues and challenges facing our region. Doug introduced Peter as a lifelong resident of St Catharines. Peter is a lawyer with a keen passion for politics. Peter represented St. Catharines in the Provincial legislature.

Peter began his talk by introducing his new executive secretary, our own past ambassadorial scholar, Andrew Bowles. Two main pieces of provincial legislation are impacting our region. The Greenbelt and the Places to Grow legislation will be influencing our local governments.

Peter Partington

St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Fort Erie have been targeted by the provincial government as emerging growth areas. Our local governments want to be sure the province provides the appropriate funding to ensure growth. The idea of the greenbelt legislation is to contain urban sprawl and spur inner city revitalization. The identified greenbelt area extends from Niagara to the other side of Toronto. In some areas there is still room to grow with the identified green space. However from Grimsby to NOTL there is no room for growth. As a result these communities are trying to secure adequate compensation from the government to make up for the lost income. We also need the right infrastructure to move growth south of the escarpment away from the greenbelt area. To this end, local governments are pushing the province to proceed with the 406 extension and to go ahead with the mid peninsula highway corridor.

Brownfield development, like the Domtar plant on Glendale, help with the greenbelt problem. By redeveloping some vacant industrial sites the region hopes to curb urban sprawl and revitalize downtown areas.

Andrew Bowles & Peter Partington

The region is also struggling with an increasing debt load. As a result of two new old age homes and the possibility of buying its own building space the region will increase its debt. The hope is that these cost saving measures will, with time, start to save the region money.

Another project that the region is considering is to become a partner in a windmill farm in the Wainfleet area. The hope here is to eventually realize some savings in money and energy costs that the region spends on sewage treatment, for an example.

Doug Geddie, Andrew Bowles, Betty-Lou Souter and Peter Partington

Night of a Thousand Dinners

Night of a Thousand Dinners began as an opportunity for people all over the world to come together on a single night, enjoy a meal and help solve the global landmine crisis. Night of a Thousand Dinners has now evolved to include any kind of gathering – a cocktail party, barbeque, wine tasting, tea party, luncheon, clambake, or in our case a Rotary Meeting – on or around the first Thursday in November every year.

A simple concept - gathering with friends and family and building a global community to support a common cause – Night of a Thousand Dinners has energized tens of thousands of caring citizens and has grown into an international phenomenon! Since its launch in 2001, thousands of gatherings have been held in over 50 countries raising millions of dollars for mine action.

Our Rotary Club of St. Catharines will join the Night of a Thousand Dinners program by charging an additional $5 to our lunch fee on Thursday, November 4. The money will go to the landmine cause.

For more information please click here