President Gordon opened the first meeting of our Club’s 63rd year with a ring of the Rotary bell and a reading of the Land Acknowledgement. 

Anthem: Frank Allison 

Toast to The King, Canada, and Rotary: President Gordon 

Attendance: 17 including 2 guests, Dorothy Evans and Betty Allison. 

David Hardy provided an introduction of our new President 

He reported that Gordon came to Canada in 1974 and eventually became a Bank of Nova Scotia manager in the early 1980s. When he finally left the Bank he had a reputation of being a very successful financial advisor which he has continued to be in his “retirement”. 

As you know, his favorite sport is “Football” (as the game is called in the world except in North America!)  His other favorite game is Cricket.  While he is on the sidelines now for these sports he often watches and encourages his 14-year-old grandson to play football. (He has a contract with Toronto’s FC.) 

 His favorite English Premier League team is Chelsea (having been born in a hospital near Chelsea in London).   

Over 20 years ago Gordon felt that he should get involved with charity work and discovered Rotary through an article in a local newspaper which ultimately brought him to Kevin Manual and Rotary and our club. 

He is married to Susan (they are both second time around). Between them, they have 5 adult children and 8 grandchildren ranging in age from 2 years old to 30. Shortly after meeting Maynard and Winifred (Sue’s parents), he was further indoctrinated with Rotary as they were members of Agincourt RC. which was sponsored by our Club. Maynard was ARC’s first president. 

Gordon is trilingual in that he has a command of English English, Canadian English, and Cockney slang to be found on the streets and pubs in London. 

He promotes Rotary as much as he can whenever he can and is now launched into his third presidential career of the Rotary Club of North Scarborough.  

Before Gordon gave his “maiden speech” to the club he shared a dictionary of Cockney pub talk and provided an extensive dictionary of the translation so that his fellow members would feel at home in any pub in London.  

Incoming Speech for Rotary on July 3, 2024 

Thank you all for attending today. First of all, I want to sincerely thank Avrum for his leadership last year. I want to thank the Group Directors for their leadership too and indeed to all other members as well. As most of you know my pet peeve about Rotary in general is that “we are very good at not letting people know what we do”. A lot of people know the name “Rotary” but unless they actually know someone in Rotary, they don’t have any idea what we do. As everyone learns more about Rotary and the work that we do, the more astonished they are.  What a difference we are making both locally and worldwide. We are a well-kept secret – but shouldn’t be.  

I encourage all our members to support their respective Group Directors as much as possible and engage in projects that we do. As you know, we help a lot of local organisations. I would like to see us do more ‘hands-on’ help as well as donating funds to them. This would help us promote our club and by doing that hopefully, gain more members.   

Our main goal for this year is to retain our current members and add some new members. Every year the incoming President is asked to set specific goals to try and obtain the ‘Club Excellence Award’ - formerly known as the Rotary Presidential Citation. I will be asking the Directors and members to give their input for some of these goals. I will give updates on these goals as the year progresses.      

We will be having our usual Fireside meeting in the next month or so and I encourage you to attend to give your input as to what you would like to see the Club doing this year. 

As you are aware, we are going ahead with the Gala Dance Fundraiser in October. We need to sell tickets – the early bird special is coming to an end July 31st. After that date all tickets will be $125. Please try and attend and bring family and friends. 

Thank you again for being here today. This year’s Rotary theme is “The Magic of Rotary” – I have given out the pins showing that. So, let’s all be magicians and do some Rotary Magic! 

Does anyone have questions? 

Few were generated but the Sergeant at Arms Courtney filled his begging box with much loot. 

Barry announced that his group (International Service) will meet at Remezzo’s Tuesday, July 9th at 6:00 pm. 

Rocco also announced that the Club Service group will meet as usual probably in a Markham pub on Monday, July 8th 

With nothing further for the good of Rotary, President Gordon closed the meeting.