Minutes of the Meeting of October 8, 2008

Wood Show:   It was a wonderful weekend at the Wood Show.  They sold about $3427 of golf balls for or Drive For Polio Eradication campaign.  We've made about $14,000 so far minus our expenses.  That can purchase an awful lot of vaccines!  We've exceeded our goals and ran out of supplies.

Group Study Exchange:  The group from Australia arrives on Saturday.  There will be 6 people coming for 6 days.  They will join us next week for our weekly meeting.

Call For Nominations:   For the next 4 weeks we will be accepting nominations for Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and 2 Directors.

Wim Duizer was nominated for Vice President.

District Conference:  The District Conference is in Brampton on the weekend of October 18^th.  Some of us will be displaying our Drive For Polio Eradication campaign.  Please join us, we can carpool from Woodstock and if you don't want to go up on Friday night, you can go up for the day Saturday.  There are always interesting speakers and you come back with new ideas for the club.

United Nations:   We are invited to attend a Rotary United Nations weekend in New York.  We will be meeting with the Canadian Ambassador at the UN and be able to tour the premises.  Please let Doug Vincent know ASAP if you plan to attend.  You will need to get security clearance in advance.  This will be the weekend of November 8^th.

Guest Speaker

Our guest speaker tonight was Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik.  Anne-Marie is originally from the Woodstock area, and attended Huron Park Secondary School in Woodstock.  She is a family physician with 3 kids, and has been married for 23 years.  She is a local and international AIDS activist, and the founder of the Masai Centre in Guelph.  The Masai Centre is a community-based outpatient clinic offering holistic and compassionate care and treatment for those living with HIV/AIDS.  The clinic is client and family centered and emphasizes a continuum of care.  Clinic Staff help people living with HIV/AIDS address the many complex health and social/emotional needs they face. 

This testimony from her website www.masaicentre.ca sums up what Anne-Marie talked about.  Please check out her website for more information.

..I believe we have a responsibility as privileged Canadians to assist those in our International Community who are in need. There are over 30,000,000 people infected with HIV/AIDS in Africa. Sixty percent of them are women. Eight million are between the age of 15 and 24. The disease is wiping the continent bare of entire generations of parents, teachers, factory workers, shop keepers, farmers and professionals, leaving 15 million AIDS orphans and vulnerable children. Without a massive response, eight African countries are at risk of extinction in the next decade.

One of the countries in greatest need is Lesotho, Africa. There are two million people living in Lesotho and an estimated 320,000 are infected with HIV. The Masai Centre is spearheading Ontario's part of an urgently needed global humanitarian effort through the Masai for Africa Project. Partnering with Stephen Lewis, the Ontario Hospital Association and the Ontario Hospital's for Africa (OHAfrica)  project, our  initial goal is to raise $1,000,000  to help support the Tsepong Clinic and the over 6,000 patients it services through 2010. Monies raised after this will be used to develop and sustain sister clinics across Lesotho offering care to thousands more affected by the disease.

To date, the citizens of Guelph and the surrounding area have raised over $1,000,000 in support of this cause and I am now asking the rest of the province to join me in helping to save tens of thousands of lives in Lesotho. I would like to challenge people across this province from every place of work, school, church, service organization, neighbourhood and home to join in this fundraising initiative. If we accept this challenge, we can accomplish what governments, International Financial Institutions and world leaders have failed to do: we will save a country from extinction.

One practical way you can help is by bringing the Bracelet of Hope Campaign to your community. The campaign, developed by compassionate students at the University of Guelph, has commissioned the Inina Craft Agency, a consortium of South African women affected by the AIDS pandemic, to produce red and white bracelets. The women of Inina state that the white beads represent the HIV orphans and widows of Africa, the red beads represent the HIV virus. Red and white are the colours of the Canadian flag and will represent the compassion each Canadian has for Africa.

One African woman can make 50 bracelets each day which earns enough income to feed her children and the orphans in her care for two months and keeps these children in school for the same period of time. Canadians who donate $5 to receive a bracelet help these women sustain their families and their communities while contributing to the Masai for Africa project in its efforts to sustain and build HIV clinics across Lesotho and South Africa. Presently 100 women have employment because of this campaign. If every Canadian purchased just one bracelet we would not only raise $150,000,000 to fight this pandemic, but would be able to provide employment for many more women in need.

Paul Turner thanked Anne-Marie for speaking so passionate about her work and,

Anne-Marie received a certificate of appreciation for all the work she does against Aids and the Rotary Club will donate $1000.00 in her name, which may become $6000.00 with Rotary matching grants, to the Rotary Aids Orphan program

Thank you Anne-Marie for coming out tonight.  You are very passionate about your project and we wish you continued success. 

Next Week
Join us next week Wednesday October 15 as our Group Study Exchange from Australia will be our guest speakers!