Today’s meeting was our AGM and, as is usual for our AGM’s, attendance was very good.
We welcomed Brian Edwards from Edmonton and DG of District 5370. Brian described the support Rotary Foundation has provided to the recovery in Jasper. In addition, donations of $60K were received from several other clubs and they’re continuing to work with the Jasper Rotary club, working towards longer-term development of the community for things like mental health services, children services and things that often fall through the cracks when you have an emergency response.
Alberta used to be District 536. It split into 5360 and 5370 . When Brian became Governor, he wanted to make sure that he had a clear role for his District and that he had a strategic plan and action plan. Dan Doherty was a tremendous help to him. He will engage a little bit more in the future because this is an ongoing process.
Linda Anderson introduced Chris and Alice Estrella to our club members and inducted them into Rotary. Welcome to you both.
Our Secretary, Malcolm Harrison, called the AGM to order, confirming a quorum was present. He will be minuting this meeting, and the draft AGM notes will be posted in Club Runner. Therefore, the presentations by each Director are not recorded here, with the exception of information of a more general nature. And besides, there was no way I could keep up with the amount of material being presented.
Note that the “person” in the following may bounce between first and third as I did a number of cut and pastes from a transcribed audio recording. Much of the following is captured in this manner
President Rod expressed his appreciation for the hard work so many of us do via many diverse projects and administrative tasks. I think we all appreciate it and it’s so great to see such high attendance here.
Linda Anderson reported the members of her committee work hard to tell her at least to work and the fellowship ladies keep working on projects for us. In case you don’t know who they are and you want to join, although they’re pretty exclusive, we have Philippa, Marie Rickard, Debbie McMillan, and Barbie Haines. Marie says we raised enough money in Santa’s Sleigh to support two families. Thank you very much.
Terry‘s involved in our participation in Bingo as a fundraiser. We have our first club bingo on December 29 at The Grey Eagle and we have one every month thereafter. Contact Terry if you wish to volunteer. It’s a lot of fun, says Tim Anderson.
There have been a couple of switches in the youth committee.
Ning Zhang is a fairly new member of our club and our youth committee. She’s going to be taking over inbound student coordination next year and she’s shadowing the current inbound counsellor. Debbie McMillan will take over as District liaison to our exchange officer position.
The International Grant Committee (IGC) might want to negotiate with Martin to grab some of his LCS money. We have money in the account as we begin each year, but a significant portion of our granting funds don’t become available until early or late spring, which creates project approval difficulties.
The club decided that we would become involved with a Rotary organization called Rotary YYC. Project applications come in from organizations and are reviewed by the coordinators for the various clubs to determine if we are prepared to take a bite of the project. If you have 45 minutes a month that you could donate to evaluating the applications that come in through YYC as Calgary West’s representative, please advise Garfield.
Gord Cox has graciously agreed to take the lead on our website.
December 23rd is our Christmas meeting. We have three ministers coming: a Rabbi, an indigenous minister from the Stony reserve and an Anglican minister, presenting the Christmas story through the lens of three different people. Bring your spouse and guests.
At the Singapore convention, our Canada/Calgary uniforms needed to be delivered there in a very timely manner. Thank you to Brian Edwards for his help in making that happen.
Linda Anderson noted the presence of a large box in the Grey Eagle lobby today She asked the lovely lady at the front desk what it was for. She’s going to let her know, unsure of whether it’s for donations to our food bank, the indigenous food bank, or the veterans’ food bank, but it’s going to be there next week, so she will send out a notice about the third week of giving.
Nomination of the following members to the following positions were approved
- President Elect 2026-2027: Donald Edie
- Service and Grants 2026-2027: Kurt Schurer
- Treasurer 2026-2027: David Wartman
Vacant Positions: Looking for members to join the BOD in these roles
- Club Services
- President Elect Nominee
Board Members staying on for next year: Rod McMahon (Past President), Malcolm Harrison (Secretary), Orlin McMillan (Youth Services), Garfield Ganong (Fund Raising), Linda Anderson (Membership)
Service Director: There are four key areas of Club Service:
- Website and Club Runner Committee: Chris Ritter (2 Openings)
- Social Media and Club Relations: Vacant (2-3 openings)
- Weekly Meeting Co-ordinator: Chris Ritter (2 openings)
- Programming
Meeting adjourned shortly after 1:00pm. And that concludes a rather slap shot summary.