November 16, 2020 - Rotary Weekly News (Nov 16, 2020)

President Meeting Remarks:

President Mark Sorenson was back in charge today, and thanked everyone for being flexible and joining our meeting "virtually" as the incidents of COVID and restrictions on group sizes has caused Rotary International and District 5360 to ask clubs to use the ZOOM tools as much as possible. Our meetings are now converted to ZOOM until at least January 11...and that is conditional on things getting more relaxed.

A total of 35 Rotarians and 2 guests joined our meeting today, so that is a great turnout. President Mark welcomed the guests and hoped everyone would stay safe...especially with the driving fun that is going on with the snow last week. Mark got health updates from both Doug Thorson and Glen Presley while we set up the meeting, and it was great to see both of them back at a meeting.

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, November 23 - a presentation on the "Evolution of the Music Festival" and some discussion.
The DG and President Mark have requested that we limit our in person gatherings while COVID cases are rising in the community, so likely the balance of this calendar year's meetings will be done by ZOOM. More information to come soon.

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

Protection of Vulnerable People Policy

The Rotary Club welcomed Doug Macdonald, Chair of the District 5360 "Protecting Vulnerable People" Committee. Doug's presentation today was about the revised District Policy for protection of vulnerable people, and expansion of the Youth Protection Policy adopted by the District in 2014.

Doug has decades of experience with organizations that deal with vulnerable people, he just finished over 20 years with Scouts Canada.

He spoke about the reasons to adopted a new policy, those being

It's the law!
It's both Rotary International and District 5360 policy.
It's the right thing to do.

The policy is really designed to prevent harm, and when harm is suspected or reported, having a procedure to follow that will stand up to legal scrutiny.

The District Policy, and the job description for a Club Safety Officer (CSO), were circulated early last week. The next step is to build an incident response team and both adopt the policy at the club level and assign someone to the role of CSO. Training and certification of all volunteers needs to follow. That training needs to be repeated every 3 years, to ensure it becomes part of our routine.

A number of questions were asked and answered, and Doug was thanked by President Mark.

Meeting News

Posted by Dave Panabaker on Nov 16, 2020

Guests:

Doug Macdonald, Chair of District 5360 "Protecting Vulnerable People" committee.
local AG - Keith Walker of Medicine Hat Sunrise club.

Club Draw:

No draws this week.

Minute People:

PP Margie Booyens reminded Rotarians that the 2nd annual New Generations Service Exchange Online Conference is November 21 and 22. If you are attending please register in advance by clicking on the link https://ngseconference2020.org/en/sign-up .
PP Margie also mentioned that Medicine Hat Sunrise Rotary is having a coffee drive for Christmas. 1/2 lb. is $9.00 and a full lb. is $17 lb. (you can get ground or whole bean).
Adolf Seiler passes along his "huge thanks" for everyone who responded to the Salvation Army, Christmas Kettles effort. All the spots on December 5th are now taken and many thanks. This is our 37th year for the club to ring the bells on a Saturday, so please enjoy but be safe. A mask and a little distance will be required.
Doug Fleming mentioned that the Saamis Rotary Club is having a "Cheer for a Year" draw this fall, tickets are available from the Rafflebox website.

Just a reminder that the Sunrise Rotary Club is also having a Christmas 50/50 draw. Tickets are available through the club.

Dave Panabaker reminded everyone that Club 1000 tickets are being distributed and we really depend on the Rotarians in the club to sell these to family, friends, the community and those who would specifically like to support the Rotary Music Festival. As a club we have 1000 tickets to sell, that averages about 20 tickets per person, so please don't delay getting after this work.

Several recent Rosebowl winners and participants in the Rosebowl competition will be performing a concert to benefit St Josephs home. It promises to be a great afternoon of music, these are three outstanding musicians. Please book the date into your calendar and join them for this wonderful event.

Milan Vujovic announced that MH College has cancelled our all venue bookings for the second semester so our Music Festival ED has booked space at the Esplanade, St Barnabas Church and the Public Library. It will be an interesting Festival, we haven't used some of those venues in many years.
AG Keith Walker also reminded everyone that the "Bag for a Mister, Purse for a Sister" work being done by MH Sunrise is on until the end of November. If you have an old purse or bag, drop it off at the Public LIbrary.
Wayne Chesley took a minute to tell a "car joke", which is as funny as a "dad joke", but has an automotive theme....a fine will be assessed in due course.
Dick Northcott apologized for not making the presentation last week, and invited everyone to the Canadian Humanitarian fundraiser on Nov 20. Please use the following link to see the silent auction items, donate or buy tickets. https://trellis.org/hope-for-tomorrow
Dave Panabaker reminded members that on December 21, Rotary International President Nominee Jennifer Jones will be joining our meeting, and that of a number of clubs in our district for an update on what things have been like for her since the announcement and what the next few years look like. Don't miss it!!
Kitt Brand mentioned that our Sri Lankan friends have some virtual safari's on line. See the link at https://srilanka.travel/wildlifestream.
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: November.

Dave Stalwick November 9.

Club Anniversaries: November.

Sig Kappler 34 years November 1, 1986.
Doug Fleming 37 years November 7, 1983.
Shalla Shaharyar 1 year November 18, 2019.
Milan Vujovic 13 years November 26, 2007.

Makeups:

No updates from Doug this week.

Family of Rotary: (PLEASE KEEP ADOLF INFORMED ABOUT MEMBERS SO THAT INFORMATION CAN BE PASSED ON TO ALL IN THE WEEKLY NEWS)..

The club noted the 60th anniversary photo of Sieg and Renate Kappler in the paper this weekend. Congrats!!

Former MH Rotarian, Joe Chacko sends along his best wishes and would like to encourage Rotarians to support a small cash raffle in his new club, Rotary Club of Calgary North. e-transfers to jschacko@telus.net will get you tickets.