President Mark Sorenson welcomed everyone to the first meeting of 2021, we're still on ZOOM and might be for a while in this year, as we hopefully transition out of the COVID pandemic. He hoped everyone had a safe, healthy and unique Christmas holiday, and that they were looking forward to a much brighter year, with vaccines on the way and "light" at the end of the tunnel.
President Mark and Dawn Barr spoke about a couple of interesting websites, telling Rotary stories and projects from around the world under the banner of "Rotary People of Action". The links to the Rotary International site is;
District 5360 has a similar site as well, and that is focused on this area. It provides COVID information both provincially and nationally, gives the meeting links for clubs in the District, has speaking resources for ZOOM meetings and much more stuff. Dawn mentioned she is now working on a District committee, featuring "storytellers" who will help write stories for both sites.
President Mark indicated that both sites would be put onto our club website, to allow easy access.
Dave Panabaker encouraged Rotarians to redouble their efforts to sell the tickets for Club 1000, the Festival is still "on", although a virtual Festival will be a first for all of us. This raffle is our principle fundraising for the Music Festival. (as of January 4th, we have 376 paid tickets in the draw barrel, and $18,800 in the bank). With both the Saamis and Sunrise club, as well as the local Kinsman club cash raffles done at Christmas, some of our competition has disappeared.
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, January 11 at noon.
The DG and President Mark have requested that we limit our in person gatherings while COVID cases are rising in the community. Our meetings will be virtual until at least Monday January 25th, that is currently our first scheduled " in person" meeting, but don't hold your breath!
Upcoming Rotary District and International Events:
Mark this date in your calendars, the 2021 Rotary District Conference is May 14 - 16, 2021 in Drumheller, AB.
Future Programs:
The Rotary Club's Program Coordinator is Jillian Koch. If you have future program ideas, please email Jillian at jkoch@jmhca.com
As everyone knows by now, the Rotary Club and the Medicine Hat Police Service have entered into an agreement to allow the Rotary Club to gather and restore up to 30 bicycles from their compound and donate them to local charities and public facilities that might need be able to put them to good use.
Terry Cooper, Peter Mueller, Roger Roy and others have been hard at work on the first "batch", lots of challenges and hard work.
Terry Cooper provided an update at todays meeting, the group has received both the Police Dept bicycles as well as 8 - 10 donated by Rotarians and other interested citizens. About half those have been worked on and the Salvation Army picked up a load from Terry's garage the other day. Each bike has a bright "Donated by Rotary Club" sticker on it, and the team continues to work on the idea of a helmet accompanying each bike, especially kids bikes.
Once work can be done outside, and some of the COVID restrictions have been relaxed, hopefully more club members can join the repair teams. Terry did thank Gravity Sports, who is allowing the group access to their "spare parts" bins, and being helpful in some of the repairs and parts.
Terry Brekko spoke about another major fundraising activity of Rotary for the Music Festival, the program advertising and "Patrons of the Festival" endowment that we maintain at the CFSEA. With a virtual Festival, and without a printed program, advertising is different but the fundraising is still important. Tax receipts for 2020 contributions to the endowment should be available this week, and hopefully those patrons will still support us.
Margie Booyens is looking for Rotarians to volunteer to serve on our board for the year 2021-2022. There is a need for at least 3 more volunteers.
PDG Pat Killoran passed on the YouTube link to our Q&A session with Rotary President nominee Jennifer Jones. If you missed it, enjoy a great hour of Rotary fellowship here. https://youtu.be/i2VaXu1rexs
Margie Booyens is working on some "Virtual" exchanges with the NGSE District committee. She described the process like "making the path by walking it", but it might be an interesting journey.
Kitt Brand was looking forward to some virtual "cooking classes" from students from far away!
Dave Panabaker also encouraged all Rotarians to sign up for the next Rotary training webinar, titled "The Value of Clubrunner". Clubrunner is the tool that runs many of our meeting, website and promotion functions, and you can always learn something from these sessions. This one will be Wednesday evening, January 6th at 7:00 pm...for novice and experienced Rotarians alike. Register at this link https://rotary5360.ca/event/webinar--the-value-of-clubrunner
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: January.
Sieg Kappler January 1.
Dick Northcott January 13.
Roger Roy January 19.
Mark Sorenson January 23.
Melanie Harty January 25.
Jim White January 31.
Club Anniversaries: January.
Igor Grujic 1 year January 20, 2020.
Peter Mueller 1 year January 20, 2020.
Gail Halderman 25 years January 22, 1996.
Shann Snedden 4 years January 23, 2017.
Herman Wahl 59 years January 29, 1962.
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)..
Joe Hrankowski continues his recovery from heart surgery, we all wish him a speed return to good health.
Adolf followed up on Herman Wahl, who continues to have some health challenges, but was really glad to hear we were thinking of him!
We send our thoughts and prayers to all three of our Rotary Club family who have lost a partner in the past few months, it is a very tough adjustment.
On the "happy" side, congratulations to all the "Frontline Workers", including New Rotarian Inspector Brent Secondiak who received a Person of the Year recognition.
