We are delighted to announce that the Rotary Club of Charlottetown will be holding the initial meeting of a Rotaract Club at the University of Prince Edward Island on Friday, November 17th. With the assistance of the UPEI's International Relations Office, Dr. Barb Campbell, and Rachel Greathouse, Director Martin Ruben is expecting about 25 to 30 young adults between the ages of 18 and 30 to attend. An invitation has also been sent out to the students of Holland College. At this meeting, Director Martin, will make a presentation and gather the names of prospective Rotaract Club members. After the meeting and with the objective met, steps will be taken to charter a Rotaract Club under the sponsorship of the Rotary Club of Charlottetown. This will be the only Rotaract Club to operate in PEI at this time. The Club Board of Directors has authorized a small budget to support this initiative that it believes will provide the opportunity for these young adults to experience all that Rotary has to offer.
The main objective for the Rotaract Club is to forward the ideals and promotion of Rotary. The other objectives for the Rotaract Club are to improve the integration of International students with other students, promote the greater understanding and goodwill of the local community, and introduction to possible local employers. This should improve their chances of staying in PEI after graduation through this integration. Many of these students are exceptional and are expected to have a positive impact on the economy of PEI, not just by being potential employees, but by their entrepreneurial spirit. In cities which have been welcoming to International students, the economy has been measurably improved, providing benefits to all citizens. The Club Board is proud to supports this new initiative based on the potential positive impacts for all concerned.
If you would like to attend and support Director Martin in this endeavour, please contact him at 902-388-7584 or allenfarm17@gmail.com.
It was nearly a full house at our Club meeting on Nov 6th. We had a moving #RemembranceDay presentation from Brigadier General (Ret'd) the Reverend Doctor David C. Kettle, Honourary Chaplain to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
From Left to Right below: Aide de Camp, Bob Moffatt; Rotary Club of Charlottetown President, Paul Crant; Ret'd Brigadier General, David Kettles; new PEI Lieutenant Governor, Antoinette Perry; Remembrance Committee Chair, Angus Orford; and Meeting Co-Chair, Allison Swan.
Retired Brig.-Gen. David C. Kettle gave a presentation Monday as the guest speaker of The Rotary Club of Charlottetown Remembrance Ceremony. (JIM DAY/THE GUARDIAN)
CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. - Retired Brig.-Gen. David C. Kettle offers Canadians plenty to think about for the entire two minutes of silence during Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Sure, he notes, most people paying their respect to veterans have a few general thoughts – such tremendous sacrifice, what loss.
“People are very good at generalities, but what specifically do you remember?’’ asked Kettle, who is the secretary general of the Canadian Agency of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
“And after you think of the generalities, don’t you have a minute and a half left of dead time?’’
Well, Kettle came to the Rotary Club of Charlottetown Remembrance Ceremony Monday armed with plenty of stark images to help fill that extra 90 seconds or so of silence.
Think how 619,000 Canadians, from a country of eight million at the time, served in uniform in the First World War.
“That’s quite a contribution,’’ notes Kettle.
Reflect too, as silence surrounds the cenotaph, on the 1.1 million Canadians who served in the Second World War. Consider how 42 per cent of all men in Canada between the ages of 18 and 35 served in that global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945.
“These are staggering numbers,’’ suggests Kettle.
“You can’t even comprehend them today, really.’’
Clicking old black and white battlefield images onto a screen, Kettle says something else worth remembering during those two silent minutes is the horrific life in the trenches endured by Canada’s brave soldiers.
“You would be traumatized simply by living in a trench: the water, the mud, the unsanitary conditions of trench life,’’ he says.
Imagine each soldier infested with lice. Think about large rats chomping into their flesh.
Then, adds Kettle, there was No Man’s Land, which he describes as “a moonscape where you are totally exposed to artillery fire, to machine gun fire.’’
Throw in barbed wire, mud, even quicksand, to increase the hardship and challenge of forward advancement, not to mention survival.
Survive all that, Kettle continues, then diseases like typhoid fever would take a good crack at knocking the soldiers down.
Still have any time left in those 120 seconds of silence?
Spend a few moments, urges Kettle, to consider the immense grief of parents, who felt they pressured their children into joining the war effort or felt they could have done something to prevent them from joining.
“They had to live with that guilt,’’ he says.
“So you remember those people during that two minutes of silence.’’
On Wednesday, Nov. 8th, the Red Cross presented the Canadian Red Cross Humanitarian Award to award to the family of late, Rotary Club of Charlottetown member, Tom DeBlois, at the P.E.I. Convention Centre. This is the first time, that the Red Cross’ Humanitarian Awards was presented posthumously.
Tom was a very worthy recipient of this award and believed in the Rotary principle, Service Above Self, with involvement in over 30 Community groups and organizations. He was the founding chair of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Foundation and the founding chair Queens Region Health and Community Services Board, as well as a board member and chair of Camp Gencheff. He also served on the Holland College Foundation and served two years as Chair of the Leadership Gifts Division of the Holland College Partners in Value Campaign. A recipient of the Governor General's Caring Canadian Award in 2000, Tom served as President of the Board of Pat and The Elephant, a Past President of the Rotary Club of Charlottetown, Past Chair of the PEI Division of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and served as Vice-President-Services for the 1991 Canada Winter Games. He also served as a member of the St. Paul's Church Parish Council. Tom served three years as a member of the Town Planning Advisory Committee in Charlottetown and also served on the Council for Canadian Unity.
In the business community, he served with the Board of the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, PEI Development Agency, Junior Achievement, and the PEI Market Development Centre.
Deblois worked in the family business, DeBlois Brothers, and from 1986 to 2005 with TRA Atlantic (DeBlois Distribution Centre), after DeBlois Brothers was sold to Sobeys.
That same night, the Red Cross also presented the Young Humanitarian Award to 18-year-old Lacey Koughan of Charlottetown - founder of 24STRONG . Congratulations to both Lacey and the family of Tom. It takes the understanding and support of the families of these special individuals in order them to serve the community in this way.
Thank you to those Club members that attended the dinner. Thank you to Club members, Edna Reid, and Wes MacAleer, for speaking about Tom's impact, at the dinner.
Proceeds from the event go to support Canadian Red Cross services throughout Prince Edward Island.
On Nov. 7 th, the Bingo Jackpot was won and shared by two lucky players! Congratulations to Angela Arsenault of Summerside & Sandra Gauthier of Charlottetown who each won $2,000.
The Club sold 1562 Bingo Cards that week for one of the largest weeks we have had.
Thank you to the club volounteers that allow us to make this Bingo a success and allows the club to support the Community.
The final piece in the celebration of our Club's Centennial occurred with the placement of a bench on the grounds of Government House. The Bench has been inscribed with "A Century of Service".
Thank you to the Centennial Committee who worked for several years to bring all the successful accomplishments and the events of the past year. These events include: New Year's Levee, Book on the History of Rotary in PEI, 100 trees planted across PEI, Centennial Gala Dinner, and several other events.
The Centennial Committee is comprised of Bob Moffatt, Mary MacMillan, Lorne Moase, Moe Rodgerson, Ken Gillis, Jim Mcnutt, Sandra MacKay, and Larry Sider.
On Oct. 30th, we had the opportunity to hear from Kenny MacDougall. Kenny has established The Mount Academy a new private school geared towards athletes. He has 20 years of hockey coaching experience in various levels, including with Team Atlantic, at the Canada Games, Junior A, Senior, Semi-pro and University.
Pictured left to right: Paul Jenkins, owner of The Mount Continuing Care facility, Paul Crant - President of the Rotary Club of Charlottetown, Kenny MacDougall, Corinne Hendricken-Eldershaw - CEO of the Alzheimers Society PEI.
At our Oct. 30th meeting, we Inducted Jake McLaren, into the Rotary Club of Charlottetown. Jake has been living in PEI since 2016 and is orginally from Alberta. He is the owner of Larmahil Software Consulting. They specialize in the selection, implementation, training and education, of customer relationship management (CRM) software. Welcome Jake !
The Walk to #EndPolioNow occurred on Saturday, October 21st at 2 PM. Memebrs of the Rotary Club of Charlottetown and the Rotary Club of Charlottetown Royalty attended the Walk.
We want to end polio forever so that no child has to suffer from this devastating disease. We are pleased that this fight is almost over with only 12 cases of Polio this year in only 2 countries. Thank you to the Rotary Clubs of PEI who contributed a total of $12,000 to this cause.
A big thank you to Canadian Veteran,Dennis MacKenzie, and his brother, Riley Smith, from Brave and Broken and National Access Cannabis PEI for coming and talking to our Club on Oct. 16th about your work supporting veterans and first responders. With Dennis & Riley are Rotary Club of Charlottetown President Paul Crant and Meeting Chair, Chelsey Rogerson.
At our Oct. 24th meeting, Eleanor Davies of Hospice PEI, the volunteer arm of the palliative care program in PEI, spoke about palliative care and hospice PEI's philosophy and services provided at the end of life. Thank you to volunteers at Hospice PEI for all you do! You're a perfect example of #ServiceAboveSelf
From left to right: Larry Sider BA CFP , Eleanor Davies, & Club President Paul Crant
Highlights of Rotary Club of Charlottetown Club President's Report - Paul Crant:
I was a member 17 years ago when this Club had 180 odd members. One and a half years ago, we were down to 61 members. The Club declined year after year until there were not enough people power or willpower to properly undertake our 75 year old fundraiser - Radio/TV/Internet Auction. We tried a couple of fundraisers after that. Unfortunately, with those Club fundraisers, the club subsisted on between $5,000 - $7,000 per year.
With the efforts of many in the Club, we were able to bring in many new members. We now have 91 members. The influx of new members has allowed the Club to successfully undertake a new fundraiser, Rotary Radio Bingo. Many members played a part in this success in the Bingo. This success of which will mean our Club can get back to being a force in the Community.
Our next step is to start to deploy the funds we have raised over the last year in the Community. We expect to present a Donations Policy in the coming weeks. What we do not want, is just write cheques all the time. It is not in the best interests of Rotary or the best interests of this Club to just write cheques. The goal is to have Rotarian involvement in at least some of the Donations we make and to use the funds to cover our the costs of our Community Service programs. For larger Donation requests, we may want to partner with other groups in the community in order to undertake new service projects. This will give Rotary better Branding. Over the next weeks and months we will be reaching out to those Club members who have the passion to serve and truly Make a Difference to further enhance our strategy.
Highlights of RI President Ian Riseley speech at the Rotary Club of Charlottetown meeting on Oct. 2rd:
President Riseley explained how he helped to design his 2017-17 theme tie based on native Australian plants, and he explained the 2017-18 theme "Rotary: Making A Difference". The theme logo represents the diversity of Rotarians around the world striving for a better future.
Encourage all clubs to let the world know what they do. Each club must record on Rotary Club Central the following details:
$ in local currency of how much is contributed to charitable activities
# of volunteer hours contributed to charitable activities
RI President Ian also encouraged Rotarians to consider attending the upcoming Presidential Conference on Peace and the Environment in Vancouver in Fenruay 2018.https://environmentandpeace.com/ This is one of six such Peace conferences set for around the world also focusing on the other five area of focus of the Rotary Foundation plus the environment.
Finally RI President Ian invited everyone to join him in Toronto in June 2018 for the International Convention. http://www.riconvention.org/en
The Rotary Club of Charlottetown was chartered on October 1, 1917, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Halifax. It was club number 333 in the Rotary world. With 100 years of service the Club determined to mark the occasion with a Centennial Celebration and celebrate it did!
With Past District Governor Robert (Bob) Moffatt as Chair the Centennial Committee worked tirelessly to make the celebration worthy of the one hundred years of "Service Above Self". This article can't begin to list all of the accomplishments of a century, including sponsoring four out of the five other clubs on the Island. James W Macnutt even wrote a book - "A Century of Service of Rotary on Prince Edward Island". Copies are still
available.
But a big celebration requires a big name guest. They got one in 2017-18 Rotary International President Ian Riseley and his wife Juliet. Rotary Vice President Dean Rohrs from Langley, BC (the second Canadian woman in a row to hold that post) also attended and introduced keynote speaker RI President Ian Risley at the gala celebration dinner held at the Delta Charlottetown on Sunday evening October 1, 2017. A veritable "who's who" of Island and District 7820 (and neighbouring D7810) Rotarians were in attendance, including many past district governors and district officers. As well, several descendents of Charter members attended as special guests. Head table guests included Chair PDG Bob Moffatt, RI President Ian and Juliet Riseley, Lieutenant Governor H. Frank Lewis, Rotary VP Dean Rohrs, District Governor Don Sword, Charlottetown Rotary President Paul Crant, Charlottetown Mayor Clifford Lee and Rotarians Larry Sider, Moe Rodgerson and Sandra MacKay.
Dinner guests were treated to a gourmet meal and wonderful dinner music by the Singing Strings under the direction of Natalie Williams Calhoun.
A highlight of the wonderful gala night at the Delta Charlottetown on Sunday October 1st , 2017 was the awarding of Paul Harris Fellowships (PHF's) to Rotarians from Island Rotary clubs. RI President Ian Riseley personally pinned every recipient with their 1st or multiple PHF recognition.
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He has three key goals for 2017-18:
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