Hybrid Meeting at: The National Club, Howland Room
Virtual Meeting Time: Members Segment Login Time: 12:00 Noon, Guests: 12:15pm to 1:15 PM
Topic: “Casino Rama, Past, Present and Future”
Host: Chris Snyder
Hybrid Meeting at: The National Club, Howland Room
Virtual Meeting Time: Members Segment Login Time: 12:00 Noon, Guests: 12:15pm to 1:15 PM
Chief Ted Williams is Ojibway from the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, a proud husband of 42 years and father of two. From humble beginnings, Ted’s early aspirations to make a difference led him to become a council member at age 25 and two years later became the youngest elected Chief of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation. He has held a successful career in real estate, and chaired the successful development of Casino Rama. Upon opening, he climbed the corporate ladder to become Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Human Resources at Casino Rama. Ted has been an entrepreneur for over 13 years as a consultant, guest speaker, and retail business partner. He is also a skilled chainsaw artist whose popular wooden bears can be found across the region. More recently, Ted made his return back into politics as Councillor for Rama First Nation during which he sat on various committees including the Ontario Parole Board. Now the Chief of Rama First Nation, Ted brings his wealth of experience in many areas to his role serving the community. Chief Williams and the Rama Reserve is playing a major role in the development of Misko Aki an exciting new cultural exhibition being created for opening in Gravenhurst in 2023
The May 10 Tuesday Talk will introduce you to a new and unique exhibition of Indigenous history and culture in Muskoka; Misko-Aki; Confluence of Cultures. HIP is enthusiastically endorsing the Misko-Aki exhibition and approach. Indeed, we think that this remarkable format sets a new standard for community recognition of indigenous history.
This is a new exhibit designed for the Muskoka Steamship and Discovery Center in Gravenhurst. Visitors to this new exhibit will experience the 10,000 year history of the Huron-Wendat, Anishinaabe, Metis and Mohawk people. The exhibition will take visitors on a virtual canoe trip through the culture, history and geography of our region. The featured speaker is Project Director, Tim Johnson, the award-winning designer of exhibits for the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution. Tim is Mohawk from the Six Nations community in Brantford, Ontario. We will focus on how Rotary Clubs can engage in this exciting new approach to indigenous history and apply it in your community.
We will hear from Tim Johnson, Project Director; Gary Getson, Board Chair; Rick McGraw, Director & Chair Revitalization Project; and Bill Empey, District 7070 Coordinator for Honouring Indigenous Peoples. This is a "not to miss" presentation.
The paint and carpentry crew chiefs are organizing the tasks and there are many. With no work done the last two years there are a lot of maintenance jobs to bring it back ready for the kids.
There is a job for everyone. Scraping, painting, even learning how to use power tools!
Come see how Trillium Funds and a major donor are transforming the camp.
Currently Camp Scugog is running nature camps and they are full.
If you can't make it up, donations are appreciated, same link.
Our Newest Club Builder - April 29
John Joseph Mastandrea
John Joseph Mastandrea is our latest Club Builder award recipient. The Club
Builder is awarded to Rotarians who have made a very real contribution to
our Club. Since 2006, John Joseph has been an active member on many fronts, organizing and participating in community, fundraising and fellowship initiatives.
He has been a member of Fundraising, International Service Committee, a Club Board Director - Liaison for Scholarship Committee and MarCom, active
volunteer at Steam Whistle, regular contributor to Camp Scugog, provided
space for mega events like feeding 2000 homeless people with Robin Hood Army Canada, and recently to our Kids Against Hunger drive. He has been a Chair of Community Service Committee and is our current Chair of International Service Committee.
Our mission is to provide access to essential services and promote social inclusion for children with special educational and physical needs throughout Kenya. We operate a special needs center and specialty medical program that provide life-changing therapy and medical care to hundreds of children in the Maai Mahiu area. We began with 9 special needs children and 3 female volunteers to give care to these children during the day as their mothers went to work.
We trained women how to sew to create jobs, empowering them, and helping them to have a voice in the community as they share about their children and other life challenges.
To honor our efforts and our dream, we got support to purchase land in late 2007. We bought 10 acres of land where we have planted thousands of trees.
In 2019 we were able to break ground to build the Children's Wellness Center. From 9 children at the start to the current 85, we hope that with this new facility fully operational, we will be able to serve over 2000 children annually.
Since 2008 we've held three medical camps a year with volunteer specialty doctors from Kansas and Texas. When travel restrictions were imposed in April of 2020, we quickly pivoted to meet the moment.
Affordable medication: We are committed to providing year-round medications for all pediatric patients, particularly those with epilepsy or similar neurological disorders. These medications are prohibitively expensive for almost everyone who needs them, so we will continue to subsidize the costs to provide them at a price based on a family's ability to pay.
Appreciation
We are so grateful for the support you have given our kids in providing these medications for the last 3 years. Special thanks to your member Cijay Shah.
Making a direct impact with Ukraine Aid – We have amassed over $140,000 for ShelterBox
ShelterBox is looking at providing both shelter within Ukraine for people who have been displaced and aid packages with essentials like blankets, solar lights, sleeping mats and so on, for refugees who make it out of the country. Our Rotary Toronto Charitable Foundation approved $15,000 plus matching towards this disaster relief via ShelterBox Canada. Significant donations were received from the Andras Family Foundation, other Rotary Clubs as well as patrons and staff of DMP Flowers & Gifts.
Check out ShelterBox Canada Executive Director Stephanie Christensen's Facebook video with CNN, reporting from Moldova.
Monarchy and our First Indigenous Governor General
May 18, 2022
Ask Me Anything President's Cocktails
National Club, 6:00 pm
May 20 and May 27
NO MEETINGS!
Our District Conference is back live!
Be a Driver for Change
with District Governor Ron Dick
The upcoming District Conference is from May 13 to 15 at the Courtyard by Marriott in Oshawa. Our Club will be hosting a hospitality suite at the conference. It is a wonderful opportunity to meet Rotarians from our 54 clubs and exchange experiences. The organizers have created a fabulous program for expanding our knowledge and also entertainment.
All you have to do is go to Linktr:ee/RotaryToronto and you will be connected to our club’s landing page. You can buy a ticket in $5, $10 or $20 increments. The winners are posted weekly on the website and depending on your tickets and the card you choose you may win the weekly draw prize or even the jackpot.
Our club receives $0.85 for every $5 purchase, $2.95 for every $10 purchase and $7.15 for every $20 purchase.
With Covid still affecting us this is one way to help our club.
