Rotary Our Club Home Page About our club About Rotary Club Executive Where Local Clubs Meet Our Sponsors Rotary Links Contact Us Service Projects Past Projects Current Projects Members' Area (requires password) Calendar Members' Roster Duty Roster Executive Minutes		January 6, 2004 For our first meeting of the new year, enough snow fell while we were enjoying the fellowship of Rotary inside the Old Dutch Inn that brooms and brushes were needed to sweep off the cars when we were done. President Hilda wound up early so we would have time to do that. Besides President Hilda, only Ed, John, Lawrence, Matt, Jeff, Jean-Marc, Dianne and Ken braved the weather and made it to the meeting. Ed, who was seen after the meeting sweeping his car off and shaking his head, told us stories of his and Pat's visit to Spain. Highlights included Ed chasing down and frisking the wrong pick pocket, many lovely places including the "if you only see one place in Spain see this one" Al Hambra palace ( see some photos here), and then Christmas with Kim and Jill and their family in Ibiza. Ed tells us they had a wonderful time. Our speaker for the morning was Major Daniel Roode. Dan is a member of the Parksville AM club but spoke to us this morning in his Salvation Army capacity. Dan came by to thank us for being amongst the 200 volunteers who made their Christmas campaign a success. They had a goal of raising $130,000 and really hoped and needed to bring in $150,000 from this campaign to fund their many programs through the year. Although it didn't look like they were going to make it until the last minute, on Christmas Eve, they topped $150,000. They do their work without government funding and the burden they bear is staggering. They hand out 300 - 400 hampers of food every month, hampers that for a family are a large box of groceries. They served over 16,000 meals in their soup kitchen last year. The list of programs they offer, goes on and on. We had a part in the purchase of the van they use in their work which is pictured above. Matt was our Sgt at Arms and started out by fining himself for not wearing a pin. Amongst others, he got Diana for her hat, Ed for being home and Hilda for putting in a happy buck for the snow. Next week, the 13th, is a club assembly and that evening is an Executive Meeting. Please come prepared to determine how we are doing with our goals and objectives in each Avenue of Service and what we should be doing now. One other thing: Recently we had a membership meeting. Each of us went away with a list of names to invite to a meeting. Lets not forget, we need to bring more members into our club.