Rotary Echo May 3 2023 (May 02, 2024)

CLUB ASSEMBLY: President Len gave his opinion on where the club is at. He praised the amazing board of directors – Jennifer, Rick, Will, Rob – for their knowledge, focus, and logical thinking. Len was satisfied with all aspect of the functioning of the club except for succession planning.

MOTION: Bill Sibeon made a motion for Len Ross to continue as president for the 2024/2025 Rotary year. Seconded by Jamie Thompson. Will Gibson asked President Len if he was willing to be president for a second year, and Len agreed. All in favour. Motion passed.

Treasurer’s Report – Rob Saunders: The club finances are in good shape. Bingo will be on hold for three months, so some of the projects that have been financed by Bingo may have to be adjusted. Dockfest should help. Rob recognized the guys who helped with the sets for the recent play: Peter, Bill P, Bill S, Doug, Will and Dan. The club will be receiving a cheque for $ 5,000 from Festival of the Arts for its participation in the production.

Bingo – Will Gibson: Bingo cards were increased to $ 10.00 in January. Net profit from Bingo for this Rotary year is $ 33,000.

Some changes will be necessary to the Bingo budget with a 3 month stoppage coming in June.

Will listed all the projects that Bingo supports District of Muskoka Financial Assistance, Youth Exchange, Local Food Banks, Junior Achievement, Hoya Robotics YWCA Girls programs.

Membership Report – Rick Wearing: Currently, the club has 35 members, 30 of whom are active and 5 are honorary. Three new Rotarians to the club this year were Dan James, Robert Gibb and Connor Ryan. Liz Behrens transferred here from her old club in Oakville. Katie McGregor is on a leave of absence. Rick is pursuing corporate membership. The structure of this type of membership to be approved by the board of directors. Rick has followed up on all potential membership leads.

Fellowship Report – Rick Wearing: Suggestions for upcoming fellowship activities are BBQ at Avery Beach in June, trip to Discovery Centre in Gravenhurst in July, Barrie Racetrack in August, and a Blue Jays game in September.

Rotary Apparel – Rick Wearing: Members can go to Noveltymann to order various shirts, vests, caps. Members will receive a 25% rebate.

International Service – Jennifer Simpson: Further to her recent comprehensive report, there are several projects ongoing. Two global grants are in process: 1. Panama project for prenatal care to reduce infant mortality 2. Save the Rain project should soon be finalized.

Next year will have a focus on the Guatemala project.

Fundraiser “Rotary Connects the World International Gala” is still being considered, in partnership with Dr. Hector Roldan’s Guatemala project.

KIVA

Dolores continues to manage our KIVA account and invest funds as needed. She recently presented to the club and as a result $1100 was given to KIVA ($500 from the club to honour Jan Nyquist, $500 from Jan because he was impressed with KIVA and $100 from Mary’s brother). Rob has given her a cheque for $1000 which she has invested into our KIVA account. The other $100 is being held for now.

HHART

HHART has wrapped up its humanitarian mission for this year. Our contribution of $2000 was used to support various HHART projects including stocking of the pharmacy for the mobile medical clinics. This is the first year since she started going on HHART that Jen has missed. Bitter Sweet!

LAOS Project

Steve Rutledge sent a preliminary report from Laos with some pictures. Here are the highlights. We contributed $1000.

“We are pleased to be able to present our closing report for a permanent water supply in Huephen Village, Northern Laos. We have also managed to complete 2-4-room toilet banks for a District Secondary school with dormitories and have just completed a bank of toilets for a community centre in Pha Yong. Currently we are working on another permanent water supply in Makpouk, the second half of your donation and will provide you another closing report upon completion of that project. Concurrently, we are just about to start a community centre with toilets in Phousoung. In addition, we are a little over halfway in our water filter distributions with about 2,250 people receiving clean water so far this season.”

Guatamala District Grant

The District Grant has been completed and Adrian will do the final reporting before the deadline

Manchichi Midwife Training Program (Panama)

We budgeted to contribute $1000 to this project. Jeff (the lead in Panama) asked us to see if we could get DDF to match and the District agreed.

District will match with $1000US

Nepal Global Grant

Ron has reached out to Ranjeef and we will be contributing to a global grant they are seeking funding for. We currently have $3000CAN to contribute to the global grant Disability Camp with Surgery. The District has agreed to match this with DDF as well.

Philippines Nursery School Wash Stations

Steve Meadley is wrapping up this project. We committed $4000CAN for this District Grant of which we will get $2000CAN back from District upon completion.

Our club has sent our contribution to the Rotary Club of Bracebridge who will send all the funds from Canada. A report should be forthcoming soon.

Save The Rain

The board is pressuring us to get the funds we have been holding to this project. I contacted Donna at the Mount Shasta Rotary Club and the grant is almost ready to move forward. We should be able to transfer funds soon.

At this point we have $5753.00CAN being held from MMS in our accounts. Jen has $987.00CAN cash to add to this from MMS. Our club had agreed to donate $2000CAN on top of this to bring our total donation to $8740CAN. We had pledged $6000US to the project so we are pretty close. Because the $2000 from our club was pledged so long ago we do not have those funds in our budget and would have to get permission from the board to take that money out of another account.

The District has agreed to still support this project with additional DDF funds of $5000US. Hopefully we can get this all wrapped up and funds distributed and finally close this project very soon!

Misc (Disaster Relief, asks, new projects)

Jen brought to everyones attention the Shelterbox Hero Program Canada. We have donated to Shelterbox in the past as they are one of our Rotary partners and respond to disasters all over the world. Clubs who donate $1200+Can receive their bronze classification, $3600+Can their Silver classification and $6000+Can their Gold classification. All clubs receive a certificate and recognition on their website. Currently there are 7 clubs from district 7010 in the bronze category, 2 in the silver and 2 in the gold. It might be nice for Huntsville to get into the bronze category. Food for thought for future.

Environment – Jennifer Simpson for Adrian Musters: The benches at Hunter’s Bay trail are being completed as well as some signage. Also garden work alongside the Avery Beach pavilion. May 5 is “Team Up to Clean Up” with all three clubs, and any other volunteers. Register with evening club to participate or just show up at the High School parking lot at 10 a.m. on May 5.

Dockfest – Jamie Thompson: Planning is going extremely well. People in the community are very happy that Dockfest is coming back. When the boats are ready, they will be on display in front on the businesses they represent. Lists will be forthcoming for volunteers for the day.

90^th Anniversary – Hugh Holland: There are 104 people registered to attend, and more are expected.

Hugh on Succession Planning: It is necessary to plan long ahead for leadership. He recommended that the club revert to more formal succession planning, beginning in September with a committee of three, subject to board approval.

Tent Programs – Peter Redwood: We did two events last year for the town, and we have been asked to handle the food for three more again this year. 1. New Employees Welcome event on May 16. 2. Graydon Smith’s BBQ in June. 3. Market Day Pancake Breakfast on August 17. Our two new tents have been branded with our Rotary name on them, and the barbeques have been restored.

) BBq and tents...we now have two new tents ( 10x10 and 10x20 heavy duty frame with white cover with Rotary International crest and Rotary Club of Huntsville on them.Both the BBQ and Grills have been repaired and cleaned They are now ready for use for rental program..Moore propane have given us propane again this year
2) BBQ Rental program...we have the maple festival this weekend when the evening club are renting the BBQ & 2 Grills for $225 .A rental agreement is being used.

Bursary Program – Peter Redwood: We give out bursaries annually in amount of $ 6,000 and a new health bursary for the club’s 90^th anniversary will be in the amount of $ 3,300.00.

Youth Exchange – Mary Rashleigh: This program has been an overwhelming success for 50 years. Mary showed a poster (created by Hugh Holland) outlining all the students incoming and outgoing for the past 50 years. The incoming student for this year will be George from Chile. Outgoing student will be Constance Jones.

Humanitarian Committee Report – Gord Mitchell: This committee has been providing assistance to local families for the past twelve years.

Auction – Bill Pritchard: The committee will meet on May 15 at 11:30 to try to find ways to increase the amounts and improve opportunities. Members welcome to attend who wish to assist with the planning