Date: February 12th, 2025

 

Attendance: 9 members and 2 guests  (Saira Haq, Proposed New Member; and Michael Conway, Many Times Past President of the Agincourt Rotary Club)

Total attendance: 11

 

President Gordon started the meeting with the reading of the Land Acknowledgment.

 

Anthem: Basil Dias

 

Toast to The King, Canada and Rotary.

 

International Director Barry introduced The Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton, who is a member of the World Service Committee of the Cobourg Rotary Club as well as a board member of the International Health Diplomacy Organization known as Project Rozana.

 

Karen presented to the club via Zoom. She first provided an overview of Project Rozana, which has been operating in the middle east since 2013, and then specifically on the Women4Women initiative. The Cobourg Rotary Club is applying for a District Grant for Women4Women. This initiative promotes several Rotary priorities. Firstly, it fosters developing a good relationship between Palestinians and Israelis by bringing health care to remote Palestinian villages in the Israeli controlled Area C of the West Bank in cooperation with Israeli hospitals and medical staff. The women and children in these remote villages have no other access to medical care. Therefore, the second priority of health care for those in need is also being promoted. In conjunction, this initiative promotes peace through cooperation.

 

Karen provided an example of how this cooperation works by explaining that the Palestinian health care workers can use an app on their cell phones to conduct an ultrasound and the results are then provided by the Israeli hospital to the health care workers in real time.

 

Women4Women are currently serving 6 remote villages and wish to expand their service through a Rotary District Grant to 12 remote villages. They have the backing of several Rotary Clubs, but require one more club for the District Grant Application.

 

Suresh thanked the Rev. Dr. Hamilton for her interesting and informative presentation.

Announcements:

 

- President Gordon announced that invitations would soon be sent out for next week’s pub night, and reminded all members to reply either “yes” or “no” as to their expected attendance.

- Mike Conway made an announcement regarding the Paul Harris Scholarships which was transformed into a mini-presentation as he gave an overview of the history of the Scholarship program, and indicated that the committee is looking for adjudicators, plus our club, being the co-founder of the scholarship program, are entitled to appoint a co-chair to fill the vacancy resulting from Peter Masson’s passing. There will be up to four $5,000 scholarships awarded this year. March 31^st will be the deadline for the submission of scholarship applications, and this year the committee will be writing both to the school guidance counselors and the school administrators to ensure a robust response.

 

 

 

S-A-A Mike Mushet collected happy bucks from Courtney, who was happy to receive 7,000 pounds of food from Global Medic as well as 500 pounds of soap. Arthur and Suresh also contributed happy bucks.

 

President Gordon then closed the meeting with a quote from Norman Vincent Peale - The Power of Positive Thinking:

 

"Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars"