Bulletin - Friday, February 15, 2019

 

 

You could have heard a pin drop as Roger emphasized the need to proactively encourage creativity in children, to build the innovative abilities that they and our nation need to thrive. This sounds like something that Rotary needs to get behind! Read more below.  

    

 

Cyndy Forsyth gave a short update about the youth wellness hub project, now referred to as the Integrated Youth Services (IYS) model.  In April, the Guelph steering committee for this project plans to visit Rotarians in Chatham to find out how they supported the establishment of their local youth mental health centre called ACCESS Open Minds Chatham-Kent. Learn more about that centre here.  Here in Guelph, work is progressing through the early “environmental scan” phases, but a professional project manager will soon need to be hired to drive the next steps.  To this end, a fundraising campaign has been started to raise $150,000.  Donations can be made here through Canada Helps. Spread the word and share the link!

 

Ranjit Singh thanked Rotarians for attending the recent Firesides. He especially thanked the hosts, and looks forward, as we all do, to hearing a report-back from the Board about our many opinions. 

 

Tracey McGrath and Marva Wisdom, Co-Chairs of our Canada Day 2019 Committee, are excited about big changes to this year’s event, and invite all committee members plus anyone else interested to join them in a “retreat” on Saturday, March 2, from 9:30am to 1:00pm to do a complete rundown of this year's event. It will be held at the office of Matthew Webster, at Home Group Realty, on the main floor of the building at 5 Edinburgh Street South.  Contact Tracey.

 

Aldo Villanovich thanked members for their kind concern and queries regarding his wife’s health. She is receiving excellent treatment at the cancer centre in Hamilton, and her prognosis is looking good so far. They have relocated to live in Burlington, but Aldo assures us that we will still be seeing him at our club!  

 

Steve Irvine reported recently attending an NHL game in Florida, and noted with pleasure that when the national anthems were sung, the Canadian anthem was sung even louder than the American one!  Just goes to show how many “Snowbirds” visit Florida.

 

 

 

Tom Funk warmly introduced Roger Garriock, who joined our club two years ago after moving to Guelph. He is one of our most active members, supporting Food4Kids, Rotary Local Lager, and our Corporate Coordinating Committee for fundraising, and even more activities.  

 

Roger spoke a little about his professional background, becoming a civil engineer and spending 32 years with IBM. After retiring, he got involved with supporting an IBM-sponsored program called Destination ImagiNation which actively encourages and develops creativity in children. Not only did Roger get involved big time, so did his wife, Faith. Between the two of them, they are now amongst the most experienced, knowledgeable and ardent Canadian supporters of building creativity in young minds through this truly amazing program. 

 

Roger pointed out how seriously Canada lags in world rankings for innovation, having relied for too long on our natural resources. This impacts our nation’s economic wellbeing. When IBM asked 1,500 executives what the most important attribute was in their employees, the top trait they desired was “creativity”.

However, our education systems are still focused on producing grades, and not innovative thinking.

 

• Creativity
• Critical Thinking
• Collaboration
• Communication

The Destination ImagiNation program does this, and has now been running for a few decades, helping several million youngsters around the world to become more innovative, resourceful and confident. Roger and Faith’s own daughters credit their years in DI (as it’s abbreviated) with their own problem-solving capabilities today. 

 

For more information:

 

Here is the website link to Destination ImagiNation.

 

Here is a link to an article on this topic written by Roger.  Definitely worth reading!

 

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This week's editor:  Terrie Jarvis