Guests today were Ray Walker from Parksville AM, Elinor Mix, Doug Cox, Debbie Martin-Cox and Robin Carr. Today is the last day Debbie and Robin will be introduced as guests as they were inducted into our club today.
Announcements:
RI President Ray Klinginsmith will be speaking in Richmond on September 29. This will likely be the closest venue to see the RI President so ask David for details if interested.
David asked for the District's advice on giving financially to Shelterbox or DisasterAid Canada, DG Bob is leaving it up to individual clubs to decide whom to support. Ron noted that Norm Watts has done a great deal of research on this and President David asked the International Committee to look further at this.
David and Joanne have a wedding anniversary on September 2 and it is Gerry's birthday on September 7.
David thanked everyone involved in the fantastic job done on upgrading Rotary House. Diana and committee picked out colours while Peter and Allen Ball supervised the workers. The room was buzzing this morning with everyone very impressed with the improvements. A new floor is also being looked at and the kitchen needs to be painted as well.
The evening club is still looking for a host family to host a student from Thailand for 2-3 months, see David if you can help out.
Rose committee meeting tonight at 7 pm in Ken's office.
Program:
Kim Brown gave a talk called "This is my Life"
Kim was born in Leicestershire England where one of his first jobs was during the Second World War was delivering milk house to house ladeling it into bottles left out by the customers. At 16 he finished school and went to work in his father's haberdashery. In 1949 he received call up papers and served in the UK military for 2 years seeing places like Malta and Tripoli. He rejoined the family business on his return. In 1954 he was lucky enough to meet and marry Jill. They decided to come to Canada and in 1965 they landed in Winnepeg on their way to Saskatoon to be near relatives of Jill. Two days after arriving Kim landed a job in the Men's Wear department of the Bay where he worked for 16 months. He decided to open his own haberdashery in Saskatoon called "Kim's of England" He went on to also open a barber shop in the basement then a Ladies store called "Kim's Doll House" where he was one of the first to stock pantyhose. He opened a second Kim's of England in Regina but after a year sold all the stores and bought a bar/restaurant in Ibiza Spain. They ran this for 4.5 years then bought an old hotel which they ran for 19 years at which time one of their daughters took over operations. Kim and Jill have 4 girls, 2 boys and 11 grandchildren.
Kim's Rotary history started in Saskatoon in 1980, joining a Spanish club when they moved there. We are very glad that Kim's life journey brought him to join our club in 2002.
Sgt. at Arms: there were few fines this morning though Charles was singled out for having Christmas lights up early (still?), Charles did say he was first to have lights up every year.
Bill answered the question from last week's Scuttlebutt while Peter had his ticket drawn but failed to find the coveted blue marble.
Next week's trivia quiz: What is a haberdashery?
Here are some before and after photos of Rotary House as well as some of today's meeting.
