President Mark Sorenson welcomed everyone to the meeting today, he held a quick "vaccination" review and an amazing number on the call already have received their first shot. He described it as a huge weight off of our minds and shoulders, and a "beginning of the end". He also commented on the wonderful weather we've been enjoying, although Sunday was a pretty windy day.
There were 34 Rotarians and guests joining us at the meeting today, it was great to see such a good crowd, even if it was "virtually".
Glen Presley did an update on the Club 1000 draw. Please do your best to sell the remainder of the Club 1000 tickets before March 18th. All proceeds go to the Rotary Music Festival. It would help if Rotarians would share the post on our Facebook Page, on their own personal page to extend our reach. We have 696 tickets sold and returned, and after prizes and expenses, a donation of around $22,000 to the Music Festival. It would be great to sell a few more than last year (707), especially in such a tough year. "Last call" for tickets will be about March 18th, as the committee needs to get all of them in and registered prior to the draw. The draw will be done at the intermission of Stars of the Festival, on Sunday evening March 21st.
Rotary Club "What-z New":
A new club laptop is in our future, the current one will not provide the service required to stream our meetings.
If our hybrid meetings continue in the future, a few more meeting helpers will be required to help run cameras and sound. We are all learning as we go along here, but these type of meetings are manpower intensive.
Rotary Club Membership Update:
If you are interested in helping this working membership team, please contact Mike Christie.
Rotary Club Information:
Housekeeping:
Please collect club draw items. It is an important part of our meeting and the funds generated help to run the club.
If you have a Meeting Minute, please phone or email the Newsletter and we'll include it.
Board minutes can be found on ClubRunner, under Club Documents.
Upcoming Club Program, Activities, and Meetings
Our next "ZOOM" meeting will be Monday, Monday March 21st at noon, it will be a presentation on International Projects by Terry Cooper.
The DG and President Mark have requested that we limit our in person gatherings while COVID cases are still present in the community. Our meetings will be virtual until at least Monday April 12th that is currently our first scheduled " in person" meeting.
Upcoming Rotary District and International Events:
The Rotary International convention for 2021, originally scheduled in Taiwan will now be held VIRTUALLY as well. Watch for updates on registration and programs.
Future Programs:
The Rotary Club's Program Coordinator is Jillian Koch. If you have future program ideas, please email Jillian at jkoch@jmhca.com
The Rotary Club of Medicine Hat welcomed our NGSE (New Generations Service Exchange) Participant to the meeting today. Juliana Nishitani is 22 and a resident of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She was introduced to the club by our local NGSE leader Edward Lipin, who began the meeting by speaking a bit about the idea of a "virtual" exchange. He also introduced the NGSE program lead for District 4420, Sao Paulo who was with us as well and it was great to see Jany Hatanaka again at our meeting.
Juliana (who's nickname is Juba) spoke a little bit about the amazing difference for her in the size of the communities, Sao Paulo has over 12 million citizens. She introduced her family and spoke about her experience as a scout and ballet dancer when she was young. She also spent four months during high school on a student exchange in Barcelona, Spain. She has obtained a bachelors degree in business, and concentrated on marketing and entrepreneurship. She also loves to travel. She started a small business herself, dealing with clothing within her community but it was affected by the pandemic lockdown and she has suspended it's activities.
Although Medicine Hat is small, it certainly appealed to her and she would dearly love to travel north to visit with us in the future. She was complemented on her English language skills and spoke about the emphasis on English during her schooling. After her presentation, she was asked and answered a number of questions, and Edward explained the balance of her "virtual" trip to Canada, which has about 7 weeks to run.
Juba was thanked by President Mark, who spent time with her reviewing the operations in their office last week. He confirmed the invitation to visit us in the future when travel is practical. Margie Booyens, who is the District 5360 NGSE lead, reminded members that other districts are looking for 18 - 30 year old individualas who are looking for a travel and educational experience. She hopes to have a candidate for a return visit in the future.
Thanks for the presentation Juliana, we wish you all the best in your experience with NGSE and in your future endeavours.
DG Mary Turmer promoted the next Rotary Learning webinar will take place on Wednesday March 24, at 7:00 pm and will be about "Protecting the Environment". Registration is available on the District website (https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_P7Y01UeLQv2rtrYQNmY8tw) and ties in nicely with Rotary International's new 7th area of focus, the Environment.
Theresa Eisenbarth passed along a poster for the project that the MH High School Interact kids are working on this week. Called "Spring Fling - 2021" it will be happening all week, We will be offering prizes (from the Dollar Store) for the Wheel of Fortune, so if there are Rotary members that feel like contributing to that, that would be great. Please contact Theresa if you wish to contribute.
Terry Cooper provided a short update on Project Freewheel. City Council is approving the agreement at the meeting this evening, and Terry was hoping to have a three year deal ratified. He has a number of organizations to contact once bikes become available and the team hoped to get some more publicity once a larger group repair session can be held. He also mentioned that he would be talking in detail about some International Projects next week.
Dick Bide mentioned that he received notice to renew his police check, and others may be getting the same reminder.
Bruce Shepard mentioned that work with the Archeological Society is aided by the remote technology, and they have John Driver from Simon Fraser University presenting on Wed evening on "The First People of the Peace River Region". Call him if you want to join them.
The 66th annual Rotary Music Festival kicked off last week. Video submissions are underway and it will be possible to watch certain performances by accessing the Music Festival website ( https://rotarymusicfestival.com/festival-2021-playlists ). Approximately 154 individuals will be taking part and there will be over 450 individual sessions. Definitely smaller than normal, but also great to see the kids ready to participate.
Don't forget, both the Rosebowl and the Stars of the Festival will be livestreamed on FB and YouTube so everyone will get to see them.
If you have photos or a story to include in the Weekly News, please submit it to Dave P and we'll try to publish it.
Birthdays: March.
Shann Snedden March 17.
Terry Cooper March 25.
Club Anniversaries: March.
Dawn Barr 17 years March 29, 2004.
Makeups:
None recorded.
Family of Rotary: (PLEASE KEEP ADOLF INFORMED ABOUT MEMBERS SO THAT INFORMATION CAN BE PASSED ON TO ALL IN THE WEEKLY NEWS)..
Jim White is doing better and would welcome phone calls from Rotarians.
Our condolences go out to Sue Withers, who lost her mother over the weekend.
