President-Elect: John Fortney Vice-President: Prince Kumar
Treasurer: Rick Goldsmith
Executive Director: Carol Hutchinson
RI President
Mark Maloney, Decatur, Alabama
District Governor
Beth Selby, RC of Cobourg
Editor of the week: Don Bell
June 19, 2020 National Indigenous Day Lunch
NATIONAL INDIGENOUS PEOPLE'S DAY
Guest Speakers: Alain Bartleman
First Nation's Governments and Individuals Lawyer
Topic: Power, Pipelines and Peoples: the Three Levels of Government in Canada.”
Host: The Rotary Club of Toronto's Indigenous Service Committee
Alain Bartleman is a member of Rama First Nation, a lawyer and is comfortable assisting clients in French and English. He is the son of Former Lt-Gov. James Bartleman who spoke to our club several times.
The event will honour the traditions and the struggles of Canada’s First Nations. If you are confused and want to know about the history, relationship and jurisdiction of Indigenous chiefs, elected and hereditary and the provincial and federal governments you will want to tune into the virtual talk by Alain Bartleman.
What You Missed, June 12, 2020
By Sarah Hui
Brigitte and Glenn opened with the musical number Can You Feel the Love Tonight, a song from Disney’s animated film The Lion King. This song brings me back to my childhood which is fitting as today we welcome everyone to Rotary’s Youth Day Lunch!!
President Kevin Power kicked off the meeting to celebrate youth day and introduced the head table which included Winz Casagrande (our Let’s be Personal Speaker), John Forney (sponsor of our new member), Joseph Tubbs (our new member), Sarah Hui (member of our Youth and Children’s Committee and host to the guest speakers), Stacey Chikoto (President of the Rotaract Club of Toronto), Angela Chen (Co-President of the Rotaract Club of the University of Toronto) and Amna Majeed (Co-President of the Rotaract Club of the University of Toronto). At today’s lunch we also had Reema Gowani, the District Rotaract Representative in attendance.
Winz shared her Rotary journey starting from when she was 17 and attended her first Rotary Club of Toronto meeting at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. It was at this moment that she took a keen interest in Rotary and in 1996 joined the club. Through her personal and career journey she has formed strong connections with Rotary not only locally but internationally. Rotary has been in her life every step along the way, in good and bad times.
Joseph Tubbs is the second member who is joining the club virtually. He first joined Rotary in Sault Ste. Marie and has actively worked in the community giving back.
Sarah Hui shared that the club philanthropic COVID-19 Review Committee approved the following youth focused grants:
Horizons for Youth: $10,000 to help cover the cost for compliance equipment and frontline worker salaries
Sketch Working Arts: $10,000 for technical equipment and materials
Youth Employment Services: $10,000 for cloud services certification
Lake Scugog United Church Camp: $5,000
The Presidents from the two Rotaract Clubs sponsored by the Rotary Club of Toronto then presented an overview of Rotaract, shared key projects and activities conducted by their club and spoke about the future of Rotaract.
Amna started by sharing that there are 10,094 Rotaract Clubs and 250,792 Rotaractors in over 184 countries globally. Rotaract stands for Rotary in Action. The university club is standing strong at 30 club members. Angela shared a timeline of the work that the university club has done and highlighted a couple key events. One of which was a workshop for networking and public speaking that was sold out. The club also introduced a new component to their meetings, discussions on various topics including mental health and time management to help students learn more about themselves.
Stacey shared that the community club has outgrown its old meeting space and is now meeting at The Blake House. It has approximately 60 club members. She highlighted some impressive statistics completed by the Rotaract Club of Toronto including 440 hours of volunteer work in the Community Service Committee. Some key projects include a ten week
minimal waste social media challenge, continued partnership with other Rotaract and Rotary Clubs during COVID-19,and a ShelterBox fundraiser where $1,200 was donated for a full ShelterBox. Stacey also talked about the club’s annual fundraiser where $3,500 was donated to Skylark Children, Youth & Families.
The first grant request submission to the COVID_19 relief committee was from our Environmental Service Committee for PACT Urban Peace and we granted $5,000 for their emergency fresh food box program. and
Our second grant request, submitted by our community service committee, was for their food and hygiene for the Homeless/COVID-19 relief program in the amount of $2,500. The Committee's Food and Hygiene Relief Program is conducted in partnership with Robin
When I was 17, Beverley Howson, Susan Howson’s father and a dear friend of my parents, took me to a Rotary meeting at the Royal York Hotel. I decided then and there, that this club had to be in my future.
And indeed, in 1996 I joined this club during Robert O’Brien’s presidency.
Why is Rotary important to me?
Rotary has allowed me to contribute in my modest way, to something much bigger than each one of us. Together we make a significant difference in so many people’s lives, each one of us a small, medium or big - cogwheel in this miracle machine called Rotary International.
The people who come together in Rotary are as diverse as can be, but we have a common set of values. Whether it’s been a week since my last meeting or a year, when I arrive, I am greeted with smiles, kindness and caring. And on my travels, Rotary is a safe haven in every city.
In 2009 my father died, his wife of 60 years – my mother, started drinking heavily and squandered their savings; 6 months later my husband left us; our children were 9 and 12 years old; and 6 months after that I was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer.
That is when I experienced the power of Rotary 1st hand:
Michelle Guy, Robert O’Brien, Kevin Power took over the legal challenges;
Chris Snyder stepped in on the personal finances, succeeded by Susan Howson;
Peter Naylor organized the move for my mother from Hamburg to TO;
John Fortney inspired me with his own story;
Geoffrey Johnson catered the end-of-chemotherapy party,
and so many others lent a helping hand, encouraged, supported and cared….
This is the power of Rotary at the most personal level.
I was born in Toronto and grew up, living half the year in Oakville and half the year near Hamburg in Germany. I completed schools on both continents – St. Clements here in TO.
At my parents’ request, I went to business school in Switzerland and hated it, but completed the degree. Then I studied architecture – my true passion – on a scholarship - until my father had a stroke and I was summoned to come home. I completed a Ph.D. in Law & Economics about international governance, then worked for Ernst & Young, where I eventually ran the Canadian Real Estate practice.
I was hired away by Royal Bank of Canada, where I was Global Head of Product & Market Strategy, Institutional Investor Services during their merger with Dexia Belgium.
Slowly but surely, I recognized that large corporations are not good for me and accepted an offer to build the governance practice for Sustainalytics, a TO/Amsterdam-based ESG rating boutique.
When I was looking for something else to build in 2016 a friend, who heads up breast cancer oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Centre, asked if I would help him commercialize a breast cancer diagnostic test he had developed. Given my history, I accepted without hesitation. We co-founded Delphi Diagnostics in Houston TX and are currently moving toward FDA approval. Along the way, I completed the Institute of Directors’ Director Education Programme
and served on a few Boards, most recently Park Lawn Corporation (TSX).
So, while Delphi took me away from our meetings for way too long, Rotary was never far.
And when Don Bell kindly asked me to present today, I welcomed the opportunity as an invitation to come home to Rotary.
New Member Joseph Tubbs
Joseph Tubbs was born in Toronto, and grew up in Mississauga Ontario. Joseph was an All-star basketball player in high school a 3X MVP, and received a basketball scholarship to Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops British Columbia; where he studied Bachelor of Tourism Management.
His father got a life-threatening work injury which made Joseph come back to Mississauga, where he coached his high school team to OFSSA. The following year he transferred to Algoma University where he played for the basketball team while studying Sociology.
Joseph’s mentor Jim Wilson (Rotarian), advised Joseph to join Rotary in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario in 2015 where Joseph demonstrated service above self. After Algoma University Joseph started a career working with high risk youth as a youth support worker for youth in the foster care system for 3 years.
Joseph then went to the Ontario College of Trades where he developed his skill trade; he worked two years as an apprentice, before becoming a Journey man in his skilled trade rebar, for his union LiUNA Local 183. Joseph works in the high rise sector building condominiums in the Toronto downtown area, developing Toronto’s infrastructure.
Joseph has a beautiful son 4 years old Shane Tubbs. Joseph also participates in the Fitness industry, where he has competed in shows such as: The Toronto Pro, and Arnold Sports festival, as an athlete.
Mary Bennett and Baby Maks
I hope this email finds you well on this sunny Wednesday morning. Maks and I are about to go out for our daily walk. Thankfully we live out in Mississauga now and are surrounded with lots of walking paths and little lakes. Things would have looked a little different had we stayed downtown considering the need to be socially distant. Maks continues to grow and grow. He just passed the 11 pound mark and we couldn't be prouder of his progress! He is starting to giggle and smiles all the time :) such a joy to be around!
A
Virtual Cooking Class
Once again Mardi and Neil have come through with another delightful recipe. As we move into summer the recipes are becoming lighter.
This was a simple pasta but the addition of arugula and feta made it special.
Neil expected this to be a six week event but it continues by popular demand.
Saturday night is a delightful hour. Make the dish earlier in the week or be preparing it as we meet.
Virtual Wine Club
guest author Sandhya Maidi, Governor-elect District 7080
It has been weeks of wine and great fellowship as part of the Rotary Club of Toronto’s Virtual Wine Club (VWC) under the tutelage of Past President and Past District Governor Neil Phillips. Now on the second leg of our journey, we’ve been having a ton of fun and learning lots. When given the outline of what this article needed to be, I was told by President Kevin to keep it less wordy than Neil is during the sessions but that wouldn’t be doing the experience justice so read on my friends.
I’ve had my fair share of wine but you can never know enough (or have enough). As part of the VWC Wave I, we had a small intimate group of about ten of us travel the world of wine without having to go much further than our kitchen table. We are now on to Wave II and I’ll tell you all about that in another article.
Wave I started in Australia in one of my favourite regions with a lovely Grenache from McLaren Vale in South Australia. There were two bottles of this in the curated case – there are now none left in my house! We then moved on to a spectacular Madeira from Portugal. The best part of week two was hearing from those that had actually been to Portugal about their experiences with winemakers in this region. I’m fortunate to still have some of this fortified wine in my collection and look forward to sharing it, in person, with friends sooner rather than later. Week three took us to France where we tried out a bright and joyous Beaujolais from the Juliénas cru appellation. Made from Gamay Noir it was right up my alley and we had a great time talking about the wine as well as the ties that Canada has to this renowned grape. Week four was spectacular and stinky! Off we went to Tenerife, the largest of the eight Canary Islands and as we learned, it has perfect grape growing conditions and terroir (who knew?!). We explored a 2017 vintage of 7 Fuertes together and I was fortunate to have on hand a 2016 vintage of the same. I noted earlier that this week was a tad stinky…by explanation it is because the 2017 has a nose of a pig pen at first. It fortunately opened nicely and I could get past the smell to the unique and distinctive taste.
As if having two bottles open at once wasn’t enough, there was a third from the Island which some of us had on hand to compare with – a fantastic week with far too much alcohol. Week five took us to Austria for a unique Grüner Vetliner. I was sort of dreading this one – whites and I aren’t always agreeable but my fears were unfounded and I was introduced to a grape that I look forward to enjoying again soon. We ended our six week tour of wine in Italy with a lovely little sweet one, a lively and fresh Dolcetto.
We’ve embarked on another tour as part of Wave II which has already taken us to Chile and we will be stopping in Canada next week before heading off back to Italy. Look forward to tales of these journeys soon.
A ton of credit goes to Neil for curating all the wines, storing them in his living room for pickup (sorry Mardi!) and sharing his time and expertise with us. While we are “on screen”, and in yet another Zoom meeting, I am truly grateful to be able to come together with great friends week after week to learn a little and laugh a lot!
Virtual Cocktails June 10, 2020
Most of us were able to enjoy our cocktails out of doors. Poor John Fortney was forced inside as the storm came in off Lake Huron. Lorna Johnson joined us from her fifth 'forever' home in Victoria. They are not quite unpacked - there is a bathtub in the living room!
F&E Activities
We are here for the long term so please join in. All events are listed on our Google Calendar accessible through your @rotarytoronto.com account or find the emails sent out in advance. Contact Maureen Bird to set up your access. 416-804-3726.
Saturday nights - Virtual Cooking Class - contact Neil Phillips for invitation
For The Love of Gardening, Tuesday June 16, 4 pm
Euchre with Jay Llave, Tuesday June 16, 5 pm
COVID-19 Talking Helps, Tuesday June 23, 7 pm
Virtual Cocktails, Wednesday June 24, 5:30 pm
Book Club, Thursday June 25, 2 pm
For The Love of Gardening, Tuesday June 30, 4 pm
RI and District Happenings
Rotary International Convention is Virtual this year! With travel restricted and dangerous the entire convention will be online from June 20 to June 26. This will be a unique opportunity for members around the world to participate. We expect far more will be able to join in than the 25,000+ who actually attend conventions in person.
