President Basil and the year ahead.

Posted by Donna Salamalay on Jul 07, 2016
 
 
Attendees: 24 including four guests
Guests: Ruth Lenz from the Rotary Club of Sunrise Markham, Dorothy Evans, Tyler Madden (Basil & Dorothy’s grandson) and Joan Masson.   
Announcements: None
 
The Marbelous Draw was conducted and won (!) by our SAA, Jim Boyko. Jim donated his winnings back to the club. He then proceeded to collect Happy Bucks from members who supported Brexit (because their side won) and fined those who would support a certain political candidate – a rethink might be in order. Happy Bucks were also offered by Ruth, congratulating Basil on his second term as President and Gerd who was recently back from Germany and was celebrating the successful construction of a new Apartment Building in downtown Toronto.   
 
Basil presented Past President Gerd Wengler with a certificate for 2015-16 Presidential Citation Gold and another certificate for ‘Rotary International District 7070 The Oddy Robson Memorial Bell Award’. This was presented to the Rotary Clubs of Scarborough for contributing the most to inter-club fellowship. Gerd also received his pin and a gavel to commemorate his successful presidency last year.
 
Topic: The Year Ahead 
Our 2016-2017 President, Basil Dias gave us an overview of the beginnings of Rotary before talking about the evolution of the organization to its current state, including new membership requirements, meeting options, etc.  However none of the changes adopted by the Council on Legislation permit clubs to deviate from Rotary’s most essential elements:
  • Our qualifications for membership, who we are – business, professional and community leaders – are unchanged.
  • The Object of Rotary, our basic tenants of why we exist, are unchanged.
  • Our essence statement – Joining Leaders, exchange Ideas and Taking Action – is unchanged.
  • Our core values of fellowship, integrity, diversity, service and leadership are unchanged.
  • Our ethical standards, the principles expressed in the four-way test and one of our most important distinguishing characteristics, are unchanged.
 
Basil did not outline specific goals for the upcoming year, but rather challenged us to think through and advise what we wanted to do in 2016-2017. However he did use an apt analogy of an orchestra and committed to being the conductor of our multi-talented club’s “orchestra”.
 
“As your conductor, I will develop the skills necessary to listen attentively, to appreciate members’ unique individual abilities, special interests and experiences, and the wealth of energy and enthusiasm with which we all enrich our club.”
 
For a full overview of Basil’s talk, please click on the link below.
 
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