The Rotary Club Of Festival City

President:  Dianne Yundt

Minutes of the meeting of July 24, 2012

Club email:  festivalcityrotary@gmail.com

Club web blog: www.festivalcityrotary.blogspot.com

ClubRunner site: www.festivalcityrotary.ca

Guests: Pat Feryn, Bob Martin, Clark Mitchell, Geza Wordofa are from Stratford Rotary. Charlotte Coats is an outbound student to Norway. Jason and Donna West are guests of Jack West. Tessa Feryn is a guest of Jane Eligh-Feryn. Mirjam Schutt is a Rotary Exchange Student Counsellor. Samantha Bohlman and Laura Roulston are exchange students. Phanuwat Kongwattananon is our exchange student from Thailand.

Draw Prize: Geraldine Ketchum donated the prize won by Ron Rogers.

Announcements:

  1. Guatemala: On page 14 of this month’s issue of The Rotarian is an item about a medical mission in Guatemala. This is the mission to Chimaltenango and Quetzaltenango Jean Aitcheson participated in last November.
  2. Stratford Summer Music: Between Aug 14 and 19 the Culture Kids with steel pan drums from St Xavier’s Private Catholic School in Trinidad will be in Stratford.  Five families are required to host groups of 3-4 children with a chaperone.  Children are aged 7-11 and can sleep together to minimize bed requirements.  If you can billet a group please contact Lana Mau, Administrative Assistant at SSM at 519-271-2101 or email her at lmau@stratfordsummermusic.ca.  For more information about the school visit their website at www.stxavierstt.com
  3. Thank you letter: President Dianne read a letter from Heather Robitaille thanking our club for the welcome she and her husband received during their visit last week.
  4. District Governor Challenge “Focus on Participation”: to participate in this year’s challenge download the form from the district website. Click on “District Site” at the top of the clubrunner home page to find the download on the District site.
  5. Stratford Rotary Scholarship: To celebrate the club’s 90th anniversary it will be offering an annual $2500 scholarship to a student studying Digital Media at the University of Waterloo Stratford Campus. A celebratory dinner is being held on Wednesday September 26 at the Arden Park Hotel.  Keynote speaker will be Arlene Dickinson from “The Dragon’s Den”. Tickets are $75 per person and can be purchased online at www.rotarystratford.com 

Guest Speaker: Mirjam Schutt introduced Nu, our exchange student from Thailand. Mirjam described Nu as a quiet boy of 15 when he arrived.  Over the past year Nu as become an outgoing person who is interested in everything about Canada. 

Nu is from the city of Udon Thani in northeast Thailand, a city of about 400 000 people. Nu reminisced about his year in Canada. Arriving from a country of 65 million where the lowest temperature is 10oC to a very big country where the cold came as a surprise. Nu described some of the differences between Canadian students and those in Thailand. Back home students spend Friday and Saturday evenings studying rather than socializing as Canadian students are prone to do. Canadian food preferences also required an adjustment in his diet which at home contains a lot of rice. Nu thanked his host families and the many friends he made in the last year. He definitely intends to come back to Canada.

To finish his talk Nu showed a video he made of his year in Canada and recent cross Canada tour with other exchange students. The group started their month long adventure in PEI before travelling on to Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, and Niagara Falls. The tour took them to Ottawa on Canada Day where Nu appeared on the CBC National News.  A three day train trip took the group to Calgary. Visits to Banff, Jasper, Vancouver, Victoria and finally Saltspring Island finished his journey. It was during a swim on the island that Nu had to be rescued by two Swiss exchange students when the cold water prevented him from completing his swim. A highlight of his trip is a photo of Nu and a group of rather underdressed boys on a mountain top. A moment he will always remember.

Nu was thanked by Sam Theocharis.