This was our first change over meeting conducted by Zoom.  President Joanne's Rotary year was a success under challenging conditions due to Covid 19.

The year started out normally and changed in March.  Despite the challenges of figuring how to hold a meeting by Zoom under Joanne's leadership the club did not go dark, but thrived in new ways.  

 

Under the success column Joanne's leadership resulted in 1) a success youth exchange with Duda who charmed everyone with her enthusiasm for exploring her host country; 2) start up of a new Interact club at Central and continuing support for the existing Interact club and Rotaract clubs; 3) Work on a satellite club focusing on the Hispanic community; 4) ongoing strong community support including, dictionaries, science fair, backpacks, pancakes at White Oaks Public School and a project of significance to upgrade the WOPS library with new furniture and books, turkeys to NGOs for distribution to provide food security, and more 5) continuing international support for Days for Girls, Sleeping Children and others, 6) Strong fundraising under difficult conditions for ECKP, Internet auction, Christmas ornaments, and golf; 6)  meeting and exceeding our goals for the Rotary Foundation's annual giving [more than double our goal] and beating our polio goal.

 

 

 

Under Joanne's leadership we all pulled together and stayed together-  THANKS FOR A GREAT YEAR and helping us to stay connected.

 

 

 

Nancy Howard presented information about ELUCO and the programs provided to the East London and the impact of these programs on low income community members. East London has high levels of unemployment and poverty.  ELUCO advocates for affordable housing, food stability, affordable transpiration and good schools.

 

Among the programs they offer for children and families are Growing Chefs, family story time, books and crafts, reading buddies, mad scientist, baby sitting courses, Christmas and pumpkin carving.  A special post secondary scholarship has been successful and several graduates have launched ther careers with the help of ELUCO.

 

 

 

Our May 29th meeting featured Ubong Umoh from TechAlliance.  TechAlliance is part of the Regional Innovation Centre and helps Tech companies start up or improve their business through training, counselling, and collaboration.  There are 150 active clients who are learning a range of skills such as "the 60 second pitch", Entrepreneur 101, and peer engagement.  They are moving from the innovation park to a new location downtown.

 

At our May 1st meeting Jon Deactis brought us up-to-date with the programs the pandemic have put under additional  pressure.  The Centre of Hope is not just a shelter it provides extensive services to people who come to it for help.  As a shelter it is the largest in London.  A list of the services is shown below this story.  At the same time that the Centre is under pressure for services, it is facing a financial challenge because of its aging building-the roof needs replacing, the elevator has problems and the building is just old.  The Centre provide needed service to the most vulnerable in London.

We held our first zoom based club meeting on 27 March and shared ideas about how to help in the community during the COVID shutdown.  Sargent at Arms David managed to extract a few virtual bucks. 

David Knoppart and Dr. Aman Rai from the Hyde Park Rotary Club presented an overview of their medical clinic trip to Nicaragua.  On the "Commit to Nicaragua " trip they worked on medical clinics to help remote villages with health issues such as dealing with diabetes, high blood pressure, and other medial issues.  Dental clinics, vision care, hearing care, educational issues and community agricultural development were also part of the mission.

 

An additional program was part of the trip was to encourage building simple cinder block stoves for cooking and eliminating cooking on open fires.  Smoke from this type of cooking causes chronic lung conditions and other medical problems.  The Rotary Club of Hyde Park is working on a grant proposal to develop 250 stoves for this part of the country.  David outline the grant proposal and welcomed our help.

 

Our club effort to better serve the Hispanic community in London was kicked off with presentations at the Byron Library by club members and follow up presentations Starbucks.  Both meeting were well attended by interested individuals.  Continuing discussion are planned with participants determining if they want to set up a Satellite Club or join the Rotary Club of London South as members.

Cheryl Fin, GM of Tourism London, told us the importance of tourism to the London economy. Visitors to London spend $831 million for same day and overnight stays.  There are 8,537 jobs associated with tourism (3% of London employment).  The visitor centres handled  of 20,000 transactions each year.  There are four main areas of tourism the city focuses on: experiential tourism, conventions, culture and entertainment, and sports tourism.  Recent wins in each of these areas were: experiential tourism/ Unlocked and Inspired 3.0 Conventions/The Association of Municipal ties of Ontario, Culture and Entertainment / Junos  Sport tourism / Continental Cup of Curling.

 

Tourism London is rebranding and the new look of the Wellington Rd. centre is an example of the new brand look.

On Valentine's Day, our Brazilian sweetheart, Eduarda Mendoca Dercy fondly known as Duda, gave an excellent presentation of her home country and specifically the city of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim where she is from in the southeast state of  Espírito Santo,  We learned about Duda's family and friends, career aspiration to become a doctor and her favourite Brazilian foods.

We were treated to an entertaining and informative talk by Dr. Darryl Gopaul about microbiology.  Darryl explained the nature and location of various forms of bacteria found on the human body and how they spread.   He outlined the nature of bacteria, how they interact with viruses and how some are helpful and some are harmful.  Slides of the actual bacteria were shown and some anecdotes were used to help us understand the nature of some of the bacterial function.  Among the bacteria he explained were tetanus, e. coli, and strep.

 

 

Over this Rotary year we have engaged in providing the White Oaks Public School Library with upgrades the school could not otherwise afford.  Some of the upgrades include furniture, carpeting, and bilingual books in Arabic/English.  Below are some pictures of equipment we have purchased.

Moria McKee, Owner and operator of Excavo Art Gallery explained the focus of her gallery in supporting up coming artist in London and beyond.  She also explained her role in appraisal of art.  Appraisals are conducted in a different fashion depending on the purpose of the appraisal.  Appraisal for insurance purposes is different from estate appraisals.  However, determining value either for replacement (insurance) or market value (estate) starts with finding comparable works recently sold or auctioned.  Moria also advises collectors in art selection for purchase.