Voice, March 5, 2021 -2 (Mar 05, 2021)

The Rotary Club of Toronto

Club 55 - Founded 1912

March 5, 2021 Volume 108 Issue 24

Officers:

President: John Fortney

President-Elect: Prince Kumar
Vice-President: Jayson Phelps

Treasurer: Kurt Kroesen

Executive Director: Carol Hutchinson

Charitable Foundation President:

Rick Goldsmith

RI President

Holger Knaack, Rotary Club of Herzogtum Lauenburg-Mölln, Germany

District Governor

Mark Chipman, Whitby Sunrise

Editors of the week: Maureen Bird

and Natali Soroka

Friday, March 5, 2021 - Time: 12:15 Noon to 1:15 PM

Rotary Virtual Meeting via Google Meet and YouTube Live

Guest Speaker: Emilie Coyle - Executive Director CAEFS

and Special Speaker: Rashida Samji

Host: Pauline Lyons and WIC Chair Deb Snider

and Rotary Toronto's Women's Initiatives Committee

Please join our virtual lunch meeting to hear about the plight of the unfortunate women caught in Canada’s Justice system. What does Elizabeth Fry do to help these women and why are so many of them in remand in our provincial prisons? How does it affect their lives, their families, and ultimately our society?

CAEFS has 24 local member societies providing front-line services. The national team takes on the key issues that impact criminalized women and gender-diverse people by defending prisoners rights, building our community’s capacity, and raising public awareness. www.caefs.ca

Emilie Coyle, Executive Director of Canadian Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS), the National Headquarters in Ottawa

together with Rashida Samji, who will tell us of her experience in Federal Prison.

Emilie Coyle is the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. She previously worked as Director of the

Refugee Sponsorship Support Program at the University of Ottawa. Emilie has practiced family, criminal and immigration law.

In addition to her professional accomplishments as a bilingual legal professional and not-for-profit advocate, Emilie was a co-founder of Parents 4 Diversity, a citizen’s group working with parents and teachers to address discrimination with the goal of making schools safer for all children and youth and a proud sponsor of LGBTQ+ refugees for many years. She lives with her partner Adam and her children Maia and Niko and loves a good book recommendation.

Rashida Samji aced her Aga Khan High School with straight As. In years to follow, she rose to upper echelons of Canadian society as a highly regarded legal professional.

Faced battling for life, she looked Cancer in the eye and beat it, not once, but two times over. Often seen as a speaker for charity events, she lived in the city of her dreams. Life could not beat her. Then the winds of change finally brought Ms. Samji to her knees. A series of poor choices and misfortunate alliances incarcerated Rashida into a Federal Prison.

Losing her career, her reputation and even her family alliances, she pivoted her focus and started making different choices. She is today rebuilding herself as a peer advocate for LGBTQ and Indigenous cultures and advocates for incarcerated women. She is determined to make a positive difference.

Views and Opinions Expressed Disclaimer: The views and opinions are those expressed by the Speaker and do not necessarily reflect the official views or opinions, policy or position of The Rotary Club of Toronto or its Members.

Welcome New Member Paula Shepherd

Paula was born in Toronto at St. Mike’s Hospital. Her parents moved back to their home island of Barbados when she was 10 years old. She did high school there and this was when she first was introduced to Rotary. At high school she belonged to Interact and was heavily involved in fundraising events at an early age raising money for an orphanage that her chapter adopted.

After leaving high school she belonged to Rotaract where she continued to be involved in charity events, like bake sales and carolling every Christmas to raise money. Her club also supported one of the Rotary clubs in Barbados and helped to support them at their bigger events.

Paula moved back to Toronto to attend university where she pursued a degree in Management Information Systems. She worked for many years at Alight (formerly known as Aon Hewitt). She also took a position with the same company and worked in Atlanta, Georgia for 5 years. She worked as a business analyst and later moved on to the IT Project Management area. She earned her PMP designation and is hoping she can lend both her project managements skills as well as IT knowledge to the Rotary Club.

Paula really enjoyed her service with Rotary that she did in her teens and thought about it often. After many years of missing that feeling of giving back, and using the time that the pandemic has allowed to self reflect, she decided to return to the Rotary family.

In her spare time, Paula enjoys watching documentaries, running, playing tennis, skiing, and trying new potent potables (Can you tell she is a Jeopardy fan as well?) She is married to her husband Dave, who is a magazine publisher, digital marketer and photographer. She has a 9 yr old daughter named Kendall

Google Suites Training - Maureen Bird

As we move forward through this Transition period it is important for members to get connected to our Google Suites and to understand how they will assist us going forward.

Monday, March 8, 5:30 pm- Documents within Drives

Monday, March 15, 5:30 pm - working with Templates

Monday March 22, 5:30 pm - your needs

I will send out Google Meet links in the morning.

If you have not connected through your firstname.lastname@rotarytoronto.com call me to set up a one-on-one.

416-804-3726

What You Missed February 26, 2021

By Maureen Bird

President John was able to welcome another new member, Paula Shepherd. He praised the work being done by the Member Engagement Committee under Dauna Jones-Simmonds, which has many potential members in the hopper. There was a real increase in interest after our Racism Series. Tony Houghton gave his Let’s Be personal speech. Contact Don Bell to get on the list.

Alex Brown introduced our guest speaker, Dr. Sharon Cohen, a renowned expert in Alzheimer’s research.

Alzheimer’s – named after a doctor who identified the first known case in 1906. There are about 50 million people affected now, expecting to rise to 150 million by 2050. But only 50% of cases are diagnosed, usually well into the disease. It is long progression and may be developing for over 15 years before it is recognized.

Unfortunately the only way to verify a diagnosis was by autopsy where the amyloid and tau proteins could be seen. Now it can be confirmed through PET scans and by spinal taps. But good news is coming as a blood test was approved in the US in 2020. Tests are underway for detection through retinal scans. Genetic testing is available through DNA analysis on cheek swabs.

There have been no new drugs approved for 17 years but there are currently 126 compounds being studied to stabilize, slow and prevent the disease. One, Aducanumab, is undergoing FDA review and reports are expected this June. The hope is that this drug can clear out the amyloids in the brain. The Chinese have approved a brown algae extract.

You can help make a difference by working with Dr. Cohen’s Alzheimer’s team by volunteering for studies.

research@memorydisorders.ca or 416-386-9606. It is never too early.

Let's Be Personal - Tony Houghton

I joined Rotary in 1982, almost 40 years ago. The one thing consistent has been my classification, INVESTMENT REAL ESTATE. From the time I finished at University of Toronto and became employed my work has always been something to do with investments and particularly real estate.

I owe my thanks for getting involved with RCT to our Michael Morgan, past member Ray Greiner and a past president Don Carmen who was an Oakville neighbor of mine.

Becoming involved with a service club was really second nature for me as I had been a Jaycee in London Ontario in the 60s and then moving back to Oakville serving on the board of the Big Brothers organization.

Then Liz and I moved up to our recreational farm in Meaford to try some country living for a change. We lived up there from 2000 to 2009 and then back to Oakville. But in that 10 year interval I joined the Rotary Club of Meaford, but always felt that I belonged to 2 clubs as never lost my heart for RCT. I served as President of Meaford Rotary in 2004/05.

Small town Rotary is very different than what we experience here. Small clubs tend to become a committee of the whole and in Meaford’s case they became responsible for many of the social events and fundraisers in the Town. The town became dependent on us for the annual fish fry, dedication and maintenance of the harbor pavilion and gardens and owning and managing 2 small apartment blocks that had been left to us in an estate. Net revenues were split with the local hospital foundation.

In this time I also took on the presidency of the local Chamber of Commerce which needed a rebuild as it had deteriorated to 3 members. A local friend and I had great fun with that, managed to get a contract from Town council to run the tourism program and could then afford a secretary to run the office. I’m told the membership is now well over 200.

We decided to come back to Oakville to be closer to the 5 grandkids and that allowed me to re-engage with RCT. Since being back my focus has been with the investment side of our Charitable Foundation which I had chaired back in the year 2000. The fund is significant to our club and a lot of very talented people have contributed to its success since its founding in 1951.

So many projects conceived by this Club have been supported through the Foundation. I am tremendously thankful that I’ve been able to participate in some of these projects that the club is known for; Camp Enterprise, The Laughlen Centre, the Transition Centre at St. Michael's Hospital, and the Youth Employment Centre, to name a few.

What I can say after nearly 40 years of involvement and I direct this mainly to the many new members we have is get involved in as much as you can. It is very satisfying and fulfilling. With the new organizational structure that is being introduced the opportunities for a variety of different experiences should be even greater.

I felt very honoured to receive a Paul Harris and William Peace awards from Toronto and a Paul Harris from the Meaford Club. Most rewarding was hosting a French exchange student and a Nigerian doctor who was in Canada on a group study exchange back in 1988.

Fellowship & Entertainment Activities

Pat Neuman, Chair

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.

March is the month, when some of our most outstanding Rotarians were born! Our heartiest congratulations to them!

March, 03- Winz Casagrande and Jackie Davies;

March, 09- Ross Amos;

March, 12- William A. Hepburn;

March, 14- Geoffrey Johnson;

March, 16- Brinda Luckoo;

March, 18- Rahim Wallani;

March, 22- Nataliia Soroka and John H. Talman;

March, 25- James W. Macdonald;

March, 31- President John Fortney and Incoming President Prince Kumar!

Our Rotary Toronto family wishes you a lot of health, wealth and success in all your endeavours! Keep serving, thriving and inspiring! You are our Rotary Superheroes!

Dinner Club, March 20, 2021 6:30 pm

Lori Brazier will be hosting. Let her know if you would like to join. You share recipes for salad, main, dessert. You cook and join in to eat together and have a fun evening of conversation. The last two evenings have been fun.

lori.brazier@rotarytoronto.com

Cooking Class February 27, 2021-Belgian Endive

This is one that Mardi discovered while a Rotary exchange student. Apparently a favourite of the kids.

Braise the endive, wrap in ham and slather with a cheese sauce to bake. Thanks to Cliff and Lorna Johnson (all the way from Victoria) for a fabulous collage We must check out their B&B next time out there!

We continue this the last Saturday of each month. You don’t have to cook and can just join us for a social hour. Contact Neil.

nphillips@dgn-marketing.com

SERVICE ABOVE SELF

The Rotary Club of Toronto, Fairmont Royal York Hotel, H Level

100 Front St. W., Toronto ON, M5J 1E4

Tel. 416-363-0604 office@rotarytoronto.com

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