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Induction of the 2022-2023 Board

Assistant Governor Keith Walker attended the club meeting today to participate in our annual Executive Changeover.

Past President Mark Sorenson assisted in the ceremony and newly inducted President Melanie Harty made a short speech.

She specifically thanked the Board, for dividing up the work and pitching in as we encountered challenges in this past year and she asked the club to think about three questions.

Why did you join Rotary?
Why do you stay in this club and in Rotary?
If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change?

She asked members to think about their answers to those questions, as we go forward in this year.

As well as President Melanie Harty for 2022-2023, AG Keith inducted the new Board which included President-elect Bruce Shepard.

Returning to serve the club for another year on the Executive are Past President Mark Sorenson, Treasurer Gail Halderman and Secretary Doug Fleming.

The Directors for 2022-2023 are Peter Mueller, Mike Christie, Edward Lipin, Terry Cooper, Milan Vujovic and Dave Panabaker

Presentation on the effects of armed conflict

Our guest, Luisa Fernanda Manosalva Alzate from Bogota Columbia spoke about the victims of armed conflict and her work directing the Columbian agency's that will need to assist them.

Luisa has a master degree in Psychosocial Intervention, and helps manage social programs in Columbia, dealing with the victims of armed conflict. Columbia is now a peaceful country with Caribbean Sea coastline in South America. It has a population of over 51 million people, but over 14% live on less than the basic essentials and 4% are "in misery". As well, over 9.2 million people in this country have suffered as the result of years of armed conflict and much of her work is centered on helping teach the institutions in her country how to cope with this group.

She works with Rotary International and the Institute for Peach and Economics to strengthen and support her people.

She was thanked for her talk by President Melanie and given a club banner to take back to the Rotary Club of Bogota.

STATE OF BUSINESS: We are excited to see what the future holds!

Executive Director of the Medicine Hat and District Chamber of Commerce, Lisa Kowalchuk, gave an interesting and insightful presentation on the State of Business in our city and region.

"After two difficult years of the impacts of the pandemic, we are pleased to see a return of tourism, investment and cultural events in the region".

Lisa said that our municipal government leaders have adopted their strategic plans, and they were working to start conversations on how to move forward together on the priorities, including working with regional partners to develop a regional economic development strategy that addresses business retention, expansion, and attraction, tourism, workforce development, infrastructure, policy/process reform and developing an economic subsystem that encourages entrepreneurship.

Lisa shared a few great tools that have been built for our community by various partners, including:

www.movetomedicinehat.ca from Community Futures and Tourism Medicine Hat
Key sectors and regional profile from Invest Medicine Hat: https://www.investmedicinehat.ca/why-advantages; https://www.investmedicinehat.ca/sectors-emerging-sectors
Our Chamber supports and resources: https://www.medicinehatchamber.com/membership/; https://www.medicinehatchamber.com/business-resources/; https://www.medicinehatchamber.com/localfirst/

The local Chamber represents over 1000 businesses from every sector, with over 800 businesses having invested in membership of the Chamber - from large to small/micro companies, as well as private and not-for-profit members.

How does the Chamber help? Three key actions: CONNECT, SUPPORT, INFLUENCE.

Lisa explained how the advocacy role of the Chamber works and encouraged Rotarians to look on the Chamber's publications page and in their annual reports, to read about the many successes the Chamber has had in this field.

"We remain a member-driven, community-minded, solution-focused and collaborative organization. We recognize that our community is an eco-system that needs to work together to thrive. For our community to thrive, our businesses need to thrive to support the social fabric and sustainability of our community. For our businesses to thrive, we also need a healthy, active and thriving community that supports local and puts our local business community first. We are here to help the businesses that support our families and our community and we want to work to align our strategic goals to help our community thrive and grow".

After setting out the strategic goals of the Chamber, Lisa drew attention to the fact that the Chamber and Rotary share the common strategic goal of making great things happen in Medicine Hat, both as residents and as members of the business community, through effective partnerships, powerful connections, common interests and influential voices.

We too, Lisa, are excited to see what the future holds, knowing our Chamber is in very wise and capable hands!

P.S. Lisa would like us to explore the Chamber's page titled "Stories that Shape our Community": https://www.medicinehatchamber.com/storiesthatshapeourcommunity/. Stories that Shape our Community is a reminder of the importance of putting local first and the positive impact it has on shaping our communities – now and into the future. The episodes will give listeners an inside perspective on the “Why” behind these local businesses. There is no “one size fits all” approach in business and these stories will highlight those who shape our community in business and ideally help other businesses who find themselves in similar situations. Our local business owners and their teams will share their stories, showcasing the resiliency and positive impacts they make to help shape our community. Do have a look and a listen!