Bulletin for January 21, 2015

Posted by Nina Benn 
on Jan 21, 2015
 
 
Meeting Notes for
January 21st, 2015
 
 
Door duty tonight – Nina
Sarge at Arms was Jack MacAuley
Gordon led with O’Canada  on the piano which was followed by Dan R. with the invocation
 
Guests tonight included Eleanor Hawkeswood, SBTS Rotarian Tim Maloney, SBTS Rotarian Karen Morgan and Karen’s guest Renn Bibeau.
 
An acceptable dinner of soup and sandwiches was served to our members and guests with the promise that next week we will have a full meal accompanied by some lovely Haggis to help celebrate the birth of the Scottish National Bard, Robbie Burns.
 
Announcements
 
  1. President Gordon led the meeting off with a presentation to Jack MacAuley of a Paul Harris Pin with 3 extra stars imbedded into the pin.  Congratulations Jack!
  2. Gordon announced that he had not yet received any positive feedback to our invitation to the Brentwood Rotary Club to discuss some form of Merger of the two Clubs.  It is still early.
  3. The Club approved the expenditure of $100.00 to help support a Rotaract Student make the trip to P.E.T.S. on March 2nd in Seattle.
 
Program
 
Karen Morgan, the Executive Director of the Saanich Peninsula Hospital Foundation (with the help of her assistant  Renn Bibeau) gave us an informative presentation on the topic of Shortage of Family Doctors on the
Saanich Peninsula.  There are many reasons for this including rising cost of practicing medicine, lower net incomes for Doctors than in past years, the high cost of living on the Peninsula, etc.  A major factor is the aging demographics of the doctors who practice on the Peninsula. We are fortunate that many of them work beyond their desired retirement age.
Karen pointed out various solutions with the most practical one being a new process of subsidizing Doctors who practice on the Saanich Peninsula.  Rural Doctors in other parts of the Province receive subsidies from the Province in order to entice them to go to outlying areas but the Saan Pen Hospital is not considered by the province as a “rural” hospital so no subsidy is available.  The Hospital Foundation has therefore resolved to provide such subsidies in an effort to compete with rural areas.  The Foundation presently has the cash resources to enable the required subsidies to be paid with one major donor paying the bulk of the required subsidies during the first year.
In her talk, Karen also thanked the Club for its past contributions to the Hospital Foundation which of course pays almost all money raised (92%) directly to and for the benefit of the Hospital.  The Foundation has a meager overhead of 8% of money raised.  Thank you Karen for your presentation.
 
50/50 draw – Gordon’s ticket was drawn but he picked the wrong coloured marble.  We will start selling 50/50 tickets at the front sign-in desk in an effort to promote sales.
 
NEXT WEEK PROGRAM – will be a presentation by members of the Rotaract Club of their trip to San Diego.  In addition, it is expected that we will have Roger on the BagPipes  accompanying the bringing in of the Haggis.  Please check you lists to determine if you have any duties next week.