The Westerner for October 4, 2010
Meeting: chair, Mike Ryan; music, Jerome; grace, Cheryl
Good News: President Mike advised that Lynette is dealing with her health issues and will return; applause from the gallery
Proposed New Member: Kasey Armstrong, manager at Servus Credit Union (our club's new bank), proposed by Chris - Kasey grew up in Manitoba, attended SAIT in Calgary, graduated with a diploma in Management and Marketing, 9 years in Military Naval Reserves where she met her husband (he has 21+ years in the reserve), married in 1996 and moved to Edmonton, she has worked for Servus for 13 years and, as a result, volunteers in community related projects including teaching "dollars and sense" through Junior Achievement; 2 children and supports them in their activites including being treasurer of their elementary school.
Attendance/Guests: 34 including Kasey Armstrong; Daryll Ripley; Rene Cavanagh; Stephen P Eleniak, Rotary Club of Edmonton Northeast
50/50: Bob Lamoureux & Al Holmes did not match, $125 carried over
Finemaster: Duane fined himself $5 for missing his previous scheduled finemaster date; everyone $1 if A> you have not been driving a combine; B> you have not had any outdoor activity over the weekend; C> you were either hoping Eskimos would win or hoping that they would not win; D> you're not wearing a pin; E> you went early to get your dessert. Then $1 for Chris for being late.
Happy Bucks: Steve Eleniak for 60th anniverary; Mike Ryan for finding a long lost friend at Heritage Park then spending quality time with family in Calgary over the weekend;
Guest Speaker: Mike Ryan introduced Al Sanderson who travelled to Belize this summer with his wife, Karen, and the District 5370 Education of Belize Teachers Project. Belize is east of Guatemala, south of Mexico, north of Honduras - 160 miles long by 40 to 50 miles wide.
Rotary District 5370 Program for 8 years has been to improve education in the entire country of Belize (300,000 population). Teachers in Alberta are all accredited - many Belizian teachers have no training in being a teacher. Thus a summer program to have Alberta teachers teach the Belizians.
Our club has had projects in Stann Creek Province. Placentia is on a long, narrow peninsula to the south, Independence is on the mainland nearby. Houses are built right along the water which makes them subject to hurricane damage. Immigrants from Canada and U S A are coming in and building large, luxurious homes.
This summer's teaching group included Sherry Holmes, Karen Sanderson and Jennifer Lawley from our club. Karen's approach was to teach the Belizian's to change from a very structured approach to one that includes some fun. The group received positive feedback from the Belizian teachers.
The program was conducted in auditoriums that had no walls so papers were subject to wind damage. Travel around the country is done in small planes like Cessna Caravans.
A Rotarian in Placentia, Belize, "Junior", looks after our containers to make sure they arrive and get to proper destination. Another Placentian Rotarian, Sandra Steck, has condos for sale. Al showed us a picture of the mayor Miss Lydia.
The elementary school in Placentia had basically no washroom facilities and definitely no running water for students to wash their hands - they were always getting sick. Our club financed new toilet and other washroom facilities including running water. Now the students don't get sick from this source. They need money to finish a 2 storey addition.
Al showed us the narrowest main street in the world (assume in Signbit) according to the Book of World Records.
Signbit is a very poor community - inhabitants are descendants from African immigrants.
A water taxi takes you to the mainland including Independance. There, the high school principal has worked very hard to develop facilities to enable expansion of the school from 35 students to 800. This includes buildings and computers. They have an agricultural training program and raise farm produce for sale. Our club gave the principal $1,000 to provide scholarships and $1,000 to cover hardship cases where the student cannot afford to attend school without financial help. The high school needs equipment for their science lab and home economics program.
Al was thanked by Duane.