The Westerner for April 29, 2013
Meeting: chair, Rob Dunseith; music, Jerome; grace, Duane
Attendance/Guests: Brad Arsenault of Clark Arsenault, guest speaker; Maryanne Cox, daughter of Sandon and member of Rotary Club of Stratford; Garnet Thomas, Rotary Club of Edmonton West Integrity Award Winner
New Member: President Rob inducted David Gibbens into classification of "Computer Services". Ed introduced David on behalf of himself and co-sponsor Fred. David is married with children, works for Agrifood Canada, knows Ed and Fred from curling and is Past-president of the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues. Welcome.
Rotary in the Island of Jersey, Channel Islands: Dave reported that newspaper articles printed by the press in Jersey during the Rotary Day Week, 2013, are available for anyone that wish to see Rotary's work in Jersey or to get precedents for advertising Rotary Club of Edmonton West's good works locally
Sandon: President Rob advised that Sandon is in poor health and residing at University of Alberta Hospital. This is the main reason that daughter Maryanne was available to makeup at our club. We wish Maryanne and family all the best in this period of concern. Sandon can take visitors.
Integrity Awards: Steve reported on the excellent awards dinner and presentation of awards by 11 Rotary clubs from the Edmonton region. Winners are non Rotarians that give back to the community. Our winner, Garnet Thomas, is married, works with refugees through his church (Robertson Wesley United Church), does a lot of other nice things for the community. His donation reward from our club goes to Robertson Wesley to support an incoming refugee. Congratulations
Rotary Day in Edmonton with Rotary International President Sakuji Tanaka - May 11, 9:00 a m, at Fort Edmonton to clean-up the park. Thanks to Driving Force (John) for BBQ lunch to be offered to the Rotary workers. See you there
Organ Donation: Joe reported that we need to indicate support for a new law being processed through the Alberta Legislature which is designed to make Albertans more prepared to offer their organs for donation - save lives, improve quality of life for those who have organ failure
Muggsy Forbes: Jim Spalding advised the former club member Muggsy is now resident at Edmonton General Hospital due to blindness and cognitive problems (wandering, extremely poor memory)
Jim Shaw: as advised by Brian, former member Jim passed away April 26, funeral details to come.
Gift Cards: see Brian, purchase cards to pay for groceries, prescriptions, vehicle fuel, etc. The 8% commission really helps our club pay for projects. Thanks to Jerome, Dave, Rob, Mike, Doug, Bob, Al, Kieran, Lorne, Rudy, Brian & Chris, we sold $6,600 worth of cards in the month of April, which generated a profit of $528. Thanks to those who are helping the club in this way. To those who aren't, where do you buy your food? Don't you shop at Safeway, Saveon, IGA or Sobeys? It won't cost you one extra cent to use these cards, so why not give it a try.
Finemaster: Bill Buckham asked for happy bucks which included Dan & Carol's 52nd wedding anniversary (congratulations); Mike Ryan for meeting his best high school teacher in Garnet Thomas after 40 odd years; Chris for having his knee operation rescheduled instead of cancelled; Steve for interesting visitors from the USA. Everyone got fined including Dave Gibbens for being the newest club member
50/50: Zen & Joe no match of cards, $11 carried over
Guest Speaker: Jim Johnston introduced Brad Arsenault, previous life insurance agent, who now advises business owners on various insurance issues but particularly on issues that can cause severe financial problems upon death or other severe problems with operations/ownership of small businesses including poorly drafted ownership succession documents. On retirement or death of anyone, Brad wants to see the estate's proceeds pass to family/heirs, charities, government taxes instead of taxes coming first. Premature aging and death comes to companies as well as people - yesterday's formula for success can be today's formula for failure. 76% of businesses do not have a succession plan and may of those that do are not formallized. Insurance looks at business planning but ignores accounting and legal assessments (legal and accounting often ignore the other 2 areas). Agreements that are drafted to look after one area of succession [or death benefits] often are faulty if only one of the 3 expertise areas are included in the review. Brad's firm hopes to solve that problem by including all 3 areas when they consult with clients. He gave several examples of problem documentation scenarios which left critical family members disenfranchised just because of poor documentation - not the intent of the agreement signatories.
Brad was thanked by Bert
Casey Schipper: long time Grandview Extended Care Centre Resident - Casey died April 24 - he was a long time interested audience for our Tuesday night entertainment programs and especially our current high scale concert series - funeral May 7 2:00 p m Derrick Golf & Country Club - we will remember his vigorous one armed wheeling of his wheel chair all around Grandview - condolences