Rotary Rays - August 31st, 2015
Posted by Robert Reid
on Aug 31, 2015
Guest in the house is Will Pugh District Governor, Brian Bennett District Governor, Jacqui Murray who addressed us last week to remind us about the rib fest and all the activities of the Burlington Club. Laura Glenney a lovely lady who had a brother who was a Rotary Exchange student and now has been to the other Rotary Club in Woodstock who is coming to check us out to see if she would like to be a member of this club and whether we would like her to be a member of this club. We welcomed our new exchange student Fuka Higashiyama.
Special Events-: Olga Mackellar is been a Rotarian now for 10 years, Philip’s wife had a birthday, September 10th is going to be Fuka’s birthday, Paul Bennett who we have not heard from a long time has now returned to work after a long time of ill health. Ted’s son has return to work last Monday.
The Fifty Fifty draw was won by Fred Fenton with the Queen to Spades for $10.00.
Vanessa-: We would like the Blue Jays to keep their losing streak of one game. There were 46,000 people at the last game.
Francis also had a birthday. Ted is going to the Bahamas September 12th, 2015 and so he will not be with us next week.
Lynn Beath and her husband are going to spend 2 weeks in Italy. Rick Correia spent 2 weeks in Portugal. Roy had an anniversary of his best friend. Robert Reid’s wife had a birthday. Chris Cunningham said that one of her sons is in Australia and one is in the Banff Springs Hotel as a grounds keeper. At the Southgate Center September 12th, they are going to have everybody participate in the Golf Tournament; the Bob McFarland Golf Tournament at the Meadows.
Vanessa asked questions like; “what did Nathan Sears have before he left for Czechoslovakia Tim Hortons Double Double?” We had another question which was and the answer was to end Polio now. What was the significance of the Korean Pop Tune? It was in the 2015 convention.
Committee Report-: Francis Stephens said that Fuka arrived Tuesday from Japan and she was happy to join the exchange. Nathan left on Saturday evening and arrived on Sunday in Czechoslovakia. The son of the family he was staying with was a Rotary exchange student in Chatham. The parents are both professors and for the Christmas holiday they will go and stay in a French Castle and ski in the Austrian Alps. At the same time, Fuka will be staying with Jim Sears at Christmas. Ted Beyner gave us a long quote from the Rotarian “Dear Polio the bad news is that you are going to be eliminated from the whole world, I hope you don’t feel badly, get ready it is going to be a long, long, time”.
Bruce Cunningham reported on the Polio Plus Committee, Olga, John Currie, Liam Vanessa, Hazel, Lynn Beath, Joe and Graham all get together.
Since 1979 approximately $500.000.00 dollars a year have been spent to eradicating Polio and Friday October 24th2015 will be World Polio Day.
This year’s finance committee will be Ifan Hudda, Liam McCreery, Francis Stevens and Don Fulkerson.
Brian Bennett is asked to introduce the speaker; William W Pugh joined the Burlington Club in 1993. Burlington has the largest Rib Fest in Canada. William grew up in Cambridge, he is widowed, and he has 2 children and 3 grandchildren.
His definition of Rotary is community leaders meeting together to exchange ideas and take action. We are 1.2 million members worldwide.
He was 37 years old with a busy family and a new career when he joined Rotary. A friend in his church asked him and he said yes. It is a part of the tradition as a family investment to give back to the community. Three weeks ago he turned 60 and he gave us a picture of his youth where he had long hair and was known as a hippie with bell bottom jeans. He was part of Ban the Bomb promotors and he was part of the generation that created the word Antidisestablishmentarianis. They wanted to change the world to make it a better world than a decade before but let us look at yesterday; he wants to thrive in the present. There is a need to change to understand the 2010. He still wants to make it a better world. He showed us a video of the Rotary International president making a speech and they said that they want to bring Rotary forward. The song we can sing remains contemporary. From the day of our birth we have been given a gift; the gift of life education, love, health, wealth and many more gifts; now it is time to give back. The 2015/2016 Rotary year is a time to show that you are a gift to the world.