The time has come for my final outgoing remarks. It has been a fun, active and certainly a rewarding year. In preparation, and because my memory is not what it use to be, I read the bulletins for the year to remind me of all of the highlights. They were many and they brought back fond memories of all the good work we have achieved. We have made a difference in the lives of many people this year by putting “Service above Self” in everything we do. Thank you to all members for your contribution this year.
 
Click the title for the full report.
 
I cannot thank you enough, my Board of Directors, for your contributions through comments, suggestions and advice at our monthly meetings. Many thanks to Alana, Andrew, Larry, Sharon, Rod, Audrey-Jo, Joanna, Ryan, Al, Kevin, Les, and Ted.  Thanks to Ron Ross for doing our bulletins and Laurie for being the backup. Thanks to Matt Redmond and Jim Goit for your editing and publishing skills. Jim Goit was behind many for the articles and stories on our Website. While reading the bulletins I was struck by the diversity and interesting speakers that we had this year. Many thanks to Meg MacDougall for doing this challenging role.
 
This year preparations started for the District Convention we will be holding in 2016. Laurie and Brian are the co-chairs and Kevin Quinlan is chairing the “Program Committee”. Many meetings have taken place by the committees during the year and Laurie and Brian will be providing us with an update with details in July. To date, 36 Club members are involved in the convention and we will need all hands on deck. Jim Goit will be starting his official duties as District Governor of 7820 shortly, and I wish him much success.
 
Our year started out with an incredible Summer Social hosted by Richard and Maralyn Bowness at their summer home at Shortt’s Lake. Earlier in the day we had our Rotary hats on. Laurie organized the “Swim for Polio” across Shortt’s Lake to raise money for Polio Plus. It was a tremendous success with 13 swimmers taking part. I wasn’t the last to finish, but close to it. We raised +/-$3,400. and with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation matching contribution 2-1, this resulted in over $10,215. in total being contributed. Thanks to all who participated. Well done.
 
This year we started the vocational 5-minute talks. This gave members the opportunity to discuss their professions and what things were evolving or changing over time. Overall I believe these presentations are/were educational and gave us additional insights into our fellow members. Thanks to Rod for organizing and leading this initiative.
 
Early in the year we provided a $7,500. donation to the Bright Skies Day Camp and $5,000. to become the presenting sponsor for the Rotary House Golf Challenge. At the Oct. 2nd event, they raised $32,000. to go toward the CCWF. As usual the two Rotary Teams were the highest fundraising teams. Our own Dave Mills was again the highest fundraising individual that day. As presenting sponsor, we were given the opportunity to address the teams at the closing dinner. This gave us the opportunity to promote and educate the audience about Rotary.
 
From September 30th-Oct 1st, we hosted a Friendship Exchange from Vancouver/Washington State. Christine Blair organized an excellent program for these visitors. Thanks to Jim &Barb, Mark & Christine, Kevin & Sharon along with Gloria and I who hosted these Rotarians.
 
In September Meg MacDougall, family and friends were organizing the “Big Bike” ride to happen in September. Thanks to all members who supported her.  
 
This year we added another fundraiser in the form of “Bollywood Night”. Om and Meena Khanna and friends approached us to do an Indian Dinner fundraiser with proceeds to go to CCW ($2,500.) and Maggie’s Place ($2,500).  They prepared some of the food and sold half of the tickets. The event was sold out (310 tickets) three weeks before the event and raised just under $5,000. A second annual event is planned for September 2015.
 
In August, Eric Roy came to our club and talked about his experience as our exchange student while in Belgium. He said, ”His positive experience has made him a different person”.
 
In 2014-2015, we were fortunate to get two District Grants for $1,500. each. One for $1,500. was to assist the CCW with the expansion of a kitchen at the Young Street Variety. Along with a matching contribution from our Club they were able to buy a Commercial Stove and fridge. The second was provided to us to purchase additional medical supplies to fill the container we were sending to Haiti.  Audrey-Jo and Ryan spent countless hours on this project and thank you for your strong efforts. The equipment was  taken from the old Truro hospital and later loaded in a container thanks to Rotarians, our Interact and a Boy Scout troop (compliments of Matt).  Mike Hanes was instrumental in providing advice and in making arrangements for the shipment of the container.
 
This year we were the first Club in our District to get a Global Grant for $5,000. to ‘Repair a School-Build a Community’ in Befang NW Cameron. Lydia lead this project and got not only the District Grant, but partnered with Hands-Up to get Rotary International Grants. Lydia recently also updated us on 5-6 projects we had been involved in over the last several years. Many thanks Lydia for your caring and compassion.
 
Again this year we supported 20 participants to Camp Tidnish with a contribution of +/- $12,000.
 
The Fall Social was held at the home of Laurie and Mike Sandeson. There was great food, fellowship and a wagon ride enjoyed by all.
 
On September 29th, Stella Roy, our District Governor, did her annual visit. She was impressed with the club and our activities. She enjoyed the tour of CCW and Maggies’s place.
 
Richard Bowness organized a Rotary team of Mos and Bros for Movember and raised $+/-$3,400. for the cause.  We were highlighted in the Truro Daily News for the 4 weeks. Will anyone forget Mark’s candy cane mustache?
 
During this year we “Incorporated” the Rotary Club of Truro. This involved a lot of work, but well worth it as we do not want members to be personally liable for any debts or possible actions against our Club. Many thanks to Wayne for updating our by-laws to be included in the “Articles of Incorporation”. Thanks to Larry, we started a payments program for our website. Thanks to Matt Redmond for getting it up and running. We had a good turnout for the Rotary Institute Training in Truro. There were 7 participants in Leadership 1, 2 or 3 program.
 
Dec. 5th of 2014 was a sad day for our Club. Our longest serving and beloved Rotarian, Lorne MacDougall passed away. He had been a Rotarian for 69 years, was President in 1951-1952 and received many Club and Rotary International Awards. He is sadly missed by us, his family and the community he served. He was known by all to be ‘a true gentleman’.
 
Before Christmas we also donated $1,600. to a Uganda School for girls, we donated $5,000. to Christmas Index and $1,000. to MADD Canada to make a high School presentation. Women in our Club formed a 4 person Team to participate in the successful “100 Women who Care”. They have donated $15-17,000. quarterly to causes in our community.
 
The Christmas breakfast had one of the best turnouts in many years. Santa Ed was his usual “jolly” self and entertained both children and adults. The Christmas Social was again hosted by Barb Reynolds who did a great job. Our carol singing again went viral.
 
In December Mark Mason promoted and received winter garments for the exchange students at the Dalhousie Agricultural campus. It was a big success and thanks to Rotarians who donated.  
 
This year Larry worked on an initiative to improve the meeting agenda. This also included giving the speaker the option to speak at the beginning of the end of the agenda. Good work on this Larry.
 
On Feb. 19 we had our Charter Night. This was well organized by Al and well attended. The Recognition Committee headed by Ken MacDonald did a great job in selecting the award winners.
 
·        Community Service Award- David Wilson (came late as he was out skiing)
·        Rotarian of the Year- Alana Hirtle
·        5 Avenues of Service Award- Lydia Sorflaten
 
That night 5 members received their Paul Harris Fellow- Richard, Kevin, Les, Ted and I (both Ted and I for the first time).
 
After the Homeless Outreach Society (Philip Quigley) spoke at our Club, Mike volunteered to organize a Rotary Team for the “Coldest Night of the Year” walk. It happened on Feb. 21st with 8 members participating and raising $1,213. Out of 79 locations in Canada having this walk, Truro ranked 10th in terms of fundraising totals.
 
On Feb. 28th, we held the 2nd Annual Rotary A$k at the Marigold Centre. There were 23 registered and we heard 21 presentations. In the end we made donations to 16 needy individuals and organizations for +/-$21,000. This was started by Al in his year as President and gives us an opportunity to help organizations that may not have seeked our help otherwise.
 
Thanks to Barb who organized our Adventures in Citizenship this year. The successful student this year was Megan Nielson of SCA. Megan has been our Interact President at SCA for the past 3 years. She has grown the Club from 6 to 21 members. She will be making a presentation to the club on her experiences in Ottawa at our July 6, 2015 meeting. This year two of our Interact members from CEC attended the District Convention in Halifax and came back to our Club to talk about their experiences (they were Grade 11 students Shirley and Adele).
 
At one of our recent meetings Richard Haines was presented, by Joanna, with our Youth Leadership Award for 2015. We also presented him with a $1,500. donation to the Cobequid Special Olympics for their new Fundamentals Program (for 6-14 year olds at the cougar Dome). Richard has been involved with that organization for 15 years in many roles from a coach to now overall leader of the organization.  He was extremely excited and referred at one point to this being like winning an “Academy Award”.
 
We followed our 2014-2015 Strategic Plan and met most of our objectives. The 2013-2016 Strategic Plan still has one year remaining and Kevin will be reviewing to make any changes. During District Conference we were one of 4-5 Clubs that received the Presidential Citation for the successful work of our Club.
Our two major fundraisers (i.e. on-line auction and yearbook) enabled on-going support to community groups, international development initiatives and to individuals requiring special needs assistance.
 
Thanks to Dave, Keith and Larry for yearbook and Kevin for the Auction (report from Kevin to follow).We are so proud of Rotary House and the various programs available to assist individuals who are intellectually challenged. In addition to on-going support to the Colchester Community Workshops, we reached out to many organizations and individuals that needed help. We had a budget this year as follows:
 
Community                          
$47000
International                            
$15500
Vocational/New Generations
$10,500
Total                                                 
$73,000
 
According to the latest financial statements, we have spent $69,000 which leaves us $4,000 and enough to cover the $3,500 required for the High School Bursaries.  
 
At the District, Convention Kevin accepted the District Governor banner that will hang in our Club as home, of the District Governor. This will be the first time in more than 30 years that it will hang in our Club. Our District Convention will be from May13-15, 2016. This is a source of pride for us and again wish Jim and Barb a successful year.
 
Steve Gallant ran a successful RYLA Youth Leadership program this spring. There were 25 participants with 20 having portfolios to review. Steve was assisted by Ed, Rod, Matt, Mark and Marilyn. There were two students that received $500 scholarships for post-secondary education. As usual all of the members were impressed with the quality of the students participating.
 
Mike again led the “Highway Clean-up” at the Robie Street exchange. 70 bags of garbage were collected by 16 Rotarians.  Great effort and turn-out.
 
At our last meeting we had a presentation and discussion on the Children’s First Foundation/Christmas Index and we have a big decision to make on whether or not to take on this project. While there are details to be worked out, this project aligns with our mandate and must continue. In-coming President Kevin has said that the 5 Rotarians that would be Board members or Committee members could only have this project as their role in the club. I believe we need to find a way to take on this project. I hope you feel the same.
 
I am pleased we were able to be the lead sponsor again this year for the Rotary House Golf tournament and have a motion before the club to continue this for an additional 3 years. 
 
I want to thank all of the committee heads for their work this year. Not mentioned earlier were – Brian for leading the Rotary Foundation, Marilyn for the Membership Committee, Les for Northwood in Touch, Mark for Literacy, Lydia for Interact, Adam for Attendance/IT/Bulletin and  Judy for Socials.
 
Our membership has stayed fairly steady and grew by two members to 61. We had 6 new members this year and included Ted Barnhill, Jaime Blaauwendraat, Mike Dolter, Catherine Graham, Martina Munden and Matt Redmond. We have three “Honorary Rotarians” for the coming year. Renewal for Clyde Weldon and the addition of Lloyd Coady and Grant Langford. Congratulations.
 
At their AGM on June 23rd, 2015 the CCWF will be presenting the Rotary Club of Truro with the Eleanor Norrie Award. The annual Eleanor Norrie Award is presented to recognize extraordinary contributions for the betterment of the lives of the individuals of the Colchester Community Workshop. I will be accepting on our behalf and encourage other members to attend.
 
Thanks to Kevin for having my back, Ted for great job as secretary and Les for being a great Treasurer. Thanks to Al and Jim for being a sounding board and giving me advice and direction when needed.
 
We were not successful in getting a Roteract Club at Dal AC, but that was not without effort by many members.
 
Thank you to all for your support over the past year and for giving me the opportunity to lead our Club. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as President and I wish incoming President Kevin and his new executive team continued success.
 
Jim Gould
President 2014-15
 
 
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