Miscellaneous

Repeat from last week or until no longer relevant or until I delete it:

Marg passed around signup sheets for Gilmore breakfasts, Rotary breakfasts and Youth committee.

Sam has organize the end-of-summer, beginning-of-fall social on Sept 4 at 5:30 p.m. at Country Vines, $12/person for food and purchase your own wine. Debbie S. has reminded you to sign up for it. So sign up, pay up, and SHOW UP!

OUR THURSDAY BREAKFAST MEETING CA ACCESSED THROUGH THE LINK BELOW.

Rotary Club of Richmond Sunrise is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89414124941?pwd=OsFTza1R0fSV7JaS7P7jzjeg4yZoQb.1

Zoom Meeting Rules

1) Mute your microphone if you aren't already muted. Background noise is distracting.
2) If you are not engaged in the presentation, turn off your camera.
3) Chat function should only be used to address the speaker, not for Club member remarks during the presentation

4) Unmute when harassing the Sergeant at Arms or taking your turn during Sergeant at Arms.

5)Who Zooms anymore anyway?🤔Carolyn? Dalbir? Ananda?

Please direct any questions to the President or a board member of your choosing and we will discuss any and all questions or concerns during our board meeting. Also please refer anyone who may be interested in attending a meeting or joining the club.

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE

From Mary Shelley via Amanda “There is but one solution to the intricate riddle of life; to improve ourselves and contribute to the happiness of others.”

VISITORS

District Governor, Mr. Drew Antrobus and Peter Roaf, past DG.

Imelda on breakfast duty!

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND

CLUB BUSINESS

Debbie S. reminds us of the End of Summer Social coming up on Wednesday – so far, we have 19 registered. Debbie will resend the invitation. You can etransfer the $12 to Richmond sunrise account. Bobby will resend the etransfer information.

Pat would like the Chairs of committees to send her the list of members and she will group them for emailing on ClubRunner.

Elena announced the International Committee wants more members.

Susan will be sending more information about the District Conference.

Mr. Moe Leghari was inducted into Rotary by Drew Antrobus. The international family of rotary, now one more than 1.4 million strong, offers us the permanence of fellowship. Although we may be experiencing a change in language, food, people or culture, we will always be welcome at a Rotary meeting, which is becoming more relevant in a changing environment. There are so many ways you can become involved, enjoy your club and find your passion. Moe agreed to abide by the constitution and bylaws and was welcomed as the newest Rotarian in the world. Thanks to Jeannette for the new member. Moe thanks us for allowing him to become a member of this extended family. Micheal Ghirra will be Moe’s mentor. 🤣

SERGEANT At Arms Tidbits

Dalbir recommends going to the conference, as he was at Terrace last year.

Sam is not at the meeting this morning as he is offering a “Moose Day” to a child he works with on Thursdays and didn’t think Moose was ready to come to a meeting. He finished his cognitive behavioural therapy course last week and next week he’ll be in Las Vegas.

Moe corrected the reason he wasn’t here last week was for a house inspection, not an infection. His daughter is going to UVic and leaving this weekend.

Pam expressed how blessed she feels to be in Richmond, in this beautiful city, which outsiders see, and which we may not.

Susan says Ryan is back to his university studies. They were at Roberts Creek last week, in a rattling car, thought they would check it out when they got there, braved the ferry, were rattling more and going more and more slowly and it only continued to get worse. Glen was thinking of all kinds of things it could be, but it turned out to be loose wheel bolts on the left, driver’s side, unnoticeable because of the weight of the car. They are so very fortunate to be here, with nothing tragic having happened on the road.

Carolyn has been a relocation manager this summer for a friend, recycling, reorganizing and storing and will be going to meet him in Winnipeg, then driving to Nova Scotia. She paid only just over $400 for the flights there and back. Who says travelling to the Maritimes is expensive? She is helping her 97-year-old friend make some transitions of life.

Gordon welcomes Moe, thanks Drew for his words of wisdom, and recognizes these speeches always tug at the heartstrings. He thanks Peter for joining us. He had dinner with his son for his birthday and he’s 50 years old – Gordon can’t believe it. His eldest granddaughter is 17, and he remembers when she was 1 day old, and he held her in the palm of his hand. Now she has a learner’s license.

Debbie S. gave a shout-out to Judy who was our Foundation Chair last year. She went to a Canadians baseball game Friday night, with Nicole and her boyfriend, Fred, from UK. John was in his glory explaining baseball to Fred, until he lost Fred with an “It was a pop fly so he had to tag up before he could run”.

Melinda took 3 grandkids to the PNE and has a few more grey hairs. They stood in line for an hour so Willow could ride the baby rollercoaster for one minute.

Sandra says life is all work, with year-end tomorrow. She will enjoy the weekend and hopes the pool works.

Amanda organized all the rotary items, but threw out the old HP sauces, and seemed to have lost her phone somewhere in all the boxes. She going to Saskatchewan for a wedding.

Chris P’s. dad passed away and she was with him and will think of him every day. She had 58 awesome years with him and has no regrets as she spent so much time with him in the last year. Her mom now has major crush on Larry who looked after the family so well. The good news is that Mitchell got a co-pilot job with Pacific Coastal. Congratulations, Mitch! They went to Sooke for a day trip. Georgina had bought a picture at the auction but drives a mini, so Chris has had that picture in her minivan since May and finally delivered it to Georgina and was able to see the great place where she lives.

Elena thanks the breakfast team. Thanks also to Drew and Peter for coming. They have been working together in Rotary World Help. Peter was always helpful in the Friendship Exchange. She is proud to be a Rotary member.

Peachy was out with friends from high school and they went to the Night Market, downtown, to Gastown and Canada place then when they went back to the car, it had been towed away. They had to get it at the towing company, and then started to drive around again.

Danny is busy with work in Vancouver and after work, he goes to the gym and does meditation, preparing for another mission, in Mexico.

Pat thanks Drew and Peter, welcomes our guests and says the breakfast was delicious – which it was! She and Mary Lou were celebrating with a mutual friend at the Richmond Country Club and saw Eleanore.

Jeannette went to the Philippine consulate dinner, and took the train with Elena, who was talking to a random lady about Rotary, then introduced Jeannette as our member chair – maybe a new member?

Larry has many Filipino services and food, and this breakfast was wonderful. After his cruise, he went to Birch Bay, then back to work, and tomorrow he’s off to Bonnyville Alberta to be with his sisters for a ‘party hard’ week retreat. September is busy. Steve’s sister and husband are coming to Canada, (from their 100º weather). The week after that Larry will be in the hospital for surgery.

Blair says the president of the hotel division, who was his mentor, had a heart attack, hopefully with a good outcome. He has had two heart attacks in his life, both at the gym. That’s why Blair avoids the gym. Many prayers for his friend. He received another call about a fellow he worked with in Alberta, who just retired then found out he has oesophagus cancer. Very sad news from Blair.

Bill can tell it’s fall as next week will be their first hockey game on Tuesday night.

Kal is not happy with Moe’s mentorship choice. The NFL is back next week.

Debbie M. was at the PNE with Amalia, who went on a couple of rides with Miles, and Miles felt quite sick. She was in Kelowna with Miles, Sami and Amalia who flew to Kelowna and then were in Vernon with her dad. Manuel is coming home on the 10^th, and they are figuring out the logistics of who will go down to get him.

Judy was in Oliver for the week, with all the kids and grandkids, and had a family photo taken. It had been done 8 years ago, but Jack wasn’t born then and now Ralph is not there. She spent a couple of special days with Lindsey in Birch Bay. This week her last grandchild starts kindergarten so she will have no more babysitting during the day, one day a week as she’s been doing for the last 15 years. She went to lunch on Monday with high school friends, at a house in Ladner – arrived at noon and didn’t leave until 7:02 p.m. She had the best time!

Marg went to the Lion’s game and loves what the new owner is doing. “Uproar” is the new team, with kids 5 years old and up. She is trying to finish up her summer list of dinners as it is almost the end of summer. Tuesday, she had 24 cousins for dinner.

Chris B. saw more movies, went swimming, rock climbing, and had sushi, and now the grandsons are gone. The house is empty, but Malcolm is thankful that everything is back in its place. She is sorry to hear about Chris’ dad.

John knows the fellow Blair mentioned – he got us the tickets and Sandman Hotels for the Dallas hockey games for the Gala live auction item and John is sorry to hear that news. After Rotary today he will pick up the twins and the older brother to pick blackberries, was thinking at Centennial Beach Road, but was told by the little one that Eagle Park is better. Then they’ll make jam.

Garth thanks the team for the breakfast, thanks Peter and Drew, who gave the shortest DG speech ever. He asked Bobby to send us the etransfer address again.

Chris M. says that, with the English relatives gone on Tuesday, everyone is getting back to normal and recovering from the PNE on Sunday – where they ate mini donuts, corn dogs, soft ice cream, nori tacos, perogies and sausage, cotton candy and finished off with Jimmy’s lunch. She won the horse-race ball tossing game and was able to gift Eleanor with a giant stegosaurus.

Peter R. promises to come back more often to see us, as he likes our stories and might introduce the idea to his own club.

Drew truly enjoyed coming here to talk to us. He thanks us for the amazing Filipino breakfast as he loves Filipino food. He and Judy are heading to Kelowna to visit his daughter and her partner, then flying to Toronto for his mother’s 100^th birthday! Then the Zone institute starts, and on the 23^rd he’s going to Budapest for a week. So he’ll be busy until Oct. 8^th. He thanks for the warm reception.

Bobby welcomes Moe, who he knows from Cambie Secondary. He thanked Amanda for organizing all the Rotary stuff into one place, but sorry she lost her phone in one of the boxes. Micheal has gone to California, where one of their dad’s best friends has passed away. One of their staff, an older lady who had been with them for 15 years had a stroke and passed away as well. He was hosting his brother-in-law for a week from the UK and is heading to the PNE.

Peter thanks Drew and Peter for enlightening us. Susan’s story about her car reminded him of the time they were driving the motorhome on Interstate 5, through Bellingham, and felt it bouncing a bit. Jane, intuitively asked, “What’s going on?” They were near Mount Vernon when the whole suspension gave out – something to do with the air brakes, air going out when you stop so the vehicle lowers down for stepping out easily, the air not keeping it up and the brakes off and the brakes starting to smoke on I 5. They went to a truck dealership in Mount Vernon, who told them to come back next week as they were booked solid. That not being an option, they contacted the Insurance company, and someone there told them to go to the Walmart parking lot, after which he came and fixed it in the lot, at a cost $800 which the insurance company paid.

Meanderings

Don't you love the political convention where the leader is chosen? Ever wonder when and why they began? Me neither but here is the history of political conventions.

George Washington didn’t have a nominating convention. As the commander of the colonial forces in the American Revolution, he was an easy candidate to select from among the eligible pool of any white man 35 and older, and he won his first two elections without any real competition. After that, there was no clear path for narrowing the pool, so political parties developed their own ways of choosing candidates.

Parties began holding conventions in the early 19th century and presidential primaries in the early 20th century. The convention remained the main way of selecting candidates until 1972, when new rules gave the primaries more power to determine the nominee. Since then, conventions have become a way to celebrate a predetermined candidate, rather than a means of choosing one.

Once Washington said he wouldn’t run for a third term, congressmen began choosing their parties’ nominee in private caucuses. Critics derided the system as “King Caucus,” and in September 1831, the Anti-Masonic Party held the first national presidential-nominating convention as an alternative to the caucus. Later that year, the National Republican Party (a different party than the modern Republican Party) held its own convention.

The major shift came in 1832, when sitting president Andrew Jackson decided that his party, the Democratic Party, should hold a convention, too. Although Jackson tried to portray this as a way of giving voters more power, historian Jill Lepore suggests in The New Yorker that it was actually an attempt to replace Vice President John C. Calhoun with Martin Van Buren on the ticket. (Jackson succeeded and won reelection.)

Since then, every major party, with the exception of the Whigs in 1836, has held a national convention to nominate its presidential candidate. Still, nominating conventions in the 19th century were very different from the versions Americans watch on TV today. Back then, the winning candidate didn’t give an acceptance speech or even necessarily attend the convention—an unofficial practice that ended with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.

“Throughout most of the 19th century, campaigning was kind of considered uncouth,” says Stan M. Haynes, a lawyer in Baltimore and author of two books on the history of U.S. nominating conventions.

“Candidates would write letters and do things behind the scenes, but to do anything publicly to show that you were running for president was kind of considered to be tacky,” he continues. “The party should come to you, you should not come to the party.”

One of the other big differences between modern conventions and 19th-century ones is that there were no presidential primary elections. The convention was when candidates were selected. As with the caucus before it, party members eventually came to see this as an undemocratic system in need of reform.

If you want to read more (and I won't be upset if you don't) you can follow this link.

How Political Conventions Began—And Changed | HISTORY

SPEAKER

District Governor, Mr. Drew Antrobus (and Rotary Sherlock the standard poodle) has served Rotary for over 37 years and this year, as our District Governor, he embraces the Magic of Rotary as what we do all over the world, the people we help, Rotary World Help, touching lives in countries around the world and putting new smiles on people’s faces. He reminded us of the Rotary Vision Statement which advocates that we unite and take action to create lasting change across the globe, in our communities and in ourselves. We are the magicians. He also reminded us to look after ourselves first, then our families, our jobs and then focus on Rotary as we become strong. We are empowered through unity. We believe in Service above Self but know to look after ourselves first so that we can engage without burnout. This would be particularly relevant for encouraging young members to join, as they are busy focusing on their own lives and families. There are many ways to make a difference and to engage members, including empowering through unity, getting members to work together as time and availability allow, and working through fellowships. Rotary action groups, RAGS, afford a variety of opportunities – check them out at https://my.rotary.org/en/take-action/empower-leaders/rotary-action-groups. The Learning Centre is one of the best tools we have as Rotary, courses would cost $1000s, are well presented and available to help us learn and develop. The Foundation has amended the grant access process, focusing on sustainable projects and on member and community engagement in planning and participation. We are encouraged to reach out to our communities, allowing them to share their needs with us. Drew also reminded us to share our success stories and to brag about the good work we do. We need to have a 30-second elevator talk at the ready, to wear our pins on our jackets, to promote rotary whenever and wherever we can. We are empowering people in a great way to give back. The Youth Exchange is an example that changes lives and builds peace between countries and people.

Congratulations to our club, as last year we reached the Major Donor Level One in donations to Foundation, with Judy May as our Foundation chairperson. We also received the Rotary International Citation.

In April (25-27) 2025, the District Conference at the River Rock will celebrate the magic of rotary - Friday focusing on local projects, Saturday on International projects and Sunday on ourselves. We could submit our projects. There will be free parking for the conference. Thanks to Tourism Richmond who gave a grant for speakers. Drew distributed cards which allow us a price of only $395 for the weekend. This is a chance to build and renew friendships, and to discover our own Rotary District. Guaranteed personal growth and fun.

upcoming events

Sept 4 at 5:30 p.m. at Country Vines, $12/person for food and purchase your own wine

Friday May 2, 2025 Sunrise Rotary Gala Auction

TODAY'S CHUCKLEs

Cartoon Crazy, Cartoon Girl Images, Cartoon Faces, Cartoon Clip Art, Funny Emoji Faces, Cute ...

All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.

Blair almost had a psychic girlfriend, ..... But she left him before they met.

And for all you geniuses out there: How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?