(Updated Jan. 21. 2012)
20 Great Reasons To Join Rotary
Bruce Cameron & Rotarian Rhoda Wilson work together. Bruce is the facilitator for Community Living. They work with people who are intellectually disabled and their job is to integrate them into the community. Bruce gave a great slide show on the community living division. Their objective is to help make a "PATH" where people with intellectual disabilities can work in the public like everyone else.
Rotarian Lou mentioned the lack of a buddy system in the high school compared to elementary and middle school when his son went to the high school and he asked when they might be able to continue the "buddy system" throughout the entire school system. Bruce confirmed that they are working on it now and typically they have to concentrate on the youth in the younger levels as a priority out of necessity because that is the most crucial area. They have an agenda but are limited where they can devote the system and have to chose the youth first and admits that there are challenges with that approach.
On Jan. 9, 2012, Sussex Rotary invited Tony Bell of Kings County Mechanical to attend our meeting so service groups could say thank you to a special friend for his support to the Club's in repainting of the signs as you enter the Towns.
Chair for the day was Past President Kim Pearson, and she described how long time Rotarian Harley Geldart had asked Kings County Mechanical for a quote on the cost to remove the sign infrastructure, sand blast it, and repaint. Tony Bell, President & owner of Kings County Mechanical, advised Harley that the job would be done, and there would be no charge for the work done.
Shown in the picture is President Elect Robert Kimball presenting Tony with a plaque thanking him on behalf of the groups who have logos on the displays.
Alan Davis - Shriners & Zion Clubs - Alan is with the Sussex lodge and they had an open house on Monday at 7:30 to induct the new president, Doug Cosman. They meet every third Thursday. Their budget includes $40,000 for Camp Good Times.
Mike Cummings - Kiwanis Club- Mike thanked Tony for his donation to the club and expressed the importance of having service clubs and groups in the community and said that many people might not realize how much these clubs do to move the community forward.
Joe Butler - Legion - Joe said he is doing something right because he has the tile of President for another year. The Legion primarily looks after Vets and gives donations to help out the men and women in the military.
President Barb gave a summary on our Rotary Club and our efforts and said we would really like to talk about making clean water one of our focuses and perhaps our international project for the new year.
Looking on as Mike Cummings addresses the Club are (L-R) PP Lou McNamara, Marsha Long of Bayview Credit Union, guest of Lou, and PP Donna Gilchrist.
Tony thanked everyone for the invitation, the plaque and thank you cards. He said that Lou had been after him several times to become a member but he is just not ready to do that yet but it is on the radar. He thought that being able to offer his services to the service clubs regarding the signs would be a great opportunity to give back.
On Dec. 20, 2011, the Rotary Club of Sussex made a $500.00 donation to PALS in support of their Christmas Dinner. In the picture left to right - Kelsey Richardson, PALS student; Harold Dalling, on site PALS coordinator; Bob Tremblett, Rotary member; and Zack Smith, PALS student. The photo was taken by Rotarian Rhoda Wilson.
It was the Paul Grannan Annual golf tournament (PGA) on Thursday the 25th of August, 2011, that Club Rotarian Robert Kimball joined over 100 Rotarians and members of the business community in Saint Andrews. The fund raiser is held by the Rotary Club of Saint John, and this years PGA was played at the St. Andrews golf course. The Club raised a huge amount of money for donations to charities, and one of the prizes was a pair of "Anywhere" Air Canada tickets valued at approximately $2,000 that Rotary sold tickets on and raised $10,000 plus.
One of the big bidder's was local NHL'er Randy Jones.
Robert golfed with the Bell Aliant group and they came close to last, but had a great day with a lot of fun.
It was a good day for fundraising, Robert says!!
Guest speaker for Dec. 5, 2010 was Chris Bonvie, Manager of Wal-Mart Sussex Chris has been with Wal-Mart for 12 years, he has worked for 8 different Wal-Mart stores in NB and one in Charlottetown PEI. He has been a facilitator for the training program that Wal-Mart offers in Halifax called Store of Learning for the past eight years. He was surprised by the similarities in the Four-Way test and their philosophy, "Is it True, Is it Kind and Is it Necessary?" Chris lives in Fredericton and travels back and forth. He has been with Wal-Mart Sussex for just under a month but he has already assigned a key employee as the Charity and Social Director. The have a weekly charity which they allow the use of the store entrance for a charitable table or booth. Wal-Mart also has initiatives on a national level and they are the Children's Miracle Network and the IWK. All proceeds go directly to the cause; they don't have any admin. fees or retainers.
Chris has four kids, 11, 10, 9 & 20 months old.
Five years ago he was fortunate enough to go to Florida with the CMN and the CEO of Wal-Mart. They took children from every hospital in the U.S. and Canada to Walt Disney World.
They also have a program called Adopt a School and the Shinning Star program. A student will be nominated and a draw is done once a month for the shinning star and once a year as the shinning star of the year.
They are currently doing a food bank drive and Santa will be here at the Sussex Wal-Mart on the 17th and every picture taken with Santa will generate a donation. Wal-Mart Sussex had raised $5000 for Red Cross, $4000 for IWK & $1500 for Little Wishes which is a charity similar to the Wish Foundation but on a smaller scale. The recipients are local and in greater numbers because the program is for smaller trips like Crystal Palace of a one day fishing trip. This is for children who are going through cancer treatments or survivors of cancer in Atlantic Canada only.
Chris' niece was diagnosed with leukemia and when he spoke to the CEO of Wal-Mart and told him about her in conversation about their local endeavors the CEO then and there told him he was coming to Florida with them.
Wal-Mart had a great Christmas parade float this year thanks to Alantra but they did run out of candy canes half way through the parade.
Nov. 21, 2011 Guest Speakers were Richard Sullivan (Past Chair) and Donna Floyd (Chair) of the Sussex Area Community Foundation. The Foundation just had a successful fund raiser at the high school called Kids & Chocolate on November 3rd. SACF recently received $1,100,000 from the Forbes family which was the foundation for the SACF beginning.
They were founded in 2003 and are members of the Community Foundation of Canada who have over 170 communities involved in the membership. Sussex has a very diverse and capable board coming from all different areas both geographically and professionally. They give a total of five scholarships to the SRHS every year, the Fran Simpson and the Earl J. Cunningham families have given so they can have scholarships in their name. They have given out over $250,000 in total to over 35 local charities. They are looking into the walking trail behind RBC and mentioned that Rotary would be a good hand in helping them and other organization in getting it started. Donna informed us that there are many ways to give, cash, appreciated stock, gift of life insurance & charitable gift annuity.
They have 4 committees in total: grants, fund development, communication and investments. They are looking for more volunteers to be on those committees. They have 12 on the board and several other volunteers on the committees.
They can be contacted at 433-6244 and info is available at www.sacfi.org.
Angie Leonard with the GNB Natural Gas Group, our Nov. 14, 2011 guest speaker, has been with the GNB for 3 years and has been on the NGG for one year. The group consists of several other groups including Enterprise Fundy, the Finance Department, the Energy Department, the Natural Resources Department and DNR to name a few.
Some of the Economic benefits include Royalties, Jobs, Increased Tax Base and Supply chain for existing businesses and workers.
Challenges include Social & Environmental impact, Water, Air and Land use change.
One of the biggest challenges has been public acceptance.
Angie gave a very informative slide show presentation and many of the slides can be viewed in an information booklet she passed around. If you did not get a chance to review it you can stop in to Pearson's to borrow a copy there. Natural gas and Shale gas exploration are not new industries in NB, they has been around since the 1990's. It is a very fact based industry and because of the cost involved in the exploration they make sure they have all the facts before they go into production. She stressed that the public should be educated and not rely solely to hear say or emotion. NB is fortunate because these industries are not new and the production is not going to be allowed to be rushed. Because the industry is not new we know what needs to be researched, because we will not be rushed, we will have the time to research properly.
On Nov. 14, 2011 the Club inducted our newest member - Rick Fazari. Rick is the Branch Manager for the Scotiabank, and lives with his family in Norton. Rick has worked in Sussex Scotiabank before, and is pleased to be back after a stint in Moncton. WELCOME Rick!!
Students Daniel Ganong, Emily Isbill and Lynn Reicker, Stephen Wilson standing, & PP Lou McNamara
Stephen Wilson is a teacher at Belleisle High School. He has been assigning his students with names belonging to WW2 war heroes that did not make it home and asking that they research and create documents on them. He has been to Europe with several students and been on several Canadian Battle Sight tours. He took a trip to Italy, Belgium and France with teachers from all across Canada.
What really hit home for him was all the "thank you's" he heard while on the trip, even after 60 year since Canada was there to free them. He said as soon as locals realized they were there from Canada they were very appreciative. Stephen made a point to thank Harley for his invite to the club.
They can request files from Libraries & Archives Canada in Ottawa for soldiers who died at war. If the veteran is still alive or did not die at war then it is much more difficult. In most cases only the immediate family can obtain any records. Most of the soldiers they have researched are from the Riverbank memorial just outside of Norton.
They also have a veteran that has been helping them with their research and getting names to be assigned to students, he is a local from the area. Other individuals have approached them asking to have a friend or relative researched for them.
You can find their website by typing BRHS lest we forget. He took a group of students to Italy last year and they did a Canadian Battle Site tour and they seen several memorials and tomb stones belonging to fellow Canadians'.
Each student is responsible for their own profile or documentary and they all use Windows Movie Maker to do their project on the individuals they have been assigned. It takes them one year to do the research and about 12 hours just to create the videos which average only 4 minutes each. We watched 4 videos on individuals from the Sussex and surrounding area.
You can contact Stephen at Stephen.Wilson@nbed.nb.ca.
Robert Kimball introduced Melissa Cummings-Keith, Manager of Client Care for RBC on Oct. 24, 2011. Bank of Canada is issuing new polymer bank notes in November. RBC has been offering sessions on these new notes for local business owners and passed around pamphlets with information used in the session on the new bills. Chantal Roger, Corporate Crimes Division of the RCMP then spoke on the new bills with the aid from a slide show.
The new polymer notes will be out in three weeks if all goes well. Her presentation and slide shoe is the same one used by the Bank of Canada to introduce the new notes. The Bank of Canada is the only maker of notes in Canada, they are responsible for making notes that Canadians and the world will be confident in.
Counterfeit bills hit a high in 2004 but have dropped every year since. In 2004 an estimated $500,000 in bills were counterfeited and in 2009 & 2010 combined there was less than $100,000 estimated to have been produced.
Contrary to popular belief, cash in not going anywhere, even with credit cards, debit cards and chip cards etcetera, the number of bills produced is growing every year. Cash is private with no fees and no worries of computer systems crashing and causing chaos with payment options and methods.
"Bird Series" cash was made in the 90's and had the first Optical Security Device (OSD). This is the little square on the top left hand side of the bills. If you fold it in half you should be able to see both the green and the gold reflections.
The next series was the "Original Guardian Journey" series and in 2001 when they first started issuing the $5 & $10 bills they did not include the metallic strip in them but did on the rest of the higher value notes. This caused confusion and some difficulties with businesses thinking that the original fives and tens were counterfeit but they soon included the trip in them too and this was called the Canadian Guardian Series. This series also has a hidden number that can only be seen when held at eye level and tilted on its side. The number is on the circle on the left hand side. One thing to look for with this series in the hundred dollar bills is the strip. Counterfeiters often used the strip from the ten dollar bill and put it in the hundred dollar bill to make it more authentic looking. This series has raised ink and dashes made of OSD woven into the bill and the dashed on the front should line up perfectly with the reverse side.
The Bank of Canada has a website that you can visit and it will give tips on ways to detect fake bills and things to look for that can only be found on real bills. See www.bankofcanada.ca/banknotes for more details.
Wendy Osborne introduced our guest speaker Kelly Dunfield on Oct. 17, 2011 from the Nurse Practitioners of New Brunswick. Kelly is also on the board for the FCC. She is one of the first Nurse Practitioners in NB and we are very lucky to have her in NB. She is also the mother of Robert & Ryan Dunfield, Robert was the recipient of our Youth Merit Award as well as one of the Rotary Club's education scholarships in 2011.
The Nurse's Act was changed in 2002 & practitioners were approved and recognized in NB. The Nurse Practitioners Degree is a Master's program. There are 54 NP's in NB and the number is growing. In NB the areas that they work would include Community Health Centers, Public Health, Mental Health, Family Practices, Nursing Homes Etc.
A goal of NP's is to improve access to primary care. They work in collaboration with physicians. They work with the public and clients like the family physicians but they don't admit to the hospital or provide narcotics. If the case is beyond their scope then they will refer to a family physician. Nurse Practitioners are Gov't funded. Three or four NP's are working in the ER in Saint John. They can manage the triage levels 1-5. The only province w/o NP's is The NWT. Kelly is on the primary health committee for this are of the province.
Jason Sturgeon thanked Kelly on behalf of the Club.
Ken Baker from Hospice Sussexwas the guest spekaer on Oct. 3, 2011. He has been with Hospice since they started in Sussex in 2003 and is now the Volunteer Program Coordinator. He has lived in Sussex for 47 years. Hospice "Providing Comfort, Care & Hope". Ken's daughter in-law was the person who got Ken involved in Hospice.
It originally started in Sussex under the name Hospice Saint John/Sussex with help from the Hospice Saint John committee. Saint John Hospice has been around for close to 30 years now. Sussex went on its own in 20. They started with 20 members and now they are 28. Their area goes from Sussex to Anagance and Havelock. They consist of 12 board members most of which are in Sussex and surrounding area.
They provide quality end of life care. Their goal is to give the best quality of life. They give comfort not cure and treat the whole family not the disease. They start anytime once there is no longer a hope for a cure. Four of their volunteers have taken training for group grief support. Hospice works solely on referrals from several sources, family, extra-mural, doctors and hospitals. They have 5-10 families at once and around 17-20 families per year. Privacy is paramount as they are held to same laws as nurses & doctors when it comes to a client's privacy. Hospice had offered workshops to the public and they try to offer one every two years.
Fundraising is fully raised by the members; they have absolutely no funding from the government. Their main fundraisers are their Harvest Dance & Silent Auction (contact Ken for tickets) & the Angels Remembered fundraiser. Angels Remembered has been a great success, with a donation of any size you can hang an angel on their tree in memory of a loved one. They have had excellent support from the community both businesses and individuals alike. This year they were at the Balloon Fiesta with PCS. A volunteer may have on average 3 hours once a week.
President Barb Crowe (center) Introduced Joan Routledge from Communities in Bloom (CIB) at our Sept. 19, 2011 meeting.. Barb has often admired Joan's own garden at the back of her home by the Lion's Club. CIB is a group consisting of seven women and Jason Thorne from the Town. They put the plans together and give them to Jason to execute. They have a great working relationship with the Town.
Flowers are only 1/7th of what CIB does. Other categories include landscape, environment, turf & ground cover, floral arrangements and tidiness. The hardest thing they had to do was create a binder with brochures on Sussex for the judge of CIB. CIB Sussex met with the judges last month and when they met they invited the representatives from several other groups in the community. The judges found this to be a great advantage to be able to represent Sussex in that manner.
CIB was a great help with our Rotary Flower wheel in O'Connell Park and it looks better than ever. She did say that they will start earlier next year and have a few tricks up their sleeve to improve the wheel even more next year. They also said that they would like to see the backside of the mound changed so it is not just earth and grass. Right now it is wasted reality and they would like to do something with the side facing the park itself.
Their other focus is to have a nice "Welcome to Sussex" once you get into town to really show off the entrance to the town itself. They feel that the sign off the highway does not accomplish that well enough so they want to better represent the town and the area that the town "begins" so to speak.
Joan is at Sun Nurseries now and she mentioned that Michelle at Sun told her to let us know that they are always interested in helping out or participating in any fundraisers or projects we are looking at doing in the future.
Lou thanked Joan for coming in to talk to us and especially thanked CIB for helping out with the Flower Wheel.
The Lieutenant Governor Graydon Nicholas was the guest of honor and the main attraction at the Annual Meeting at Bethany on Sept. 15, 2011. Rotary was invited to attend, and Sect. Robert E. Kimball shown in the picture with the Lieutenant Governor was our Representative..
They had a reception at 9:00 and then the Lieutenant Governor gave a speech to the community at 10:00 followed by some musical entertainment presented by Bethany. Many community members and leaders where in attendance including the Mayors of Sussex and Sussex Corner, Bruce Northrup our MLA, and a few other Rotarians including Wendy Osborne and Robert Tremblett.
A project of the Rotary Club of Sussex some years ago was to install "Welcome" signs at two of the entrances into the Town of Sussex which show the Service Clubs in the local area. During the summer of 2011, Tony Bell of Kings County Mechanical removed the signs and had them completely overhauled, repainted and re-installed as a community project for our Club.
On behalf of those Clubs whose logo are shown on the signs, Rotary would like to say thank you to Tony and his company for their generosity and community spirit.
Each year the Sussex Rotary Club prepares a flower wheel at the entrance of O'Connell Park with varying degrees of success from year to year. In 2011, Rotarian Stewart Duncan of 2 Boyz Lawn Care took on the Club project, and the wheel was a great success. The picture shown was taken in late Sept., so the flowers were not in their prime, but still had great presentation.
The Club was very grateful for Stewart's work in making this years Rotary flower wheel something the Club was very proud to talk about.
Leigh Cummings, RC Houlton, District 7810 Governor 2011- 2012
From Sept. District News Letter "REPORT ON DG LEIGH’S CLUB VISITS!": A great evening barbecue at the home of Secretary Robert Kimball, Jr. was a very pleasant alternative to a traditional meeting, especially on a beautiful summer evening. Other clubs may wish to consider evening socials as a summer option. Bob cooks a great steak and Sandy reports the chicken was just as good. President Barb Crowe and the Sussex Rotary Club will have a great year. Thanks to Peter Haines for showing me the way to Kirk Hill Cemetery to pay my respects at the grave of my Double 4th Gr Grandmother Salomey Ackerley Cole. Then we were off to the Miramichi once more.
On June 27, 2011, out going President Lou handed the gavel over to incoming President Barb Crowe. Barb served as Treasurer for the previous two years for the Club, and is a Manager with RBC Financial.
