Festival City Rotary Newsletter November 20, 2012

Posted by Vincent Hill 
on Nov 20, 2012
 

The Rotary Club Of Festival City

President:  Dianne Yundt

Minutes of the meeting of November 20, 2012

Club email:  festivalcityrotary@gmail.com

Club website: www.festivalcityrotary.ca

Today’s meeting was chaired by President-elect Bill Helmuth.

 

Guests: From Stratford Rotary we welcomed Geza Wordofa. David Brent from the London-Lambeth Rotary Club accompanied Ambassadorial Scholar Francisco Reinoso from Argentina. Also in attendance were Connor and Steve Rivers, guests of Brian Rivers.  Connor is an outbound Rotary Exchange student.

Draw Prize: Vincent Hill donated the prize won by Jean Aitcheson.

Dinner of the Month Draw: For the second time Heather Galloway won a dinner for four people. The dinner is at Bijou.

New Member: President-elect Bill Helmuth inducted Randy Mathews into the Rotary Club of Festival City. Randy is retired from a career in the financial services industry beginning with Victoria & Grey Trust in 1975 and ending with Scotiabank. Previously Randy was very active with the Optimist Club serving in many capacities.

Announcements:

  1. Salvation Army Xmas Kettles: If you can spare some time to man a kettle at one of the locations in Stratford let Dianne Yundt or Tyler Canal know.
  2. Dinner of the Month Tickets: Tickets for the 2013 draws are available for sale. Get your tickets from Tyler Canal.  The price is $20 each or 6 for $100.
  3. Bingo: The final bingo for this year is Saturday starting at 5 PM. Volunteers are needed particularly between 5 PM and 7:30PM. If you can help out on Saturday night register by clicking on the Bingo tab on ClubRunner.
  4. House of Blessing: Next week we will be accepting food and toiletry items for the food bank.

Guest Speaker: David Brent introduced Francisco Reinoso from Argentina.

Francisco is an Ambassadorial Scholar currently studying for an MSc degree in Environmental Sustainability at Western University in London. Francisco is an officer in the Argentine Air Force. Following his year at Western, Francisco hopes to get some work experience in Canada as part of the coop portion of his course. He then plans to return to Argentina to work in the field of environmental sustainability. He hopes to encourage politicians and businesses to think long term rather than exploit resources now for profit rather than thinking about long term sustainability.

In a slide show presentation Francisco told us about his military tour of duty in Haiti, June to December 2011, where the Argentine armed forces are part of the UN relief effort following the earthquake.  Francisco is now on leave from his public relations work with the air force.

Francisco gave us a brief overview of the areas of his country from the heavily populated capital of Buenos Aires to the Iguazu Falls, the wine producing region of Mendosa to the pampas and Patagonia in the far south. Argentina has a population of about 40 million very culturally and racially mixed. With its 23 provinces Argentina is the eighth biggest country. It became independent in 1816. Its currency is the Argentine Peso worth 5 pesos to the Canadian dollar.

There are 44 Rotary Clubs in Argentina. His sponsoring club is the Rotary Club of Parque Chacabuco in Buenos Aires with 32 members with an average age of 58.

Francisco was thanked by Elizabeth Anderson.