President Dave began the new calendar year announcing several Bell Ringers for the week.  First off he recognized and thanked the club members who operated the Rotary Hot Chocolate Booth at the Kitchener New Year’s Eve events at City Hall.  He next recognized Shawky Fahel for his dedication in maintaining a tradition in the club (see below).  Finally, he thanked all club members for our ongoing work and commitment to the Rotary ideal of Service Above Self.

Martin Jones was happy to have recently traveled to Mexico for a family vacation – a large family vacation with 14 immediate family members, which grew to 19 with extended family.

 

Louise Gardiner was happy to report that Shawky Fahel, is continuing his tradition of once a year meeting with the student, originally at KidsAbility. with whom he became involved through our former KidsAbility Christmas Parties, over 25 years ago.  Louise was also happy to let everyone know that she and Graham have adopted two new cats – twins, who are quite energetic resulting in early take down of the Christmas tree and other decorations.  Stay tuned for updates!

 

Lumi Mironescu is very pleased that daughter Ella’s exchange in Japan is going very well.  She is now with her second host family and really enjoying being with them.  Lumi is also happy that our inbound student, Saimi, is keeping very busy and participated in 10 different events / activities in December alone.

Adrian DeCoo reported that our work on updating our Strategic Plan is continuing and that the next opportunity for members to provide direct input into the future of our club will be the evening of January 20 when we will focus on club projects.  This will be at either KidsAbility in Kitchener or at Memory Gardens, more information and details to come.   Adrian also let members know that survey will be coming out in a day or so asking for additional input.  It will be asking for comments rather than the rating of items which will take a little longer than the previous surveys but members are asked to persevere and provide us with their thoughts and feelings.

 

Ray Taylor reported that all went very well with our Hot Chocolate distribution at Kitchener city hall on New Year’s Eve.  Seven members helped out and over 90 cups were provided.  The popularity of the items saw them running out of whipped cream and marshmallows!  Just under $45 was donated to the club.

Our Program today was in recognition of the 60^th Anniversary of the Canadian Peacekeeping Mission in Cyprus presented by our own Robert Shipley, introduced by Ross Newkirk.

 

“I’ve known Robert for over 30 years. I first met him in my University office when he appeared as a prospective graduate student in 1989.  He had decided to return to academic studies.  After graduating from Western University in 1971, he had joined the Canadian Military where he served as an officer on land and sea. In the later 70’s and 1980’s he established a career as a writer, analyst, editor & publicist. Much of his work was in cultural heritage and community development. He also further honed his skills as an artist of sketches and watercolours.

 

As a grad student at Waterloo, he completed (in 1992) a seminal and cited Masters Thesis “Exploring the Value of Heritage Properties.” This he followed (in 1997) with his Doctoral thesis “Visioning in Strategic Planning.” He became a Registered Professional Planner as a member of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute.  I hired him as my assistant as we adapted curriculum in the School of Planning to face the realities of extensive budget cuts and loss of faculty. His work ethic, analytic & communication skills were key to a successful outcome that even enhanced student opportunities.

 

Subsequently he was hired as a Professor in the School of Planning where in addition to teaching and research (mostly in the Heritage Area) he provided administrative leadership. He retired in 2016 after a successful academic career that included wide variety international research and publishing.  He has a long interest in the Canadian Military and over the years has documented Canada’s Peace Keeping Role- especially in Cyprus. Some of his associated sketches are displayed in the Canadian War Museum (Ottawa.)”

 

Robert’s talk was titled The Mystery of the Drawings.  In 1978 Robert was engaged to capture the images of the Canadian Peacekeeping Mission in Cyprus through hand-drawn sketches.  Soldiers were very uncomfortable with the taking of photographs but there were no issues with the hand-created images.  Robert spent two weeks with the 8^th Hussars Regiment with room & board, jeep and driver provided.  He created about 20 drawings.

 

At the conclusion of the assignment the drawings were sold to the regiment, by 2006, 16 sketches were in the Canadian War Museum.  Commemoration of the Peacekeeping was planned for 2024 and there was great interest in his drawings.  Eventually over 50 different versions identified, however many of them have been altered and Robert provided several examples of this

 

Here is a sketch as originally drawn.

 

Here is the sketch as it now exists in the museum, note the addition of the Jeep.

 

Here is another original sketch.

 

Here, the sketch has been altered with the addition of a solider.

 

Here, is the sketch with the addition of a different solider.

 

A third sketch in is original form.

 

In this alteration note the additional details on the left and that the flags are now blowing in the opposite direction!

 

Robert has not been able to find out who made the alterations or why the changes have been made, and it remains a mystery.

 

In 2022 and 2024 Robert returned to Cyprus to sketch the same locations to record how the areas have changed over the 60 years.  He was able to find 10 locations and the “Then and Now” sketches are also in the Canadian War Museum.

 

A “Then” sketch from 1978.

 

A “now” sketch of the same site showing one of the generals who travelled with him.

 

Robert showing and explaining the photos to the Canadian ambassador to Cyprus at one the of the 60^th Anniversary Commemorative Events

 

Watch for the sign-up reminder for the next meeting at Charcoal's on Monday Jan 13th. Details about other upcoming events are noted below.