President Gordon started the meeting with a ring of the Rotary bell and a toast to The Queen, Canada and Rotary.

 

16 (including 3 guests, Marti Boyko, widow of Jim Boyko, Dorothy Evans, guest of Basil and past president of the Markham Sunrise Rotary Club, Joan Masson, guest and spouse of Peter Masson, plus our guest speaker)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

President Gordon introduced Sylvia Bergmann, volunteer Coordinator at TransCare Community Support Services (formerly known as “Scarborough Support Services”)

 

            Sylvia has been with TransCare for 15 years and co-ordinates the volunteers for their programs which assist seniors in Scarborough, including Meals On Wheels. Their operation was greatly disrupted by the pandemic, because a lot of their volunteers were seniors themselves and therefore at risk from Covid. The need remained though, so Sylvia had to find new volunteers, and did so from the large number of younger people who were unemployed because of Covid. Unfortunately, these younger volunteers would only stay for a shorter period of time when they had the opportunity to obtain gainful employment again.

            Sylvia was able to tap into student volunteers from community colleges, such as Seneca, for the Chat Responder program. This program involved volunteers phoning seniors in the community and keeping them connected and engaged during this lonely period of time. This proved to be a very successful program to address needs resulting from isolation during the pandemic.

            Safety protocols had to also be put into effect, including curbside delivery to seniors homes. Sylvia also had to put together a training video for new volunteers, in order to avoid in person training sessions. Zoom recruitment interviews were also instituted. All of these safety protocols worked well and TransCare staff, volunteers and clients successfully avoided any instances of Covid-19.

            The result of TransCare’s efforts during the pandemic were lots of positive and happy clients, and the satisfaction that this brought to all involved. TransCare’s Meals On Wheels operation as a by-product provided an important safety check on their clients when family and friends were restricted from visiting them.

            Marti and Jim were involved with Scarborough Support Services for many years, and Marti expressed her appreciation with Sylvia’s progress in moving the organization forward and dealing with the challenges of the pandemic when seniors in the Scarborough community needed assistance more than ever.

            Sylvia fielded questions from the club members, and reported on the Meal On Wheels volume. TransCare has serviced over 1,000 clients in the Scarborough community with about 83,000 meals over the past year!

           

Mike Mushet thanked Sylvia for sharing a topic of great interest to our club, especially taking into account our aging demographic.

 

 

Link to Sylvia's presentation:  https://youtu.be/sYSeHYnaP0A

 

Link to Transcare newsletter           https://www.dropbox.com/s/4vwyufdi6tf3mmi/V1-I4_Final%20Draft.pdf?dl=0

 

 

President Gordon then presented Sylvia with a virtual cheque payable to TransCare in the amount of $3,000, being funds donated by club members and members of the public to the “Jim Boyko Memorial Fund”! Sylvia was very appreciative and thanked the club. She also asked Marti to supply a photo of Jim for insertion into TransCare’s next newsletter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Basil notified the club that Arthur’s son-in-law had passed away last night after a battle with cancer.

- Dhanni will be forwarding emails from donors to Jim’s Memorial Fund to Marti.

 

 

Sgt-at-Arms, Gerd Wengler, requested Happy Thoughts from everyone and the contributions included:

 

- President Gordon was happy that York Region was opening up again and his team won last night

.

- Basil and Dorothy were also happy with the re-opening and have scheduled hair and nail appointments, at least for Dorothy.

 

- Al was celebrating the latest soccer win. Everton beating Liverpool. (Frank's team)

 

- Gerd was happy to be able to once again frequent his favourite pub.

 

- Barry (after claiming the protection of The Canada Evidence Act against self-incrimination) was looking forward to dining again in one of his favourite restaurants across the municipal border.

 

- Dhanni was happy that the sun was shining and that she could take pleasant walks again.

 

- Dave Seemungal was happy to get back to walks in the park, but couldn’t wait for the re-opening and gave himself a haircut.

 

- Mike was happy that his condo board was able to negotiate a budget reduction. If only our government could follow suit.

 

-Danny was happy that Pickering was out of lock down but unhappy that most of the population of the GTA was in Pickering Town Center on the weekend.

 

Gerd ended with a joke for the lawyer in the Zoom room. A genie granted 3 wishes to a certain Rotarian. The Rotarian’s first wish was to get rid of all of the lawyers. The genie snapped his fingers and every lawyer on Earth disappeared in a puff of smoke. Then, the genie said to the Rotarian, “Well, now I’m finished”. The Rotarian objected, stating that he still had two wishes. The genie smiled and replied, “So? Sue me!”

 

President Gordon then terminated the Meeting.