Edmonton West is most appreciative of Al Hamilton and Friends for another very successful golf tournament today! The generous donations and auction bids ensure that many worthwhile projects continue to receive support in our local community and abroad! Heartfelt thanks to all those who participated in the tournament and many thanks to our enthusiastic volunteers!
Special thanks to Al Hamilton, John Blimke, Brian Thompson, Wayne Ellis, Lorne Proctor, Jennifer Lawley!
Where has Ingrid been?
Rotarians in Drayton Valley are actively engaged in supporting their community!
Delighted to have MLA Mark Smith, Mayor Michael Doerksen, and five Town Councillors including Rotarians Eric Butz and Amila Gammana join President Pat and Club members for our productive and inspiring meeting!
As you know....Boyle Street loves it when we take them gently used and loved mugs for them to serve coffee to their guests. We will be there serving the Thanksgiving Dinner on October 7th.
Rotary Moments
By Dave Turner
As incoming president, Dave and his wife Carol attended the 1989 International Convention in Seoul, Korea. The venue was the site of the 1988 summer olympics. As they crossed a large field, on their way to the House of Friendship, they ran into Curly Galbraith from Calgary who was the incoming RI vice president. He was standing alone, deep in thought. He told Dave that he had just been informed that his club was to host the RI president, Hugh Archer as he was attending the "Hands Across the Border Ceremony" in Waterton Park. Hugh was to visit Edmonton prior to this and Curly asked Dave to arrange a city wide Rotary meeting so Hugh could 'talk to the troops'. So Dave, along with Ralph Young, president of the Edmonton Club planned the meeting at the Hotel MacDonald. After, Ken Haywood, president of Edmonton Northeast loaned Dave and Carol his Lincoln Town Car to drive Hugh, his wife Mary Ann, Curly and his wife Doris to Waterton Park. They all had a fabulous time at the very successful 'Hands Across the Border' Event. Dave and Ken remained good friends and stayed in touch for many years.
Rotary Moments
By Vic Rudkowski
I first heard about rotary when I was working at imperial oil engineering section of the marketing department. Some of employees were active with rotary. Later I met quite a few Rotary members through other volunteer projects. One most memorable moment was when Zen Moisey and a few others drove a donated well drilling truck to Central America. I met Zen back in the late ‘50s and quite a few other members throughout the years and was impressed with the amount of volunteering rotary members did.
My volunteering includes junior achievement, hockey coaching, refereeing, cystic fibrosis, kinsmen, community, cleaning and repairing country cemeteries and more recently what started as a substantial donation to spinal research which developed into the initiative for the brain campaign. Actually volunteering started when I was growing up. We didn’t call it volunteering, somebody or something needed to be done and you went out and did it. I remember everything from building a fence around a garden for an elderly widow, to digging graves, to helping flood a local hockey rink. I am sure my experience in that regard is not unique.
What impressed me most about Rotary is they are involved locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Such a large endeavor is a big challenge but the big advantage is that ideas also come from all areas. Listening to all levels also broadens ones thinking and that is another reason that brought me to Rotary.
Thank you.
Rotary Stories
Our long time support of Grandview...excerpt from clubrunner by Brian Thompson
In 2005 each Rotary Club in the Rotary World was asked to design a special project in order to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of Rotary International. The Rotary Club of Edmonton West chose to celebrate this anniversary, plus the Club's 50th anniversary, by creating the "Rotary-Grandview House of Friendship" at Capital Care Grandview.
The Rotary-Grandview House of Friendship is an approximate 1100 square foot addition adjacent to the main entrance of Capital Care Grandview. It includes the "Tuck Shop" where they sell cards, snacks, and crafts made by the residents, a large room with big windows where residents can enjoy a good view of the exterior, a gas-fired fireplace for a cosy feeling on a cool day, and wall displays of resident-created art works. The House of Friendship has been occupied and used by the residents and staff of Grandview since we cut the ribbon on February 23, 2005.
The Rotary Club of Edmonton West and Capital Care Grandview have had a long-term (over 30 years) relationship focused on making life a little better for the residents of this long-term care facility. We have provided funding in the past for a wheelchair van, modifications to the kitchen, a weigh scale, and computers for resident use. Each Tuesday evening, during the mid-September to mid-May period, one of our member Teams visits Grandview to participate in a social / entertainment-oriented event. Our Club provides funding for the hiring of the entertainers, usually musicians, plus our members assist with the moving of the residents to and from their rooms to the auditorium, and with the serving of tea, coffee, juices, and treats.
We are continuing our support of Grandview and last week Al Sanderson, J.P Poirier and had a meeting with Terry de Visser. They have a list of possible projects ranging from weeding, gardening, landscaping, resurfacing the stairs the club built last year (the paint and anti-slip coating has come off), building a fence, erecting a gazebo, painting (inside and out) building a storage shed etc...We will start with some gardening and the stairs and see how our time goes.
At the invitation of Jerome Martin, Ed Schultz joined the Edmonton West Rotary Club in 1995. Jerome said Ed would make a lot of new friends - this has happened. Member Peter Fuhr asked him to curl in the Saturday morning curling league at the University of Alberta. In time, Peter moved back to Ottawa with David Gibbens and Brian Thompson joined the team. Fred Kraft, who was on the curling team from the very beginning, soon joined our Rotary Club - followed by David. This resulted in the Edmonton West Rotary Club having a curling team - all the members being in this club.
Last week, Ed gave the current team members their new next season curling jackets: JP Poirier, Brian Thompson, Darrel Ripley, and Al Sanderson. Since Fred Kraft was absent last week, Ed called Fred to the front to collect and model the new jacket for the club. Fred explained the significance of the left arm band ‘Team DBG’ which honours the memory and importance of David Brian Gibbens to the Saturday morning league curlers.
Fred introduced Brian Thompson to do a 'show and tell' of the new DAVID GIBBENS AWARD plaque in honour of his outstanding leadership and support to the Saturday morning Agriculture Forestry Curling League. In each future year, the AWARD will be given to an individual curler (by peer nomination) who most demonstrates: fun when they curl, a positive attitude toward the game and their fellow competitors, friendly to all, and makes the game fun for those around them.
This month's challenge
Congratulations to Zen Moisey ~ recipient of a Paul Harris Fellowship Plus 8. Well done Zen!
Speaker ~ July 16th
Irfan Chaudhry ~ Human Rights
In February 2018, Irfan Chaudhry became the first director of MacEwan University’s Office of Human Rights, Diversity and Equity.
Irfan gave a very in depth and informative speech. He talked about the clashing of ideologies and grievances creating a climate of hate. He said that the power of social media is that it creates a space where interconnected crowds can do their own thing. But what happens when these interconnected crowds doing their own thing become hateful? On one end of the spectrum, online momentum can lead to offline mobilization. According to Chaudhry, the same bias that fuels hate crimes motivates hate incidents, and tackling that behaviour is key in understanding Canada's "culture of hate." "It starts off with those things such as 'It's my right to say I don't want them in my country. I don't want these things happening.' And then it leads to these instances," he said. Canadians need to have crucial conversations about the tension between free speech and hate speech. "I don't think we can sit back and say, 'this is just groups that are expressing their freedom of expression.' I think we have to really look at the underlying content of how that's impacting communities — especially communities of colour and communities of immigrant background," he said. It's important to speak out against racism and to build an understanding of other religions and cultures.
Rotary, he said, creates opportunities to take action....to localize the global. Irfan volunteered with us when we helped the Newcomers Group with an event at the Telus World of Science. Many of the Newcomers were from Syria and it gave us all an opportunity to be open and welcoming and also to learn about the challenges of beginning life in a new country. We should all be looking for diversified involvement activities.
Speaker ~ July 23rd
Jerome Martin ~ Classification Talk
I asked Jerome to send me a copy of his classification talk today as I wanted to put an edited version into this newsletter. Well, I couldn't bring myself to edit anything out. Jerome, as always gave a stellar speech. It was interesting, funny and included many topics.
I loved that he began with a Lewis Carroll poem. I grew up in Walton, Cheshire which is the village next to Daresbury, where 'Lewis Carroll' lived from 1832 to 1843. His father was the vicar of the village church and there is a stained glass window depicting the characters from Lewis Carroll's books.....even the Cheshire Cat:)
Jerome calls himself "Renaissance Man", which is apt, don't you think. He talked of growing up in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan and going onto the University of Saskatchewan. Here he met Ed Schultz and they both became members of the college band. Jerome said that "This was the beginning of a lifetime of professional music, writing, and creating visual art. I do not have hobbies, only a wide variety of endeavours which are essential to my life". He went on to talk about his experience in Africa, which was a life changing experience. Jerome has pursued many interests such as publishing, photography, computers, teaching and learning. I encourage you to read his notes. I will leave you with his last comment:
Last week I chatted with a friend whom I had not seen for a while. We talked about what we were doing and what we had done.
‘You’ve always enjoyed what you’ve done: you’ve never differentiated between work and play. You’ve simply loved what you were doing.’
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