With a big grin, David Hawkins rang the bell to call the meeting to order at 7:08, with 26 members present and one guest (Mary McCowan, for her third meeting.) PP Roger shared a Rotary Moment about why Rotary rings a bell at the beginning of the meeting. 

There was no guest speaker today, as the scheduled speaker cancelled yesterday. Funny, we still managed to fill the time, as there was lots to talk about. 

Trudy and Phyo were at the Stirling Rotary Club this past week, to promote the Rotary Curling Fellowship. They found it interesting how that club handles breakfast. There is a pod assigned each month (similar to our set-up crew) and the pod is allocated $100 per week to ”do” breakfast. It’s up to the pod to decide what breakfast will be. Each member pays $10 per week, which covers breakfast and the 50/50 draw. Trudy and Phyo will be attending a Brighton Rotary Club meeting tomorrow.  

PP Roger reported that the WOTL room is not available on December 16^th for our Christmas party but is available on Friday, December 19^th. By show of hands members agreed to the change in date for the party and further agreed to hold our regular morning meeting on the 16th. Howard agreed to run the Secret Santa again this year.  

Roger noted that PECI will be holding a Youth Mental Health Resource Fair on November 27^th. Picton Rotary will have a booth and will give out a total of $500 in gift cards; we have been invited to join them. Norm said he would prefer to donate $1,000 to the local figure skating club. By show of hands the members did not support joining the PECI gift card giveaway. 

Roger noted the Fellowship Dinners are well underway. He asked our opinion about the timeframe – Nov/Dec this year whereas we had done Jan/Feb last time. He explained that he moved it up this year to ensure our “snowbirds” could attend, although this year there may be fewer people heading south. A couple of members said they preferred the Jan/Feb timeframe because it is a relatively dead time of year, after the busy holiday season. 

Christine noted that we now have 20 FOR’s signed up to attend our FOR Appreciation event on the 18^th. The FOR’s will arrive at 5:30, so Christine would like members to arrive at 5, to set out food. The set-up crew (currently Christine and Bill P) will arrive at 2 and more helpers would be welcome. We will all be the cleanup crew (using paper plates to minimize dishwashing time.) 

Norm thanked Gregor, Ted and Chris for moving the storybook stands from the beach to Chris’ barn. 

David M explained that the Health and Wellness presentation by Carson Arthur on November 17^th will be going ahead, in the Rotary Room at the WDCC. The intent is to focus attention on the importance of agriculture and food. 

Birthdays this week – Trudy, Nov 10. Anniversaries – Michelle and Pierre, 34 years on Nov 9^th 

50/50 Draw – Tim’s number was drawn, but (drat) he did not pick the Ace of spades. I think we’re down to just 4 cards!