President Margie opened this social meeting with Happy New Years greetings to everyone connected to our Rotary family. She spoke briefly about Rotary's theme this year, "Rotary Connects the World" and how many of our activities are designed to accomplish that in a small way. Youth Exchange, Service Exchange, Friendship exchange and our community work, both locally and internationally do just that.
President Margie also thanked Dick and Linda Bide for their wonderful Boxing Day get together.
Rotary Club "What-z New":
Birthdays and anniversaries of joining Rotary: From 30 December 2019, the celebratory dates for the whole of the following month (in this instance, January 2020) will be acknowledged during the Business Meeting. Why? To streamline the other meetings of the month.
Club meetings away from The Lodge: We will continue holding meetings in venues other than The Lodge, as appropriate. Please make a note of two that will be held in The Courtyard at the Medicine Hat College on 13 January and 15 March, when different academic staff members will be addressing the Club. Rationale: to make it less time consuming for the guest speakers and to give members a ‘change of scenery’!
No free meals: In line with the proverbial saying, from 1 January 2020, there will be no weekly draw for a free meal. Why? Again, the intention is to streamline meetings by eliminating the ‘bits and pieces’. This is an old practice that seems to have lost its significance.
Rotary Club Membership Update:
NEW MEMBERS: Elaine Behiel will be inducted on Monday 6 January and Igor Grujic on Monday 20 January 2020.
CLASSIFICATION TALKS: The new practice of new members choosing where and when to give their talk will continue. Please support our new members by doing your best to attend their talks. The rationale for the new practice (which in fact is taking us back to the ‘rotation’ days at the start of Rotary!) is to ensure that new members share information about themselves in a familiar context in which they feel comfortable.
Rotary Club Information:
Upcoming meetings:
See the club calendar adjacent or the club website.
Housekeeping:
Please bring club draw items. It is an important part of our meeting and funds to run the club.
If you have a Meeting Minute, please send President Margie a note (email, phone, in-person)
Board minutes can be found on ClubRunner, under Club Documents.
Upcoming Rotary Club. District and International Events:
Club Leadership Training will be in the Crowfoot Room, MH College on Saturday, March 21, 2020...open to all Rotarians.
Next District 5360 convention May 1 - 3, 2020 in Calgary.
Next Rotary International Convention, June 6 - 10, 2020 in Honolulu, Hawaii
Future Programs:
For more Club activities, to keep up with events and stay in touch, check the Club website at: www.medicinehatrotary.com
Our Program coordinator is Jillian Koch. If you have any future program ideas, please email Jillian at jkoch@jmhca.com
The Rotary Club has a wonderful social event to finish the calendar year 2019 and celebrate the halfway mark in this Rotary year.
Sgt-at-Arms Mike Christie helped run a "know your Rotarian" game for the tables, and lots of fun was enjoyed. We learned who didn't have property in Arizona, who had more than 2 tattoo's and who the model train lovers in the crowd were. (although the last one wasn't a big surprise) There was a "cheap" gift exchange and a lot of fun and some stealing of gifts was enjoyed by all. A wonderful way to end the year, thanks to the organizers and to Mike for leading the event. A Happy New Year to all!
There were many Rotary partners in the room today.
Nicola Christie, daughter of Rotarian Mike and Ann
Elaine Behiel, a Rotarian in waiting.
Birthdays: The month of January
Sieg Kappler Jan 1.
Krista Lawson Jan 8.
Jan Stalwick Jan 9.
Dick Northcott Jan 13.
Rod Dal Collo Jan 18.
Roger Roy Jan 19.
Mark Sorenson Jan 23.
Melanie Harty Jan 25.
Teresa Schile Jan 25.
Jim White Jan 31.
Club Anniversaries: January
Gail Halderman 24 years Jan 22, 1996.
Shann Snedden 3 years Jan 23, 2017.
Herman Wahl 58 years Jan 29, 1962.
Club Draw:
No prize was drawn this week.
Club 500 Draw:
The December draws, to end this yearly fundraiser were drawn today.
Joe Hrankowski was the winner of $500, on a ticket sold by Margie Booyens.
Michael Reimer was the winner of $1,500 on a ticket sold by Terry Partis.
A list of the 2019 winners....which might be useful in ticket selling and promotion, will be sent out to Rotarians this morning.
Makeups:
None mentioned this week
Family of Rotary:
No report this week.
Minute People:
Glen Presley was looking for help with two aspects of the Club 1000 raffle in support of the Rotary Music Festival.
With Allan O'Byrne's resignation, the team will need help filling his role as the computer data keeper. If you have those skills please speak to Glen.
Glen will be looking for volunteers to sell tickets both in the Medicine Hat Mall and at the Charity table at a MH Tigers game. Watch for signup information soon.
Dick Bide announced that signup sheets are on the tables for the 2020 Dinner club, which will run from Jan 1 to Dec 31. Please consider this great social activity of the club, and a wonderful way to meet spouses and share hospitality. He would like a few more couples (or singles) to fill out the rotation, so please consider it.
