It was nice to see all the happy, smiling faces at our last club meeting. There was a sense of normalcy returning to our meetings. We had a very moving and informative presentation from Captain Jason Page. We were also very happy to welcome visitors from the Downtown Rotary Club, Disaster In a Box, Warehouse of Hope, Not Just Tourists and AMDforHope. I think we sang our best version of Oh Canada yet and it was great to see that the room was almost full to capacity.
The whole room listened intently and quietly as Captain Jason Page described his last trip to deliver Ambulances and medical supplies to Ukraine. You can see part of the presentation on the YouTube link included in the minutes of that meeting. We look forward to getting a project proposal from their team so our club can explore the best ways to help. We also learned from Dr. Ken Taylor about the work that the Not Just Tourists organization is doing and also how they have partnered up with Warehouse of Hope and AMD for Hope to send medical supplies to Ukraine. To date, our club members have given over $11,000 to Ukrainian Relief Efforts plus donations of luggage, clothing and medical supplies. The need is still there so if you want to contribute please click here.
Please read below an update from the International Committee chair Najeeb Sayed on our Trust for Malnutrition and Stunted Growth project. It's amazing the how much the hard work and dedication of one member in our club can accomplish. This is another project that needs our attention and help. Please share the success stories that Najeeb has shared with us below and if you want to donate to the Pakistan RUTF fund please click here.
It was disappointing that we didn't get any response for this month's social. So we hope that future social events receive better response. Within the next few days we will prepare a survey that will ask what kind of social events the membership will like and support and what days and times will work best. These events are organized by your social committee and they take time and effort to plan. So please pass along your ideas for social events and keep an eye out for the survey coming-out in the next few days.
On a very positive note, I'm very proud to announce that our club has received the Rotary Citation Award (a very prestigious club award presented by Rotary International) for the year 2021-2022. Congratulations to all on a job well done and specially to past president Krystal Ridell for her exemplary work and dedication to service.
The next club meeting will be on Tuesday September 27th at noon. We will welcome Luke Vorstermans from the Rotary Club of Gibsons, BC. He is the Founder of Roll a Hippo Foundation and Chair of the Hippo Roller Project.
https://www.rollahippo.org/
Looking forward to seeing you there.
Yours in Rotary,
Julio Batres-Gavidia
Club President - 2022-2023
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