The Westerner for August 22, 2011
Meeting: chair, Sherry; music, Jerome; grace, Fred
Attendance/Guests: 39 including Jacqueline Lamoureux, daughter of Bob; Julie Self, guest speaker and member of District 5370 Group Study Exchange Team for 2011; Darrel Ripley and Darryll White, proposed members; Miao Tsai, Rotary Club of Ottawa; Karen Sanderson, spouse of Al
Grandview Extended Care: their newspaper has an article on the Rotary Club of Edmonton West's ongoing program and the donation of the grand piano
Belise Update: Duane thanked the 4 people, Al and Karen Sanderson, Duane's wife Cathie, plus Karen Mitchell, who visited Belise to continue the education of the Belise teachers and provide assistance to Independence High School for their sewing program.
50/50: Dan Graham and Wayne did not match cards
Gift Cards: please see Brian to purchase so profits will go to our projects.
Fun Golf: see Bob Lamoureux re signing up for golf and/or steak dinner at Victoria Golf Course, tee off noon; dinner around 5:30 pm; costs - golf $66 including cart, dinner $38 including tip
Finemaster: Chris, in celebration of the Family of Rotary program, fined those who had not hugged another Rotarian $1; Zen was fined for his nice sun tan, those without a Rotary pin $1, those with a tie $1
Guest Speaker: Al Sanderson introduced fellow government employee Julie Self who represented our Rotary club on the outbound GSE team to New South Wales, Australia. The trip occured in February/March, 2011. Julie has a BBA in marketing and a MA in international development. She volunteers in several charities including Engineers Without Borders and Time For Children.
Group Study Exchange is a Rotary Foundation program that encourages young professionals to experience another culture. The trips last between 4 and 6 weeks for people ages 25 to 40 and they plan to experience their areas of expertise in another culture. This year's team had 6 professionals and a Rotarian leader. The professionals included an aboriginal and the professions included health, civil engineering, RCMP and surface water policy (Julie). They visited 9 towns, staying with Rotarian families of Rotary District 9650.
That district has 57 Rotary clubs and 1600 members. The area has had drought conditions for the last 10 years so Julie was able to experience water policy from a different perspective. Julie hopes to work on international and other trans boundary water concerns in the future. The drought in the New South Wales interior contrasted with the flood conditions on the coast (other side of a mountain barrier). 20% of land in Canada is covered by fresh water compared to 1% in Australia. Julie's working visits included government and municipal offices plus industry water concerns. One such issue concerned a coalition dealing with coal mining and ground water. She also had exposure to wetland policy, water allocation (sharing) policy and farmers directly affected by water policy together with lack of water. The benefits of the exchange included prepartion for Julie to deal with climate change affecting water in Alberta (as the amount of available water changes).
Julie was grateful for the exchange opportunity - to see the job done somewhere else. She thanked our club for her nomination and presented banners from 16 District 9650 clubs to President Sherry. Julie was very ably thanked by Bill Buckham.
Proposed Members: Don Turner, sales manager for Edge Production Supplies Ltd. (sales to machine shop and metal working businesses). Ben Turner, student at NAIT in international business, previous 3 years as vice president for Calmar Interact Club and participant in Global Youth Conference in Washington, D C.