President Mark Sorenson welcomed everyone to the meeting today, approximately the one year anniversary of the start of all the "crazy". He hoped everyone would be getting their vaccinations, and soon we will be able to get together in person.
There were 36 Rotarians 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 14th. 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 642 tickets sold and returned, and after prizes and expenses, a donation of around $19,600 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 14th, 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 8th at noon, it will be a "virtual" visit by District Governor Mary Turner.
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 March 22nd that is currently our first scheduled " in person" meeting, but don't hold your breath!
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 received an update on the status of our Community Services Committee from Director Melanie Harty.
The committee has been hard at work documenting their purpose and process, COVID has given us a chance to catch up on some of this administrative work. Melanie reviewed a number of issues for Rotarians and thanked those who have agreed to make up that committee.
The nine members of the Community Service team have a wide variety of experience both in Rotary and in Community Service, so that breadth of knowledge is a real asset. The current members have all agreed to serve for an approximately 18 month term, and will shuffle a bit in June 2022. The committee has agreed on a "Purpose" statement as follows.
"..to improve the quality of life through tangible projects and activities within Canada and normally focused on local, regional and provincial jurisdictions".
They will have five area's of focus, detailed on the attached slide.
A number of questions were asked and answered and Melanie was thanked by President Mark, for all this great work and for the projects now to come. The first one of those may be our Dunmore tree planting, which is tentatively scheduled for May 2021, once the park development is proceeding.
It was great to see Ian (and Phyllis) McLaughlin on the call today, not really guests but we haven't seen them in a while.
Club Draw:
No draws this week.
Minute People:
Dave Panabaker took a minute and recognized MH Sunrise Rotarian Danielle Skogen, who has spoken to our club. Danielle was recognized last week with a 2020 University of Alberta Alumni Horizon Award, for her contributions to empowering girls, particularly through her work in Guatemala. Wonderful recognition and great to have her in the local Rotary scene.
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 and ties in nicely with Rotary International's new 7th area of focus, the Environment.
Terry Brekko provided an update on the canvassers and status of our Patron and Advertising donations toward the Music Festival. COVID restrictions have certainly played a part in reducing the number and extent of the canvassing this year, and that is a concern for the future of this type of fundraising. Definitely a topic for discussion at the club at a future business meeting.
Margie Booyens passed along a request from Sunrise Rotarian Les Scholly that they are doing another edition of their Rotary Coffee blend fundraiser. If you are interesting in some whole bean or ground coffee please be in touch with Les.
Edward Lipin provided an update on the next NGSE participant, who will be doing an eight week, virtual visit to District 5360. Julianna is a business grad, 23 and from San Paulo, Brazil. She will be in Medicine Hat from March 8 to the 23, followed by two week stints in Calgary, Lethbridge and Red Deer. It will be a completely novel experience, and we all look forward to welcoming her at a future ZOOM meeting.
Milan Vujovic, who is President of the Rotary Music Festival Society this year provided an update on Festival 2021. Video submissions are underway and it will be possible to watch the adjudication sessions on FB or by access 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.
Dan Kammerer March 4.
Dave Panabaker March 7.
Shann Snedden March 17.
Terry Cooper March 25.
Club Anniversaries: March.
Stan Sakamoto 37 years March 1, 1984.
Jack Snedden 32 years March 1, 1989.
Mike Christie 19 years March 4, 2002.
Dave Stalwick 19 years March 4, 2002.
John John 18 years March 10, 2003.
Bruce Shepard 7 years March 10, 2014.
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.
Marg Mazerolle and Dick Bide are doing great with their new knees.
Glen Presley is making slow, steady progress as his immune system is rebuilt and gets stronger.
Herman Wahl is still struggling with a fair bit of pain, and we keep him and Fran in our thoughts.
