Meeting minutes September 17

Wood Show:

  October 3/4/5 at the Woodstock Fairgrounds.  Please sign up to volunteer your time selling golf balls for our Drive for Polio Eradication.

Terry Fox Run:

  Thanks to all those who came out on Sunday September 14th and volunteerd your time.  A special thanks to Norm and Helen Narancsik who have been organizing this event for many years.  We had 38 runners, and around $7277.00 was raised plus the pledges that were done online.  Helen and Norm would like to pass this program on to a few willing volunteers.  Please talk to Norm.

Remembrance Day November 11th:  Jantine will lay the wreath at the Legion that day.

Drive For Polio Eradication:

  Rama reported that sales are going very well.  We anticipate having 400 dozen golf balls sold after the Wood Show is complete.  Thanks to all our volunteers and their spouses who helped out during the Farm Show.  The Best Seller and Pitch Award goes out to Peter VanWees!  In 2 events (Sidewalk Days and the Farm Show) we're sold about 300 dozen golf balls.  After the Wood Show we hope to be at $6700.00 profit.

Curling Club:

The curling club needs volunteers. This will only cost you $100.00, plus VIP access for one week in the early new year. Speak to Norm to get all the information.

Polio Update: The first disbursement from the Bill Gates Foundation has been completed. They inoculated 170 million children in India against polio.

SPECIAL DATES

October 1, 2008

- Mark this day on your Rotary calendar. District Governor Norm Bindon will be coming to our club. Invite your spouses and please attend this Rotary Meeting.

October 17 & 18

- is the District Conference! Please register and attend this conference! Last years conference was very worthwhile. We were thinking about having a booth there to promote our Drive for Polio Eradication, so if we do we will need some volunteers to man the booth.

Fines, Happy & Sad Bucks:

Erik was our Fines Master for the evening.
Rama - fined for convincing Manon to tell Erik his custom made driver was stolen during his yard sale

Keith - happy buck that Joan's cast has been removed

Jack - happy buck that his canoe didn't tip during the youth exchange canoe trip

Doug - fined for his VIP parking spot, and happy buck for receiving a leadership award from D.K. Lee

Speaker for the Evening:

Tonight we had Jordan Bryson, our outbound exchange student for 2007-2008 speak about her trip to Brazil. Jordon is currently back at St. Mary's High School completing her last year. After her return from Brazil in late June, she attended summer school, been on some holidays, and jumped back into the high school life.

Jordan made a very beautiful slide show presentation about her travels in Brazil. She learned to be conversational in the Portuguese language in about 6 months time. Brazilian Portuguese is not the same as Portugal Portuguese we've been told. Brazil is the 5^th largest country in population. Her home was the North Eastern state in Brazil. The beach that was nearest to her home was shark infested. Everyone went there to tan, but not to swim. In her school, there was about 400 students between the ages of 4 and 17 years old. They wore uniforms that consisted of a t-shirt and jeans. The temperatures there were very warm, so you can imagine it would be hot to wear jeans all day. Jordon also took an art class at the University during her spare time. Carnival was her favourite part of this experience. Carnival is a four day period before lent that leads up to Ash Wednesday. Her family took her to all different festivities during this time and they all had matching family costumes that changed daily.
Jordon visited many tourist attractions, and one beautiful one was Iguazu Falls. The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 2.7 kilometers of the Iguazu River bordering Argentina and Brazil. The pictures she took of these falls were awesome.

The Amazon was also a highlight of her trip. They ventured out on three double decker boats. 30 kids I believe each on 2 boats, and their food on the 3^rd boat. They slept on hammocks on the second floor of the boats. What an adventure! They lived on these boats for 10 days. She also told us that there are more than 100 uncontacted tribes in this world and most are from Brazil and Argentina. They got to visit some tribes and met freshwater dolphins during this time.
As you may guess, soccer is perhaps a lifestyle in Brazil. She went to many of her favourite team's games. One thing that she taught her family about was Halloween. She dressed up with her younger host sister, and gave out candy to all the neighbours. She then took her sister trick-or-treating to teach her someone about what we do here.
There are more stories and places that Jordon talked about but you're going to have to email her or give her a call if you'd like to learn more about her trip!
Thank you Jordon for being such a positive representative of Rotary during your youth exchange. We are proud of you and are confident you will cherish this trip in the years to come.

Host Family Needed:

Richard Holmes is in urgent need of another host family for his student from Thailand. His student has already arrived. Please contact him even if you are slightly interested. He would appreciate the support. Richard is with the Woodstock Rotary Club.

Meeting adjourned at 8:10 p.m.