Today our Acting President was Melanie Harty, who will assume the role of President-elect on July 1st. She was filling in for President Mark, who was away fishing again and PE Terry Partis who is sailing in the 1000 Island's region of Ontario. Melanie had a little "bandwidth" issue at the beginning of the meeting, so Sgt at Arms, Mike Christie filled in for her and ran the first part of the meeting.
There were 31 Rotarians at our meeting today, and a total of 3 guests, including a visiting Rotarian.
Melanie was able to work some "wi-fi" magic and ran the meeting after the presentation by our speaker, Lisa Kowalchuk.
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
Just a reminder, on Monday EVENING, June 21st at 7:00 pm - a presentation with the 2021 Rosebowl winner Josie Hoffarth.
Weather permitting, we will hold an "in person" meeting on Monday June 28th in Rotary Park to celebrate the club's birthday and do the executive changeover. Mike Christie will arrange a ZOOM backup link, in case we need to stay at home. The meeting will be a bring your own chair and lunch event, as we did last year we'll meet near the Rotary arch.
Upcoming Rotary District and International Events:
The next District 5360 Conference is a "single day" event in Canmore, on Saturday May 14, 2022
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 was delighted to welcome Lisa Kowalchuk, Executive Director of the Medicine Hat Chamber of Commerce to our meeting today. Lisa was introduced by Mike Christie and joined us to talk about the COVID pandemic, it's impact on the local business community and how she perceives the business communities ability to bounce back from this trying year.
Lisa's presentation was titled "Economic Impacts, Outcomes and Opportunities for Southern Alberta in a Post COVID Economy". Lisa began by thanking the student who helped her assemble the survey and statistics for the presentation, Rebecca Weiler (who joined us as a guest). The report surveyed most of the Chambers members, talked about the impacts of the closures, and layoffs of the beginning of the pandemic and looked at the options that industries explored to maintain cashflow and employment.
Lisa spoke about the disruptions, and the various financial supports offered by each level of government. She stressed that recovering businesses need price and cost certainty going forward.
She asked and answered a number of questions, and was thanked by Acting President Melanie.
Lisa Kowalchuk, Executive Director of the Medicine Hat and District Chamber of Commerce.
Rebecca Wieler, student at the MHDCC.
Devin Lloyd, visitor.
Club Draw:
The final bids for the club "Garage Sale" items were received on Monday and a list of the winners was sent out Monday afternoon. Thanks for the support, a total of $527.50 was raised for the club.
Minute People:.
Melanie Harty reminded everyone that upcoming Community Service projects include; in July a cleanup along Rotary Centennial Trail and in August helping with "Rotary Ribfest", assuming it goes ahead.
Terry Cooper mentioned that the Sea-Can has been cleaned up and will be used over the summer to store repaired bikes. So far a total of 102 bikes have been repaired and given out in the community. Team Freewheel is meeting with the Medicine Hat Sunrise Rotary Club on Thursday afternoon, to work on additional ways to participate together in this project.
Kitt Brand reminded everyone that the Rotary International Conference is going on this week in a ZOOM format. It is better than you might expect, so please register and join in.
On behalf of Gregg Martin, who had to leave the meeting early, Dave Panabaker passed along the news that the bingo hall is expected to open approximately July 1, as COVID restrictions are lifted. The dates for Rotary staffed events were sent out on Monday afternoon, our first bingo is Sunday evening, July 4th.
Our friends at the Medicine Hat Sunrise Rotary Club are having another e-bike raffle this spring, one more week to get your tickets. Please support their efforts in Rotary by getting a ticket or two. Sunrise Rotary gave some of this fundraising back to the Team Free Wheel program this year, with a generous $1,000 donation to help pay for children's bicycle helmets (required by law for kids to ride).
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: June
Sandy Mackay June 15.
David Maclean June 26.
Club Anniversaries: June.
Melanie Harty 11 years June 30, 2010.
Adolf Seiler 45 years June 30, 1976.
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)..
