Over the years our focus has been very much on supporting other local organizations providing much-needed services to our community, one of which is the Salvation Army.  We have provided financial support for programs put on by the local Citadel such as their Acre of Hope community garden program and their Youth Camps. We have also enjoyed hosting their Christmas Kettle at Stone Road Mall for one Saturday every holiday season from 2011 through 2019, then temporarily suspended due to COVID-19.  Members volunteer for 2 hour shifts at the kettle and there is never a problem filling up the available slots.  The Salvation Army’s holiday fund-raising activities play a crucial role in sharing the spirit of the season with families in need and our members have always enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm of the community as they generously donate to the kettles.

    In January 2007 the club members made the decision to change our name from “Wellington South” to “Guelph South”.  This decision was driven by 2 needs:  one, to distinguish us from a New Zealand club with the same name, and two, to enable anyone searching online for Guelph-area Rotary clubs to also find ours...something that just wasn’t happening with the name we were chartered under.  Rotary International approved our application for a name change and in March 2007 we celebrated our official transition to “Rotary Club of Guelph South”.

 

   As a new club we decided to come up with a consensus among the members as to what areas of need we wanted to focus on for service. There are so many deserving causes out there, but the club members ultimately decided that they wanted to provide support primarily to children, the elderly and the disabled.   In February 2003 we held our first “Taste of Italy” pasta dinner. It was decided that the Sunrise Therapeutic Riding and Learning Centre in Puslinch would be the beneficiary, giving us an opportunity to support a cause that benefits both children and the disabled both.  The event was held at the Puslinch Community Centre and the 200 tickets were sold out before the doors opened!  It was a great opportunity for all of the club members to work together as a team and has become an annual event, held every February in Puslinch since then.

Guelph has had a strong Rotary presence since the first club, the Rotary Club of Guelph, was chartered in 1920.  Along with that club, the Rotary Clubs of Guelph-Wellington and Guelph-Trillium have also grown and prospered.  Despite that, there appeared to be a need for a new club to cover both the growing south end of Guelph and the Township of Puslinch.  The Guelph Trillium Club decided to sponsor their first new club, and a Steering Committee of Rotarians was struck to organize it.  The first meeting of the new provisional club was held on May 3 2001 and was attended by the Steering Committee and 10 potential members. More weekly meetings followed where more new potential members attended until enough (20) had confirmed their desire to join the new club so that Rotary International could formally charter it.  The new club was chartered on July 31 2001 as the "Rotary Club of Wellington South" and the members were presented with their club Charter by the President of Rotary International in Toronto at a Presidential Conference on August 10 2001.  Due to subsequent confusion with a New Zealand club (also “Wellington South”) a decision was made to rename the club to “Rotary Club of Guelph South” in February 2007.  

 

 

July 1st marks the start of a new Rotary year.  Rotary International 2021-22 President Shekhar Mehta is a member of the Rotary Club of Calcutta-Mahanagar, West Bengal, India.  Mehta is encouraging Rotary members to change lives through service. His theme Serve to Change Lives asks members to participate in service projects where they can make a difference in their communities and the people who live in them.  "Rotary kindled the spark within me to look beyond myself and embrace humanity," he said. "Service became a way of life for me and I, like many others, adopted the guiding philosophy that 'Service is the rent I pay for the space I occupy on this earth, and I want to be a good tenant of this earth."  Mehta also wants members to focus their efforts on empowering girls and ensuring their access to education, resources, services, and opportunities so that future generations of women leaders will have the tools they need to succeed. Mehta is asking members to use Rotary's belief that diversity, equity, and inclusion is critical in all we do as a compass to guide this work.

As a global network that strives to build a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change, Rotary values diversity and celebrates the contributions of people of all backgrounds, regardless of their age, ethnicity, race, color, abilities, religion, socioeconomic status, culture, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity.  A top priority for Rotary is growing and diversifying our membership to make sure we reflect the communities we serve.  We're creating an organization that is more open and inclusive, fair to all, builds goodwill, and benefits our communities. We want people with differing perspectives and ideas who will help Rotary take action to create lasting change in communities around the world. 

We were honoured to be able to welcome Rotary International Director Valarie Wafer as our very special guest speaker at this morning's meeting.  Besides being a Collingwood-based Rotarian, Valarie also chairs Rotary International’s new Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Taskforce that is charged with shaping a comprehensive action plan with achievable, measurable and meaningful outcomes for Rotary.  Rotarians from other clubs in our Guelph-Wellington Cluster also joined us in the ZOOM meeting to hear Rotary Club of Guelph South President Russ Powell and Rotarian Geoff Allen introduce Valarie and provide her biography.

We were pleased to welcome Habitat for Humanity Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph CEO Steve Howard to our virtual Rotary meeting on Dec 17th where we advised him of the $4,000 donation being made to Habitat for Humanity WDG from the recent Nutcrackers auction. A virtual "big cheque" presentation followed by e-transfer!

Thank you Deb Allen for your incredible leadership over the past year.  You made sure our club never skipped a beat by immediately starting a Zoom Breakfast meeting.  We were able to still enjoy some incredible speakers and share  fellowship time.  This support was invaluable during our isolation time at home.  Thank you for guidance, patience and humour over the past year.   I think we are all in agreement that our year was still successful and continued strong to the end of your time.  Thanks for giving us your time and talents.  We look forward to our new President Russ Powell and of course to hopefully being able to meet back at Springfield face to face.  From all our members a very heart felt Thank you!! 

Presenting local charities we have chosen to give our fundraising dollars to is always a highlight of some of our Breakfast Meetings.  

Carla from Lutherwood attended our meeting on October 3 to give us the run down on the employment services they offer to newcomers to Canada. They are doing great work to help people with training, networking, and other employment support in the Waterloo Region and Wellington County. 

 

 

Peter Gill, from Chalmers Community Services, was our guest speaker this week.  Here is past-president, Linda Main, presenting a donation cheque to Peter.

 

Matteo Furfaro, from Bishop Mac High School, was one of the Camp Enterprise students that attended the 2-day workshop at University of Waterloo in May.  He spoke to our members about his experience and of winning the team prize for best business model for a start-up organization. He told us that his biggest learning from this experience was the chance to be exposed to business leaders and how they manage complex business issues.

 

The University of Guelph's Rotaract Club held its annual Gala on March 2nd, and this year selected Food4Kids to be the beneficiary of the proceeds.

They attended our weekly meeting on March 21st to present $5,000 how amazing is that??

We are grateful to the Rotaractors for their support of this important project being championed in Guelph by the 4 Rotary Clubs.