• September 22 - Guest Speaker, Bryan Smith
• Sunday, Sept 28 - District Meeting in Lancaster Museum, Nanton, at 11:00 a.m.
• September 29 - Partners Day: Cliff Elle, Rotarian, Retired School Superintendent and partner in Sylvan Learning Systems, speaks on what works and what doesn't in education.
• Saturday, November 8 - District Meeting in Lancaster Museum, Nanton, at 11:00 a.m.

Bernie's Top Ten Reasons why you should join Rotary

#4 FAMILY FOUNDATIONS:

Greeter Mark Sabourin introduced guests:

Tom Vogelstein, Interact Secretary

Jamie Prindle, Interact President

Don MacDonald

Doug Thornton

Jeff Spong

Bartender Bernie

The bartending venture in the Crowsnest Pass for volunteers who dealt with the Lost Creek Fire was an enjoyable Rotary fellowship experience; a thank you letter is circulating.

Richard King, Guest Speaker

We enjoyed a great meeting last week with Richard King, guest speaker.  Several Rotarians have expressed a desire to assemble a container of wheel chairs for shipment to a needy country as a result of Richard's talk.

Directors Meeting

At Paul Pharo's office, 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, Sept 16, 2003

Costco Connection

For each membership to Costco they will send Rotary Foundation $10.00.  See the back page of the latest Rotarian magazine. 

Presidential Citations

Bernie presented Frank with these two citations earned during his year as President.  Half-size Frank accepted on behalf of all club members who made the citations possible.  "These are not mine, they belong to the club."

Frank and Killer

Words from on High

Rotarian Jack Reynar spoke of our Summer Lottery having only two weeks to go, and we need to bring in a lot more dollars.  He spoke also of Global's Kendall releasing us from our obligation to sell tickets, but we really need to get out there and convince people to buy them. "When we study history,"  he said, "we see that the fall of the Roman Empire began when they started using mercenary soldiers, so let's get out and sell."

Kendall Report

"Yes, ticket sales are not good, but we have learned a lot."  Thanks to Lottie who is half-way to her goal in sales and to Chris Murray who purchased one ticket for each of his 65 employees.  Kendall has applied for an extension, which we have a 50/50 chance of receiving.  However, now that we know how to do the Lottery, he is ready to start another one in January.

Black Tie Bingo

Tim reminds us the October 18 event is fast approaching.  His wife Bev has sold most of the 270 tickets that are spoken-for to date.  There are 18 corporate tables coming and a target of 25-30 which will really make this event fly.  Prizes for the silent auction would be greatly appreciated, but major prizes are well in hand.  See the Black Tie Bingo webpages for details.

Jamie echoed the need for more silent auction items, and urged us to invite other clubs to the gala event of the year.

Budget

Gord Jong sent out this year's budget in an electronic format only available to official bean-counters.  He also brought paper copies and invites Rotarians to send questions to him at Gord

Welcome New Member

Jamie introduced Kevin Ronan, whose father was a Paul Harris Rotarian that brought up his kids with the 4 way test and motto as a part of daily life.  Kevin was born in Medicine Hat in 1970, passed courses in Human Resources and Business Administration before foolishly entering Law studies.  Kevin teaches at the University and LCC, is a past Kinsman where he was on the Executive board for the Boys and Girls club.  Welcome aboard.

Hurricane Isabel Report

Our exchange student is now attending the daily routine of school which she finds interesting.  She practices with the school band five times a week.  Last week she went with the Nelsons on an exhausting cross-country, up mountain, over scree slopes, up cliffs, into caves; trip arranged by Loralee.  Most memorable quote came from Iain who wailed: "We are all going to die." Loralee is not allowed to arrange any more trips (say Elisabeth, Kelvin, Iain, Kristie and Isabel).  Isabel also participated in Ellie's bridal show, and last weekend went on a relatively tame trip to Waterton where she rode a wild mother grizzly straight up Cameron Falls. 

Happy Bucks Without Robin

Frank is happy to be back in Alberta, after receiving a full pardon from Gordon Campbell.  Ken Lewis is happy to have married off his youngest daughter, so for the time-being has one less mouth to feed.  Tim is happy to have safely returned from an Off-Road Rally with his Land Rover missing only one $500 headlight.  Marlin is happy his Stampeders won again.  Daniel is happy that he won $1000 at the LCC tournament, which he shared with his team-mates.  Beatrice is happy her daughter is in university, and told more secrets about daughter Heather.  Bernie is happy with his new tie from Richard King.  (We thought he lost it to Tim when that $1000 pledge rolled in last week.)  Nancy is happy her brother is off the critical list after fire-fighting and having a tree fall on him.  Dawna (not Donna) is happy that she won a trip to St. Eugene Mission on the Rotary Early Bird Draw.  Connie is happy to be back, happy her husband Danny ran 100 miles and her son Tom ran 50 km on the weekend.  Lorne is happy to report he visited the mint and all the money is gone,  he then talked with the present leader of the Federal Liberal Party who denied taking the money, but Lorne is going to vote for him anyways.  Mel Clewes is happy we have a new G.S. Lakie School. Brent is happy that Integra air is five years old.  "Time Flies," he said.  (Stubb Ross will be smiling down on you Brent.) And, he is adding two more flights to Edmonton.  Dale is happy to be back from the Rotary Zone meeting in the Maritimes where he was forced to attend a Lobster Feast.  Doug McA. . . was happy that he saved the rest of his table companions from a fine for not being happy.

Guest Speaker

The high-tech lack of a connecting cord prevented the guest speaker from sharing his PowerPoint presentation.  He conveys apologies for being late for the meeting, because he stopped to pay a traveling road tax while en route from Calgary. 

Charles Pratt is a member of the Rotary Club of Calgary who has traveled to many countries where people are in need.  He led us through the math whereby a $1000 donation is transformed into $16,000 through matching grants from Province, Country, and Rotary, but not always in that order.  Rotary has simplified the once onerous task of making application for funds, thus helping us to fulfill our Fourth Avenue of Rotary, that being International Service.

Rotarians act is many ways to improve the lives of others and provide basic needs.  We work in partnership to provide what people really need, not just what we think they need.  R.I. requires that projects are sustainable; in other words, there is no sense sending ambulances to a country that does not have the mechanics and spare parts to keep them running.  Gender equality is considered.  Prevention is preferred to cure; teach a man to fish, don't just feed him for one day.  Health and education are high priority projects.

Jonathon Majiyagbe, Rotary International President and the first President from Africa, stresses the need for Education, Literacy and promoting Rotary. 

Charles has first hand experience through visiting a handicapped kids home in Kenya, HIV homes in Thailand as well as other projects in Cairo and Nairobi.    He came back from Africa with a catalogue of projects from people requesting help.  Sherwood Park club in 5370 partnered with the Calgary Club to build another house in Thailand.

Garth Toombs is going to visit Uganda to view water projects.  Our own Bernie will also be traveling to get first hand knowledge of the projects and needs.

Draw:  Nancy stayed long enough to collect $10, and Interact President Jamie Prindle took $5 back to her club to donate to their new Interact project.