President Uwe Krickhahn welcomed everyone to this meeting.
Rotary Information
President Uwe started the meeting with a reminder to everyone that this is a special year for the Rotary Foundation, and to ask yourself if you can contribute this year.
We plan to reestablish our connection to DND Suffield and DRC Suffield. He is looking for anyone who has a connection to the base, and if so please call Uwe.
President Uwe read thank you notes received from Shelley Benesch, for the PHF in honor of PP Ernie, and for the get well card from Anke Krickhahn.
Rotary Presentations
A Notice of Motion, from the Centennial Fund Raising committee was made, and is as follows. "On October 17th, after a presentation to the club on the planned project, if the project is approved to proceed, I (PP Dave Panabaker) will move or caused to be moved, a motion that the Rotary Club of Medicine Hat approve an expenditure of up to $5,000 to undertake a Centennial Fund Raising event."
Rotary Reminders
The golf windup has been moved to Oct 17th at Connaught Golf Club. Golf at 2:00 PM and Happy Hour and dinner at 5:00 PM. An email was sent to all members.
NO MEETING next week, Oct 10th - Thanksgiving Day.
2016 Club 500 tickets should be available soon.
Prospective Members:
The club is actively recruiting new members. The membership committee, lead by Membership Director, Jenny Hetherington, would be happy to assist anyone who is considering proposing a member and would like feedback or help with the process. One of our Strategic Plan targets is to have 100 active, engaged members for our Centennial celebration in 2018.
Meeting Reminder:
As many in the club know, we recently had a member resign, due to extreme hearing loss. Because hearing difficulties are experienced by a number of Rotarians and guests, one of our members put together a list of helpful reminders to ensure we do our best to accommodate those with auditory challenges.
- Speak slowly and distinctly. Slow, concise speech can be learned and become habit-forming.
- Use the "4 P's" - persistent,patient, practice with a positive attitude. Emphasize each key word in a sentence with a slight pause.
- USE the handheld microphone, both for comments and during club activities.
- Keep table conversation to a minimum, out of respect for those speaking and to avoid background noise that is distracting.
With a little practice, we can help everyone in the club both hear and understand, both as a courtesy and to help engage all members in the club.
Up Coming Events:
For more Club activities, to keep up with events and stay in touch, check the Club website at: www.medicinehatrotary.com
Brian Mastel, Commissioner of Corporate Services, City of Medicine Hat, our guest speaker.
Honorary member, Jim White was with us today.
Attendance Draw
Mike Christie was NOT in attendance to win a free meal.
Birthdays:
Theresa Eisenbarth Oct 7.
Karen Blewett Oct 13.
Doug Thorson Oct 13.
Club Anniversaries:
Denise Henning Oct 6, 2014 2 years.
Anne Carrier Oct 7, 2013 3 years.
Melanie Harty Oct 7, 2013 3 years.
Weekly Draw:
The club auction is changing.
Everyone in attendance at the meeting will receive a ticket.
Donations can be made by anyone wishing to do so.
Keeping the payment voluntary, without removing the opportunity to participate, keeps the process outside the sphere of AGLC.
Whomever is the winner will collect any donated funds which are for the general operation of the club.
There was one draw today, a book about the building of the Alaska Highway "Trail of 42", won Cathy Catalano.
Club 500
No draw this week.
Make Ups
None reported this week.
Family of Rotary
No special mentions this week.
Future Programs
If you have any future program ideas, please e-mail Heather at heather.bach@ahs.ca.
Minute People:
Al Garden reminded golfers that the tee times were at Connaught Golf club today at 2 pm.
Al Garden also reminded everyone that the last golf would be Monday Oct 17, with a Happy Hour to follow at 5 pm.
Jenny Hetherington reminded members to make a point of welcoming guests.
Dick Bide would like members of the dinner club to begin booking dinners soon, so the fellowship can begin.
Karen Blewett took three minutes
There were over 100 participants at the Jane's Walk this past weekend, and good Rotary value for our sponsorship.
There will be a short review of our work on the Strategic Plan at the meeting on Oct 31st, and the plan is to have the plan adopted by the club on Nov 21st.
A reminder about the annual Mayor's Breakfast, at Chinook Village on Oct 18th. A joint project of Sunrise Rotary and Community Futures Entre Corp.
Happy Dollars & Fines: Sgt-at-Arms was Terry Cooper.
Fines:
A number of Rotarians were fined for being late, Roger Roy, Levar Payne and Milan Vujovic.
The Sgt attempted to fine Jenny for being late to her meeting, but she was proved correct in the time set for the meeting, so it became a Happy Dollar.
The Sgt has been encouraging all Rotarians to participate in at least one club committee. Sarah Bowman, Allan O'Byrne, Ken Zollner and Cathie Catalano were singled out as individuals who have stepped up and offered to help on at least one committee since his last time as Sgt-at-Arms.
Linda Rossler was fined for not "mingling"??
Happy Dollars:
Bruce Shepard was happy to have over 500 people at the last opening at the Museum and Art Gallery.
Levar was happy to provide support for the time of the membership meeting.
Sandy Mackay was happy to report that his wife Jane is doing very well after a recent surgery.
Terry Brekko was happy about paying more taxes.
Stan Sakamoto was happy to be taking part in the democratic process (and seeing his picture in the paper all the time!!)
Karen Blewett and Bruce Shepard were happy to take part in Rotary Leadership Institute training last weekend.
The Rotary Club of Medicine Hat welcomed Brian Mastel, Commissioner of Corporate Services for the City of Medicine Hat to our meeting today. Mr Mastel was introduced by our Program Chairperson, Heather Back and was present to discuss an ongoing initiative of the City of Medicine Hat, to deal with the recent declines in the profitability of the commodity based businesses that the City is involved in. These specifically are Natural Gas and Crude Oil production, as well as the production of wholesale Electrical Energy.
Mr Mastel spoke about the broad community issues involved in the solutions to this problem, the use of a number of stakeholder groups and how the municipal situation mirrors that of the Province of Alberta, where the downturn in these commodity prices has been felt just as deeply. Brian spoke about how dependent City finances have become on profits from our commercial activities over the past decades. The discussions and solution to this issue is a top priority of this City Council and was identified at the beginning of their term.
Mr Mastel acknowledged that businesses and residents need a stable tax requiem on a good forward basis and that the solution to this problem cannot simply be an increase in property taxes. He showed a series of excellent slides, which detailed the annual $110M cost of operation of the municipal corporation. He identified that we are currently $23M short because of these profit declines, and that property taxes make up on 58% of the $110M revenue picture.
He spoke about the 7 levers, from increased taxes and service fees, to service level adjustments, cost containment and use of financial reserves, which Council has at it's disposal to help offset this shortfall.
A number of questions were asked and answered and we all thank Brian for taking the time to present to us on an important local issue.
