The winner of the 2015 Mercedes-Benz B250 is: Ticket #11570, Paul Henning of Cambridge.
Congratulations Paul and thank you to all of those who bought tickets in support of the Rotary Club of Kitchener and the programs it supports: primarily KidsAbility, and Rotary Charitable Activities.
Past President Ernie Ginsler called the meeting to order at 12:40 and provided the club with a retrospective of his year in office.
Ernie was President of our club in 2010/2011.
At the beginning of his term Ernie was inspired by an idea from his brother for a Youth Civic project which had been developed by a Lions Club in Brentwood California. Ernie took the idea, and with the support of the board, met with school and city officials and generated the basis of our Youth Forum that Martin Jones has his brought, most successfully, to fruition.
Ernie said that one of the highlights of his year as President for him was attending the RI Convention in Montreal and even though it was not an exotic destination it was a great conference where he got the idea for a club initiative.
An inspiration for Ernie at the conference came from learning about the many Peace initiatives undertaken by Rotary including the Peace Centres and Peace Scholars. Ernie learned of the possible expansion of the Rotary Peace Centres and thought that Canada, and our own Waterloo Region, would be an excellent location for one. Since then Ernie has been working with local universities, peace institutes and Rotary International to bring this about. This has led to Ernie's, and Rotary's, involvement in the development of the Global Peace Centre Canada and the creation of a Rotary Peace Scholarship fund. The honourary chair of the Global Peach Centre Canada is Ziauddin, Malala's father. Ernie sees great potential for a Waterloo Region Peace Cluster given the elements already in place:
Balsillie Global Governance,
Grebel Peace and Conflict Studies Program,
Global Peace Centre Canada,
Laurier Education,
Centre for International Goverance, and
Laurier School for Public Policy.
Another highlight for Ernie in his year as president was the rewriting of our Club's Constitution and Bylaws. Not an overly thrilling activity but a very important one for our club. Our revised bylaws continue to serve as well and are being used around the district as a model for others to adapt and use.
Our program today was the Kick Off to our 2015 Car Draw Fundraising Campaign. Past President Candi Harrington began by providing some back ground information and history. Our Car Draw has been running since 1930 and is thought to be the oldest continuously running raffle in Canada! Only during the war years was a car not given away but even then a draw was held with War Bonds as the prize.
Candi then introduced Lisa Talbot, the Executive Director of the KidsAbility Foundation. Lisa has been with the foundation since 2000 and is responsible for developing, implementing and managing a comprehensive development program that raises funds and awareness in support of KidsAbility. Lisa is a member of the the Waterloo Region Fundraising Executives and the Association of Fudraising Professionals. She is a graduate of the University of Guelph and of Leadership Waterloo Region, a local community leadership development program. Her leadership has enabled KidsAbility Foundation to develop strong comunity support and KidsAbility to enhance its profile as an important, innovative and knowledge -sharing organization.
Alasdair Douglas, Wayne Boehler and David Chatson then provided some details on the operation of the draw this year:
The Draw date is November 27th at the Ranger's Game.
Our goal this year is to raise $80,000 through direct individual sales with a total goal of $110,ooo including mail outs and corporate sales.
Our main selling venue will be Thursdays and Fridays at the St. Jacobs Market again this year in the same location as previous. We also have access to Swanson's Home Hardware and members are encouraged to find alternate selling locations as well.
Sign up sheets will be available beginning at next weeks meeting.
Tickets can be picked up at the registration desk at each weekly meeting. NB! This year the ticket books are identified with a number on the cover and the covers MUST be returned when the ticket stubs are handed in. This allows us to keep track of the tickets sold as per the license conditions.
Selling teams will again be used this year and members are asked to keep their team captain up to date with ticket sales. Weekly sales updates will be provided at each meeting.
Use social media and other opportunities to promote the draw. A sample letter will be made available to send to contacts.
Contact Wayne Boehler or Adrian DeCoo if you have any questions or suggestions.
Our 50/50 pot continues to grow and is now at $916 and will likely clear the $1,000 level next week since none of Dave Chatson, Neil Swayze, nor Bill Proctor were able to find the elusive Jack of Hearts this week.
Cheryl Ewing was happy to have been able to attend the Waterloo Jazz Festival last weekend. She said it was a huge success and that she made it through with sore feet but no sunburn!
Howard Pell announced a new Program/Social activity for the club. Following each holiday Monday a T.E.A.M. Social will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Borealis Grille & Bar (4336 King Street East, Kitchener - near Sportsworld). T.E.A.M., by the way, stands for Tuesday Evenings Alcohol Mingling and the intent is for an evening of Rotary fellowship and fun. Participants will receive the Family & Friends 10% discount. The first event will be on August 4, following the upcoming Civic Holiday.
Guests at the meeting of July 20th were Linda Kenny and Lisa Talbot of KidsAbility, KidsAbility Ambassador, Emmanuel Orellana with his brother Fabian Guerra and sister Kaidy Orellana and Sandra Evans of the Rotary Office.
The Board of Directors regrets to advise the membership that long time Rotarian, Gord Strauss, has submitted his resignation effective June 30th. Gord writes "I have considered it an honour & a pleasure to have been a member. Good Luck, Gordon Strauss"
The club thanks Gord for his many years of service and wishes Gord well.
You can check Club Runner for Directory information including Committee information.
All member ID numbers for Rotary International are now listed with your data on Club Runner. This is the number you will need if you are registering for an RI event or contacting RI about your account. From the Home page go to Admin under Membership Manager choose Membership List, current members are listed. If you do not know your password, there is a site for you to click and enter your email address where your password will be forwarded.
Contact information for the new members is available in the Membership List on the Clubrunner site.
