Adopt A Village in Laos Water Filter program

Rotary Club of North Scarborough

Rota-Teller
29 May 2014

Anthem:     Al Meredith
Invocation:    Gordon Brown
Toast:        President Rocco

Attendance: 13 including guests
Steve Rutledge and Mike Yap of Whitby R.C. and co-founder of Adopt A Village in Laos respectively.

Announcements:
- David Seemungal reported on the meeting held with U of T (Scarborough).  They met with professors to develop a paper on Social Development for the Scarborough Study Program.

- Gordon announced that Group 1 will meet Monday June 2nd at Madhavi’s home

- Carolyn announced that Group 2/3 will meet Monday June 9th at her home (7:30 pm)

- Peter announced that next week’s noon-hour meeting has been cancelled.  The Scholarship Awards banquet will replace it Wednesday June 4th in Delta’s Room “C” .  Come early, for the 6:30 pm start-up and bring your vehicle licence plate number to the desk for complimentary parking as usual.

Special Presentation(s)
Gerd Wengler presented President Rocco with a $4,500 cheque that the Park Property employee group have asked to go toward the needs of Agincourt Community Services.

In return, Gerd was given a $1,000 cheque from the club to support the work of the Bruce Trail Conservancy for which Gerd has been conditioning himself for a brisk hike on the trail helping to raise funds for the maintenance of the Trail.

Marbelous Draw: Our guest Steve Rutledge was the winner of the $5 consolation prize.  The big prize remains to grow larger another week.
                                                                Gerd Wengler and President Rocco exchange cheques

Sergeant at Arms: David Seemungal fined whoever he could for sitting in the same location as he/she did last week.  He wants us to mingle more with other club members.

Happy bucks were called for and amongst others Peter reported that the mast on his sailboat fell off its support crutch just as he entered the Port Credit marina.  He had pulled it all along the 401 and 427 & QEW from Scarborough.  Thank heavens that after almost 20 years the support decided to break at the end of the journey rather than while on the 401.

Gerd put in 10 cents for every km he had hiked last weekend.

Program:

Steve Rutledge, a member of the Whitby R.C. made his presentation about the needs of the Villages in Laos.  His program “Adopt a Village in Laos” focuses on the need for improved sanitation especially water hygiene in the remote mountain villages.  His literature indicates that their mandate is to provide new water sources, clean water, education facilities and sponsorship, hygiene training and hygienic toilets in Laos with greater focus in rural regions.
As background,  Steve explained that Laos is a small landlocked country in Southeast Asia.  It has a population of 7 million with 73% of that living in rural areas.  During the 1960's Laos lost 1/3 of its population during the “Secret” war and became the most heavil bombed country per capita in the world. Over a nine year period (1964-1973), a bomb was dropped every eight minutes, 24 hours a day.  Estimates ate that 30% of the 260 million bombs dropped never exploded and remain scattered throughout the countryside.  This is a dark and deadly legacy of the offshoot of the Vietnam War.

Steve and Mike went on to give us a slide show which illustrated the work that they have been doing with volunteers who have been gathering from many parts of the world to improve the health and education of the people in many of  Laos’ rural communities.

A recording of Steve’s presentation is attached.

Steve was presented with a cheque for $800 to support the Adopt A Village program and thanked by Alan Meredith on behalf of the club and Group 4.

The recorded presentation can be found at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/081tpxu9efwhg96/Laos%20Village.MP3