Bulletin for April 15, 2015

Posted by Nina Benn 
on Apr 15, 2015
 
Meeting Notes for April 15th, 2015
 
Door duty: Dan Rippin
Greeter: Nina
Meeting called to Order 6.30 p.m. by President Gordon Benn
National Anthem led by Gordon Benn
Invocation by Dan Rippin
 
Introduction of Guests:
Guests:  Jock Halliday, Wendy Halliday and Elaine Gallagher from the Brentwood Bay Club; and Anne McIntyre from Disaster Aid Canada.
 
Announcements:
The Bowling Tournament  for Big Brothers and Sister was held this past Sunday at Miracle Lanes in Sidney.   Six participants from our Club bowled and Maria Furmek had the second highest score of the whole afternoon.  103.1 Radio was there, gifts and prizes were given and awarded – lots of fun had by all.
Donna Garvin reported on the Stelly’s Graduating Student interviews.  There were 12 tables with two interviewers at each table where the students practiced being interviewed and did resumes.  The kids were nervous.  All for a great cause.
 
Car Rally – visit the website to enter your preference time and locations – Barry says it’s easy enough but the times are being grabbed up so “sign-up!” soon.  Ian has sent instructions telling us how to work through the sign-up process.  I wonder who was instructing Ian how to instruct the rest of us.
 
Program
Speaker:  Ann McIntyre from Disaster Aid.   Ann gave us an update on the relief efforts in Venuato, and specifically Tanna Island where much of the Rotary relief work is going.
Doctors, water, tents and supplies are being distributed by the various NGOs and government agencies.
Ann described her list to fill, including hospital rebuilding supplies, compassionate warehouse, three room tents. VIVA Doctors and Rotarians.  Containers are purchased and locked and received by Rotarians at their destination.  Leta presented our Club cheque for $750.00 towards the cause, this will buy one survival tent for 10 people.
 
We have been advised that Randy from the Golf Club is retiring.  A suggestion has been made that the Club contribute to a gift for Randy.  He has been very good to us for many years.  We will discuss at our next meeting.  If you want to give your thoughts in private, please email Gordon at gbenn@pearlmanlindholm.com
 
Sgt at Arms – Cosmo fined Dan Rippin, Ian, Hermann, Leta , Barry and Maria for various things.
 
Happy Dollars: Barry for Jordan Spieth winning the Masters Golf Tournament.
 
50/50 Draw     Leta drew a white marble and a won a copy of a book titled “Mercy Ships”.
 
Next meeting is April 22, 2015. Program is “Electric Cars”  Greeter is Nina, door duty is Dan.
Meeting adjourned at 7:50 – for a further sub-meeting described below.
Marble Draw – Winner Linda Leng – no blue marble
Next Week’s Duties:
Greeter: Rob Christie
Door:  Nina
Sarge: Jack Parry
 
A sub-meeting then occurred regarding a potential merger with the Brentwood Bay Rotary Club.  Your private input to these discussions is welcome and may be made to Gordon if you don’t want your views made public. 
The President of the Brentwood Club, Jock Halliday, his wife Wendy and their president elect Elaine Gallagher were the Brentwood delegation that met with our committee which consisted of Gordon, Cosmo, Barry, and Jack Parry.  The purpose of the meeting was to identify what issues might arise should our two Rotary clubs “merge” into one.  Obviously many conversations would have to occur to create a merger and approval of the District would have to be obtained.  Both delegations were sent off to get some input into the following issues which should then lead to another meeting or perhaps may lead to killing the deal.  This is your club and you all have input as to what happens to it.
Some of the issues discussed were:
  1. What would the name of the new club be?Sidney or Brentwood?The more popular name appeared to be Peninsula Rotary Club or Saanich Peninsula Rotary Club.
  2. Where would the meetings be held?
  3. What time would the meetings be?As you may know Brentwood presently meets at lunch on Tuesdays.
  4. Could the meetings be held one-half at lunch and one-half at dinner?Or some other variation?
  5. Who would the President be?Initially it made sense to have joint presidents.
  6. What are the mechanics involved?Would one Club fold and have their assets transferred to the other Club?And then follow with a name change?
  7. Who will deal with the District?
  8. Would the Brentwood Rotary Foundation be included in the transfer to the newly merged Club?How about our Fall Fair assets?
Those are some of the issues and others were mentioned.  These are for discussion purposes and if we choose to proceed we would likely enter into a letter of intent which one of our or their legal beagles could draft.  If we decide this is a bad idea then so be it…..
You may all ask what are the advantages and disadvantages?
The chief advantage of a merger is to be found in the numbers.  Each of our clubs has between 15-20 members.  If we merge there could be some drop-off of members but likely the surviving club would have about 30 members.  With larger numbers we could take on larger projects and presumably make a bigger footprint than two smaller clubs can.  That is a MAYBE only but is a possibility.  Ultimately the survival of our 2 clubs may rely on this type of merger although the same positive results could be obtained by an active recruiting drive for new members.  We have not had a proper membership drive in the roughly 12 years that I have been with this Club.  I am not criticizing and I was in fact the Prez during two of those 12 years!
The disadvantages may include a resulting lack of “ownership” of some of our assets and customs that have arisen in our club’s history going back to the 1940s.  You can’t buy that type of tradition and no matter what happens here we must strive to keep those traditions alive.  I speak mostly of the Fall Fair but we are also very proud of what our club has done on the Peninsula over the decades.
The above is simply a summary of what some of the issues are.  I ask that you consider these points very carefully and we will then have to capsulate all of your thoughts and move ahead with caution and confidence in knowing we are doing the right thing (one way of the other).  Over the years in business I have seen mergers and acquisition fall short of their expectation yet at the same time I have seen entities fail which could have been saved with different growth strategies.  This year we have added two family memberships (Linda Leng and Leta Kenny), we have added the Rotaract Club as a corporate member and we have added two new regular members (Maria Furmek and Donna Garvin) and we must keep in mind that there may be ways to succeed other than merging.  That being said I strongly encourage each of you to follow your instincts and direct your Club leaders to move in the direction of your choice.
Another important point to be remembered is that we should all show respect for other peoples’ views in true Rotary fashion.  Obviously we do not want to cause any unnecessary grief to anyone resulting from this discussion.
Gordon