November 30, 2017: Rob Horne (CAO City of Stratford), “ City of Stratford Annual Update”, Clark Mitchell, will introduce and Geza Wordofa will thank our speaker.
Head Table: Our President Linda Bathe, invites, Clark Mitchell, Rob Ritz, Peter Roach, Paul Roulston, Rob Russell and Dan Scarborough, to join her at the head table.
Our speaker Captain Tom Jenkins talking about the ramp ceremony for our returning fallen. Introduced by John Woollatt.
This Week: Tom Jenkins resides in St. Mary’s. Tom joined the Artillery Reserves in Brandon, Manitoba in high school. In January 1974 he was released from the Reserves and joined the Canadian Arm Forces. After completing his basic training, he reported for trades training at the Canadian Forces School of Communications and Electronics in Kingston. His first posting was at the Canadian Forces Station Inuvik, NWT. He has served in various postings around Canada and the World. Tom’s deployments included five operational tours of duty to Canadian Forces Alert — a listening post located approximately 450 nautical miles from the North Pole on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island.
In 2001 he did a six-month tour at Camp Butmir, a NATO base located just outside Sarajevo, Bosnia. Just prior to being released from the Armed Forces, he did a six-month tour of Camp Mirage which is located on the outskirts of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This was Canada's support base for all personnel and materials heading into and out of Afghanistan.
Tom spoke on the Ramp Ceremonies for soldiers who fall in battle. The Ceremonies are done for the benefit of both the armed services and the public. There is a total of four ceremonies for each fallen soldier. At each ramp ceremony all service men from that site attend. The first ramp ceremony site is at Kandahar in Afghanistan on departure, the second is on arrival at Camp Mirage, United Air Arab outside of Dubai, the third is on departure from Camp Mirage for the final trip to Camp Trenton, and the forth is on arrival at Camp Trenton. One Soldier is assigned with the body for the full trip and is there to assist the family on arrival.
All bodies have a post-mortem in Toronto, before the body is release to the family. The Hurst travels the 401 from Camp Trenton to Toronto. This route has been named the Highway of Heroes, other names in several communities is Veterans Parkway.
Tom joined as a private and rose to the highest enlisted rank, chief warrant officer. After six years in that rank he accepted his commission and was promoted to captain. Tom served his final three years in that rank. He retired after more than 37 years of service in August, 2009. Tom was introduced by John Woollatt and thanked by Harry Brightwell.
Scribe: Harry Brightwell and Ollie Henry
Rotary Board for 2017
Clark Mitchell giving mini classification talk on his past days in Human Resources.
Guests: Today we welcomed: Bob Malcolmson, Stratford, Colin Brisbois.
Draw: The draw prize today donated by Tracy Van Kalsbeek
and was won by Craig Pierce.
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COMMIT 40 ft container loaded last Monday to hilt with supplies for Nicaragua. Thanks to John Wright , Rena Orr, Steve Chandler and Pat Feryn and Bob knoppert all Rotarians for helping.
Rotary Announcements:
Ken Nesbitt
Catch the Ace held its first draw on Saturday at the mall and live on facebook. It went well. There will be a weekly email update sent to club members by email. Joan Ritsma was the first winner and took home $277. This represents 20% or $1 for each ticket sold.
There will be a draw this Saturday at the mall at 3 o’clock featuring Ken Nesbitt wearing a jacket covered in cards prepared by his wife and mother-in-law. Tickets are 4/$20 or $5 each according to Ken.
Ryan Erb
Block Parent. The Federal Government has stopped funding Block Parent Canada. They were only donating $90,000 for the whole country. Ryan and a few other volunteers went to see John Nater and presented him with a letter hoping to keep the federal funding to support one national employee and insurance for the whole country. The program is in jeopardy, more information to follow
Al Wakelin
Thanks to the volunteers who helped at the booth this past weekend. The weekend of the synchronized skating competition on Dec 9 and 10 still needs volunteers. Please sign up on Club Runner. Al will be at the booth on Saturday Nov 25 at 1pm, Tuesday Nov 28 at 7pm and Sat Dec 2 for training purposes. Please take 20 minutes to come out to learn how to help
Katherine Hahn
There is a meeting tonight of the Car Rally committee at the Museum with a tentative date of Aug 11 for the event. If you would like to join the committee please contact Katherine.
Also, Katherine will be setting up a photo sharing and organization site to share pictures of Rotary events. Instructions will follow on how to share the photos or you could send them to Katherine to scan and digitize. More instructions to follow.
Presidents Corner
So we all thought about TRUTH over the past week and impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination. “IS IT FAIR TO ALL CONCERNED”this week we will turn our thoughts to FAIRNESS which is defined as I was recently in Germany and Denmark and these days as a Canadian I felt the need to identify my nationality more than ever before. In a shop in Copenhagen I mentioned where I was from. In our discussion, he used the word FAIR to describe Canadians. I thought that was an interesting observation and I hope for the most part we live up to his opinion.
BOARD MEETING HIGHLIGHTS
Due to lack of communication and support from the Northern Schools, the Northern Student Sponsorship Program has been put on hold for this year. The committee will rethink this project and consider others related to indigenous people.
We discussed the operation of the Booth at the Rotary Complex and Katherine Hahn and Al Wakelin will be giving a report at our Club Ownership Meeting on Dec 7
We have 16 members interested in an Advance Social Media Workshop supported by the PR Committee. We will be setting this up likely in the New Year and you will have a chance to sign up.
We have agreed to extend our contract with The Local to donate $1000/month to support all of the local food banks. $8000 comes from our budget and the balance from our food bank collections held 3x each year.
We will be volunteering for the Salvation Army Kettle Drive on Saturday Dec 2 at Zehrs, sign up is on Club Runner. We will work in 2’s and last night there were 5 open spots. If you cannot access Club Runner, send me an email and I will sign you up.
I sent out an email last night about a Global Literacy Container Loading event in Exeter on Dec 2. If you are free please consider helping out The Rotary Club of Grand Bend
Last…Since it has been 5 years and since this is likely our last year at the Kiwanis Centre we have decided to take a Club Photo at our Club Ownership Meeting on Dec 7th…PLEASE TRY TO ATTEND
Make-ups: Steve Rae, November 21, at the Estero RC, FL.
November’s Attendance Committee: Clark Mitchell (I/C), Jim Young, Marcia Matsui, Lutzen Riedstra, Dave Skinner, Philip Schroeder, Gerry Thuss, Sue Wakelin, Doug Wilson.
December’s Attendance Committee: Guy Bellehumeur (I/C), Clare McCallum, Ollie Henry, Paul Roulston, Basil Hurst, John Kechnie, Mike Neilson, Fritz Steigmeier, Brent Shackleton.
