|
My Rotary experience Adriana Balderas 16Mar22 My first contact with The St. Thomas Rotary Club was when my son Marco participated in several Music Festivals playing piano invited by his teacher Alma Roberts. He heard from Wayne MacKinnon about Rotary Youth Exchange and expressed he really wanted to experience an exchange in a different country around the world. I liked the idea of him doing the exchange but told him I needed to know about the process of electing a youth student and how secure the families that host the students were, costs, and everything. So in 2011, I decided that before we accept to send him, I would investigate first. We decided to be a host family to learn about the RYE program. That is when we applied to be a host family. We filled lots of documents with our information, gave pictures of every single room of our house, got police checks, etc. Pat Martyn and Mel MacKinnon visited our home and conducted interviews with my husband and me. As we start the process of hosting an international student I started volunteering with the club at the food trailer, tour of homes and music festival . Marco jr joined the Interact club. We hosted an international student from Brazil from January to June of 2012 and decided that Marco jr can apply for the exchange after seeing the care Rotary takes with the exchange students. We attended many interviews and conferences with Rotary in London and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Once he was accepted for the exchange I joined the club. I didn’t want the feeling he was accepted only because mom was a Rotarian. He travelled to Norway and had the best experience of his life.Pat Martyn was who invited me to join the club and is my sponsor. As soon as I joined the club, Malcolm Rust invited me to join the RYE committee and was a member until the end of this project. I was also a Member of the Food truck committee, where for many hours I prepared french fries and chicken fingers and a member of the Tour of Homes committee. I Have been helping on different projects… BBQ organized by the YMCA (United refugees program 2016), World tubing competition ( STEGH 2016), water project, chocolate extravaganza, auction tables on TOH, planting trees and delivering dictionaries to students in 3rd grade, food truck on Thomas the train and park, etc. Attended several district conferences and drove some Interactors to the conferences. In 2017 I joined the Interact club as a second advisor when my youngest son Andrew joined the club. I really have fun with youth and Trudy of course! Selling tickets for pony pooping bingo , visiting the ponies to clean their stables and waiting to see when they poop, helping at the St. Thomas railway races, painting windows,decorating cookies and cards for seniors on nurseries, raking leaves and run , selling tickets for Teddy bears or turkey raffles, packing apples for food bank and car washes for donations and more… I started been a Co-director of internacional services of the club with Pat Martyn a few years ago , position I have to date. On a special note: I am the first member of Rotary Club of St. Thomas becoming a Canadian citizen (On Canada Day of 2014) Happy Finns Malcom – Adriana’s presentation Connie – Adriana’s presentation Cindy – First paid speaking event for her book “Being Brave” a leadership model Pat – Adriana’s presentation, march break a staycation at Delta Armories Mark – Adriana’s presentation, concept of speeches from members of club Bill – son in law bday, Adriana’s presentation Ron – St Patrick’s day, Adriana’s presentation, time change Barb – Adriana’s presentation, 1831 her great great grandfather came Adriana -Happy to present, beautiful day, being a Rotarian Gerry – happy to be present remotely, successful scholarship mtg, members of the Canadian Club at their hideaway in Florida Catharine- Adriana’s presentation, doing my Rotary 15April on cancer Rotaserver March 23, 2022 Announcements: Our Hybrid meeting today had improved video and audio of the remote particpants. Stew learned that when you use your phone as a WiFi hotspot for a meeting, then leave, you leave the remote participants stranded. This test of the clubs resilience proves they are adaptable; Barb setup the zoom from her own Laptop. Backup plans are necessary in the Zoom era. Congratulations for your ingenuity! Some proceeds from Rotary Ranch Party come back to our club, see below Rotary Club of Oakville is sponsoring the sixth annual speaker series virtually with Moderator Steve Paikin Tue 5Apr22. The link is to be announced at a future date. Music Festival – Major Awards Final competition has been moved to an in-person event at Centre St. Baptist church on April 2, 2022 at 7 p.m. Keynotes Concert will be held at the same location on Thursday April 8, 2022 at 1PM. There is a meeting tomorrow to finalize the Keynotes performers. Following the Final Competition, 10 additional scholarships will be awarded by the Scholarship Committee of the Rotary Club of St. Thomas Foundation. CHECK https://rotarystthomas.org/ TO SEE MOST OF THE 144 ENTRIES AT THE FESTIVAL; MOST ENTERTAINING. Trudy won the 50/50 today. Happy Finns: Trudy – Interactors met last Sunday and are going to in-person meetings starting with next meeting – to be held at St. Hilda’s/ St. Luke’s church. Pat – taking a holiday to Florida in two weeks, arranged by her daughter; wonderful March break with grandkids Barbara – holidays this week complete with attending 4 Rotary meetings Gerry – they took in a Blue Jays game; they have tickets for “Chicago” in Stratford this season The club business meeting continued as the Club Assembly. |
.png)
