Wishing us all a wonderful new year full of accomplishment, shared support of others as we seek to serve, and of course, fellowship within our own Club.
We welcome Barry Gleason formally to our fellowship this week. You will see an introduction a bit further down in this bulletin, but I’d like to share happy consequence of being an online club with no geographical centre. In the notes about himself that Barry sent us, we learned that his adult children all live in Nunavik. A fun flurry of emails followed, and here’s the consequence: a photo that sits in both Barry's family album and mine.
The little one in front, with a rubber chicken almost as big as she is, is Barry’s granddaughter. The guy on the top of the vehicle, sporting the grey top hat, is John Shibley. John met both Barry’s daughters last summer through their own involvement with the community and his direction and participation in the Caravane Philanthrope project. It looks like they will be supporting each other’s efforts yet again. John and Caravane Philanthrope leave 9 January to work in 12 of the 14 communities in Nunavik. Values taken up by the next generation and Rotary connections in action!
Margaret Shibley
President-Elect's Report
Although it has been over a week since the start of 2023, as this is my first post of the year I will take this opportunity to wish all of our club members a happy new year.
There has always been a blending of myth and mystery surrounding the start of a new year. The mystery comes from our sense of the unknown. Like looking at a blank page we consider the year to come and ask ourselves ‘’what will be written here by the end of the year’’ The myth is that the blank page exists at all. Despite what is written on our calendars, the truth is, there is no real separation. Time flows from one year to the next with no notice of our human efforts to break it into measurable pieces like months and years.
This continuity means that our mistakes of 2022 can follow us into 2023 (unless we resolve to learn from them and implement change) but this is also true for our dreams and vision, and to me this is encouraging.
From my perspective, for our club 2022 was a year that focused on implementing necessary changes. We reviewed and adjusted our bylaws, we experimented with changes to our meeting format to promote connection and fellowship and we conducted a visioning exercise to determine who we are, what we value, and what we hope to be. It wasn’t always an easy path, but it has put us on a solid foundation for 2023.
At the AGM in December I heard excitement and anticipation from members as we talked about potential fundraisers and possible projects. There is so much we hope to accomplish and will accomplish if we just resolve to do it.
2023 is not a blank page for the 7040 passport club. It already contains lessons learned, as well as our hopes and aspirations, carried forward from 2022 but this only sets a foundation for the story we are about to write.
In the spirit of the New Year, I raise a toast to our club and wish us all a happy and prosperous 2023.
David Carey
Secretary's Thought's
Please welcome our newest member:
Barry Gleason.
He send these words about himself:
"I’m a happily married Canadian with 3 children and three grandchildren, all currently residing in Nunavik, so we travel there regularly.
"I love playing golf and curling and am not particularly good at either. I’m retired from a career in the travel industry having worked for railways, airlines, travel agencies, (both online and brick and mortar), and travel technology companies.
"I was born in Montreal and currently reside there, but have lived in Paris, Dallas, and London. I was introduced to Rotary by some good friends from the Rotary Club in Nabeul, Tunisia, where we like to spend some time in the winter."
We look forward to seeing and hearing from Barry at our next club meeting, January 31st
Secretary Chris
Membership
The next online District Training Assembly session
on Saturday, Jan. 14, 9:00 - 10:30 am Eastern time has as its topic:
New Approaches to Attracting and Retaining Members.
This session is open to any Rotarian.
The intent is to discuss and provide practical advice on both engaging current members as well as attracting new ones. As the engagement of our own current members is a major focus of our effort in the rest of this Rotary year, and likely for the following, this could be useful.
The promise is that “there will be something for everyone and every type of club in every part of our District.” We may actually have more to provide than to receive, but it is still a good place and a good time to start our Club conversation.
The New Year brings with it many exciting events, including the District Conference in May. Until then, you are invited to attend two online events hosted by our own Past President, and current District Literacy Chair, Jacinthe Paillé.
The first event is a literacy presentation for all - Rotarians, their spouses, friends, Rotaractors, Interactors, alumni, etc. on Wednesday, January 11 (7:00pm EDT). Jacinthe presented to many clubs in the fall of 2022 (in person and virtually), and would like to offer any club and/or individual the opportunity to attend the presentation in 2023.
Then, on Saturday, January 28 (10:00am EDT), the third session of the 2022-23 Diverse Book Club will take place, also on Zoom. The novel that will be discussed is The Shadows of Men by Amir Mukherjee (historical thriller set in 1920s India). The author may join us online, so don’t miss it! The session is open to all – please share the information! The details can be found here: https://rotary7040.com/event/diverse-book-club--3-1/
Both sessions will be given in English but Jacinthe will answer any questions in French.
