Gossip Sheet # 29 - January 30, 2003
Editor: Liz Palmieri

Program – Mkuki - current project supported by our club and Toronto Rotary Club

Marg Jarrell

Grace was said by Deb Slade, followed by members and guests joining in singing the national anthem.

Head table guests: Marg Jarrell (introducing the guest speaker), Holly Buchanan (guest speaker), President Earl, Bill Cole (Sergeant-at-Arms), Peter Papp (a somewhat new member) and Kevin Vallier (who completed on-the-job training in welcoming our guests).

Once Kevin realized that he was to move to the podium to welcome our guests, he then proceeded to welcome last week’s guests. Oops! Having realized the error of his ways, he welcomed Bob Barkman (guest of Betty-Lou Souter), and Bonnie Gray, Holly Buchanan and Brian Derry (all guests of Marg Jarrell)

Birthdays – Maurice Gomme, Bill Ford, Ivor Khan and Harold Nash.

10 day Notice - Ronald Sloan, Classification - consultant - Business Systems, proposed by Dave Butler

Announcements

There is a Major Grants Committee meeting on Wed. Feb 5th at 5:00 at the YMCA offices at 129 Church Street.

Youth Exchange meeting in the golf club board room right after today’s meeting.

Tim Rigby’s mother passed away and President Earl extended condolences on behalf of the club to Tim and his family.

The Auction Committee is meeting on Feb. 4th at 5:00 at Alzheimer’s.

George Doty and John Tebrake attended a meeting last week in Toronto hosted by Easter Seals where an announcement was made on major changes to their camps. The meeting was poorly attended and there were no updates on treatment and services currently offered. They have sold two camps (Northwood and Blue Mountain) for $5+ million and plan to raise $20 million to refurbish the remaining three camps (Lakewood, Woodeden and Marywood. Information on the changes will be forwarded to Doug Geddie and the Children’s Committee.

George Park

George Park announced that a grant of $1000 from the Career Education and Retraining Committee was given to Canadian Mental Health Association’s R.E.A.L. Work program. George also facilitated the acquisition of office furniture for the program from former Rotarian Bruce Raham.

Betty-Lou Souter announced that next Tuesday is Touque Tuesday and the Mayor’s Pancake Breakfast taking place Jan. 31st. Buying a touque for $7 leads to a warm head AND a warm heart.

A reminder that the Feb. 13th meeting will be in the evening. Sam Walters is signing up Rotarians next week.

Happy Dollars

In his first every attempt to generate happy dollars, Roger Segalin noted that Peter Papp was not the only Montreal Canadiens fan in Rotary. He also said that there are now 10 ads on our website – more space is still available. He also had a plan for a great fundraiser. He learned that 16.5 million people share the same birthday and that if we were able to get just $1 from a small percentage of those birthday boys and girls, as opposed to $10 from a few Rotarians, we’d be much further ahead. (Roger should get on the Membership Committee to start recruiting).

Jagdish Mehta is happy to return from two months in India, bringing banners from two Rotary Clubs. He noted that one was from a city in southern India, which is home to the spice trade as well as the oldest synagogue in India (founded in 72AD).

Don Fraser thanked everyone for participating in the Robbie Burns Day program and welcomed back Lloyd Buckley.

George Park gave two happy dollars – one for the fact that he was happy he missed the Robbie Burns Day and the other for the fact that the Scottish members of the club should also be happy that he missed Robbie Burns Day.

George Sheppard announced that he and Doris celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. He also reported that she is now at home and receiving lots of support and is able to use her walker to join him at dinner every day.

Lloyd Buckley was glad to be back.

Betty-Lou Souter counted herself as the 3rd member of the club who is a Montreal Canadiens fan. She was also happy to have presented on Wednesday night recognition awards to Niagara medical community.

Liz Palmieri noted that one of the projects of the Public Relations Committee was to calculate the value of and promote the contributions of the club in supporting community projects. Brian St. Hilaire did some research showing that since 1989, our club has invested $2,176,148.00 in community projects. Further research is underway to gather information prior to 1989.

Chris Bangham noted that today was the 6 week anniversary of his attempts to convert club members to beer drinkers at lunch. He was not happy to announce that he has failed miserably in his attempt at this initiative but that he wasn’t giving up. At the rate he’s going, it will be the end of this millennium before he is successful.

Peter Papp flashed his Montreal Canadiens fan club card, which he pulls out whenever he is stopped by the police (which he assures us doesn’t happen very often). The editor of the Gossip Sheet wonders if flashing that card saves him from getting a ticket or does it have the opposite effect?

50/50 – Harold Nash drew the King of Spades. Close but no cigar!

Program
Mkuki - current project supported by our club and Toronto Rotary Club

Holly Buchanan

Holly Buchanan is the President of Canadian Support for Rural African Initiatives (CSRAI). She is the co-founder, with her mother, of Mkuki, a community development organization in Tanzania.

Holly opened by thanking the club for our support of one of their projects, teaching young people the skill of tailoring. She also said that her grandfather, Rupert Buchanan, was a member of the club from 1957 until his death in 1982.

CSRAI is mandated to fight AIDS from Canada, acting as enablers by speaking to Canadians about the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Mkuki is a local Tanzanian organization working in rural communities at the grass roots level. CSRAI acts as a bridge between Canadian funding and Mkuki projects. They believe that the greatest impact in fighting AIDS will take place through projects in the rural communities by providing education and training with a focus on sustainability.

Over the 10 years since Mkuki started, the face of AIDS in Africa has changed. A generation of adults, ages 25 to 50, have died and have left behind many orphand children. Families are amalgamating, where the oldest child, or a grandparent, is now the head of the household. Mkuki wanted to develop projects that would provide skill training leading to self-sufficiency. Training is taking place in carpentry, mechanics, tailoring and farming.

Brian, Holly and Bonnie

Its farming project entails working on family-owned one acre plots with the oldest children, training them in farming techniques. In return for the training, a contribution is made of 4 bags of maize to Mkuki. Half is sold to fund the next stage of the program with the other half sold to pay for school related costs for younger orphans.

She said that families must pay for all costs related to education ($300 annually), which includes not only uniforms, shoes and books but the student’s desk, bench and lunch. CSRAI’s Orphan Sponsorship Program is now supporting 35 children out of the over 800 registered.

CSRAI also works with MKUKI in providing funding ($11/year per child) to feed children from families that have some of the means to cover schooling costs. She noted the resiliency of the African families in finding other alternatives for support and care before they come to agencies such as MKUKI.

Holly brought us up to date on the statistics, as of 1999, on AIDS in Tanzania. 8% of residents are HIV positive, 200 babies are born daily with AIDS, there were one million orphans and one in five women at prenatal clinics are HIV +. She was recently in Tanzania for the funeral of her grandmother and noted that due to a shortage of priests, funeral services are shared.

She said that her organization refuses to be paralyzed because of the overwhelming statistics. They fight for small successes and it is critical to share concerns and to share resolve.

Larry Ross

Following her presentation questions were asked about her view of the recent announcement by George Bush on the significant investment by the US government in fighting AIDS in Africa (she is concerned of the impact at the grassroots level), the concentration of AIDS along the major truck routes (she noted that the truck drivers are returning to their rural homes and bringing AIDS with them) and the increase in AIDS in India and China.

Larry Ross thanked Holly for her presentation.

And President Earl presented her with a bottle of Niagara’s finest.

Program next week – Water for Life: Wells in Haiti (another Rotary Project)