Presidents message, 2012 year in Review.
Good afternoon Rotarians and Friends,
Wishing you and your families a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.
This year has come and gone, and it went fast.
When I look back, it is amazing how many things have happened this past calender year.
In January we started with helping loading a container of School supplies heading to South Africa.
In February, The Philippines had a Flood disaster and we raised with friends and the community over $9,000.00 to help people that were effected by that.
Also this month, Doug and Grace went on a medical mission, Doug also visited the Healing Hearts and Eye Surgery matching grant projects we have been involved in, and India became Polio Free.
In March, we donated $3,000 to the Woodstock Museum school to give children (2 classes) an opportunity to have a week out of school special education through the museum staff.
In April, we had our annual Rotary Fish Fry where we raised about $12,000 for our Rotary Humanitarian projects.
In April we donated $4,800 to Polio Plus, the Polio Eradication program.
In April and into May, Edie and I traveled to Thailand to attend the Rotary International Convention where we gathered with about 35,000 other Rotarians in Bangkok. It is an amazing Country to spend some holidays.
In May, we had an fellowship evening in Burford (Mistery night) and car rally with friends and Rotarians.
In June. we celebrated our Rotary Medals program with all the Highschools in Oxford County and one in Waterloo-Oxford and all 5 Rotary Clubs involved, a great evening. This evening 2 Highschool students from each of the 8 Highschools have been chosen by their peers.
The boy and girl selected as Rotary Medallists should be a person of excellent moral character. He/she should be one who has participated in one or more school activities, and who has made some worthy contribution to the life of the school. He/she should be a reasonably good student. In essence, the pupils selected should have those characteristics, abilities and interest which would make them both worthy representatives of the school and personify the motto of Rotary “Service above Self”.
The end of June we had our change over night where we thanked Jantine for her leadership as President and a great year. The end of the Rotary year is the last day of June and the new Rotary Year starts July 1.
In August we participated in the Rotary Dragonboat race in Woodstock with friends and family and won Gold.
Also in August we had our 27th Annual Farm, Truck and Construction Toy Auction at the Quality Hotel, which was another success with between $4,000-5,000 raised for Rotary Humanitarian projects.
In August we also were part of another Matching Grant for the Little Healing Hearts which totalled $50,000.00 going to India to children for Heart operations that otherwise may not have long to live because the parents have no means to pay for the operations.
In September we supported the Woodstock Museum School for the new school year with another $3,000.00
Also in September we received the Youth Exchange application from New Zealand where a student Clarke Roberts will be coming from to join us for the year 2013.
In October we went Curling with our club organized by Jantine.
In November-December we delivered the Rotary Dictionaries. every year each grade 3 student in Oxford County receives a dictionary. A Rotary literacy project.
In November we hosted a visiting Rotary Curling Club from Scotland for 2.5 days, who come and compete here every 4 years against Canadian Rotarians for 28 days.
We also did a Christmas Cheese fundraiser, were anybody could buy cheese to give to a friend, family, or businesses to their clients, and the proceeds to go to Polio Plus, the Rotary Polio Eradication Project.
In December Rachael Dennis was selected as our outbound Exchange Student. On December 19 we had our annual Christmas party, hosted by Jack and Sally Bingham.
December 20th, Grace left for the Philippines to visit family and to help out with Disaster Relief in the Philippines.
Also in December, we helped with Disaster Relief Cuba and supported Dubois Charitable Foundation by getting media for this cause and helped collect materials. The 3rd container was loaded December 29 and is on its way to Santiago De Cuba.
I want to thank everyone for all your support you have given this past year to help make this world a better place for everyone.
None of this would have happened without the support of all of you.
I hope we can continue this for 2013.
Peter Stam