Meeting:  chair, Ingrid; music, Jerome; grace, Fred; attendance 27

 

Reservations:  with 3 special meetings coming up, the club needs to know who expects to attend on January 26 for Robbie Burns Day and Mayor Iveson; February 2 for the Right Honourable Kim Campbell (former prime minister for Canada) and February 23 (60th anniversary of Rotary Club of Edmonton West).  Please let President Ingrid know of your expectations.  A sign up sheet was circulated.

 

Rotaract Club MacEwan:  charter night is postponed indefinitely

 

Fun Curling Social:  Spencer organized a great late afternoon function and David Gibbens provided excellent coaching to the uninitiated.  Ingrid showed 4 pictures on her power point

 

Sock Challenge:  Ingrid tried to dress up the meeting as she challenged all the members to show off their fancy socks.  Only Jerome, Doug Sollows, Bill, Doug MacDougall and Duane had fancy socks on.  Judging was performed by Leslie and Kirsten. Bill won.

 

Finemaster:  Duart charged fines if you did not have guests already invited for the Iveson and/or Campbell meetings; he then asked table questions about City of Edmonton to prime us for the Mayor's visit 

 

50/50:  after some drama, Ingrid and Joe won $369 between them; congratulations

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guatemala Eye Health Mission:  Ben  provided this excerpt:  just a brief note to thank the members of this year's team who visited Guatemala January 3 to 13.  Karen and Al Sanderson, Lorne Proctor, Marly Doz and Leslie McGonigle joined Dr. Solorzano and Dr. Velasquez with the Huehuetenango Rotary Club to provide 831 eye examinations and 109 family practice examinations in the towns of Todos Santos and LaLibertard.

 

Further to these examinations, some 53 cataract surgeries will be performed starting this week by Dr. Carlos.  330 pairs of glasses have either been dispensed or are in manufacturing for the patients.  This year's mission went well and I'd like to express my thanks to the team and both the Edmonton West and Huehuetenango Rotary Clubs for the large degrees of support which allowed the mission to go so ethically.

 

Classification Talk:  Jerome introduced Bill Buckham by stating Bill's aims as a 12 year old.  1) to fly, 2) to join the Royal Canadian Air Force, 3) to escort the Queen of the British Commonwealth by being her pilot, 4) to win a Rotary Sock Competition.  Bill's classification with the Rotary Club of Edmonton West is Consultant Aviation and he has been retired from the air force for 21 years.

 

Brigadier General Retired Bill Buckham, OMM, CD, started his career in Vancouver at a very young age.  He talked about watching the Hurricane Fighter Planes taking off in 1952 from Vancouver airport on their way to the Aleutian Islands.  Being a member of Vancouver's #135 Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron provided the platform Bill needed to earn his power wings.  He then earned his air force wings in 1960 as an air force reserve pilot and joined the RCAF in 1963 after graduating from University of British Columbia.  He advised that he had a coloured university career by failing the first year because of having too much fun, deciding that engineering was not his bag after another year or two, and ending up in economics and political science.  After joining the air force, he began an enjoyable 35 year career wherein his experiences and positions involved all aspects of operations, training, planning and personnel.  Early on, the most enjoyable part would have been being told "where to go and what he could do if he didn't go there" by his boss Colonel Retired Al Holmes (Al was a superb officer).  Some of his positions have been Air Force Chief of Staff for Personnel and Training (his last 2 years of service looking after 4 bases, 13 schools of various technologies and skills); Deputy Commander Air Transport Group in Trenton (challenging time shedding peace time bureaucracy to plan wartime strategy for the Iraq war); Commander Canadian Forces Base Edmonton (1986-89, commanded 2800 military and 800 civilian personnel involved with 33 units of which 13 were air force including 5 squadrons); Commander 412 Transport Squadron.  Further he held national senior managerial positions in personnel and air planning at national defence headquarters, Ottawa.

 

Flying experiences include worldwide operations, tactical, search and rescue, and specialty aircraft.  With almost 8,000 hours flying time, he has flown aircraft ranging from Chipmunk, DC-3, Beach 18 to Falcon and Challenger corporate jets, Convair 580, Twin Otter, C130 Hercules.  He flew the Queen, Prince Phillip, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Price Andrew during the period 1984 to 1986.  Other dignitaries included prime ministers, heads of state, and the aim was to be on time but safe with coordination with the rest of the tour staff.  Other operations included helping create a new air force for NATO centered on Luxembourg as they had no air force of their own; low level NATO flying training over Goose Bay and the worries of aboriginals about damage to the 600,000 animals in the area, Twin Otter search rescue operations in mountains being challenging as you needed a way out if you lost an engine.

 

Naturally, Bill had to tell us about his radio conversation with Ronald Reagan when he was President of the United States.  He was flying the Queen and Prince Phillip Toronto to Windsor to Brantford.  The Queen wished to send a non-secure message to Reagan which Bill executed.  When Reagan personally replyed he asked for the Commander of the Queen's flight and Bill thus talked to the President of the United States.

 

Since retiring in 1994, Bill has remained active with a number of volunteer boards and business activities including the Rotary Club of Edmonton West, the Air Cadet League, the Alberta Aviation Museum, the Alberta Attendance Review Board, and Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame.  He was Honourary Colonel of 417 Combat Support Squadron in Cold Lake.  He and spouse Keatha live in St. Albert and travel extensively.  They have 2 sons:  Jim who lives in Edmonton and Chris, an RCAF Logistics Major currently serving on operations in Kuwait. 

 

Bill was thanked by Duane who explained that all of us are certainly very happy that Bill is a valued member of the Rotary Club of Edmonton West.