BULLETIN - FRIDAY, JULY 27, 2018
Today’s Speaker
Noah Irvine, the Guelph teenager publicly advocating for more and better coordinated mental health services, explained his extensive letter-writing and phone-calling campaign to elected officials nationwide and their responses (or lack of them) ... so far. Noah certainly isn’t giving up on this important mission. Our club’s standing ovation after his presentation recognized this young man as a shining example of “Be The Inspiration”.
Presentation details are below.
Next Week's Speaker
Dr. Christopher DiCarlo - Philosopher, Educator, Author speaking on "Critical thinking in a post-fact world". Chris is a university professor of philosophy, a best-selling author and a world traveller, lecturing and sitting on philosophy panels with some of the brightest brains in the world from Harvard to Princeton. His biggest seller [so far] has been HOW TO BE A REALLY GOOD PAIN IN THE ASS (really, that’s the title).
New Member Induction – Mary Danielle Gilles
The Rotary Club of Guelph is delighted to welcome this new member, introduced by Trevor Reid.
Mary Danielle, or MD as most people know her, has been in the banking world for the past 14 years. Currently she is a Commercial Banker with the BMO Bank of Montreal out of Guelph and Milton areas. She primarily deals with businesses anywhere from acquisition to selling or retiring. Personally, she is an outdoors enthusiast, a lover of all things food and always teaching cooking skills to someone in her circle. She is involved with World Vision as a Child Ambassador jointly with her 8 year old daughter to teach her about humility and the need to be selfless in helping others.
Guests
Greeter Aldo Villanovich welcomed 9 guests today:
Norm Bindon– Rotary Club of Brampton, and Director of District 7080’s Foundation Committees, overseeing Rotary District and Global Grants
Ross Irvine– grandfather of today’s speaker, Noah Irvine (Ross is a former Rotarian from the Rotary Club of Guelph Trillium)
Susan Bitton– cousin of today’s speaker, Noah Irvine
Francis Noventa– principal of College Heights Secondary School, guest of Joanna Penfold
Anne MacKay– guest of Liz Cooney
Danny Pinksen– guest of Mahmud Hassain
Allen Kanerva– guest of Mahmud Hassain
Rob Galloway– visiting from Rotary Club of Burlington Central
Tony Saxon– reporter from Guelph Today, covering Noah’s presentation
Rotary Anniversaries
Brian McCulloch – 1 year
Joe Valeriote – 51 years
Rotary Birthdays
Tracey McGrath – July 22
Matt Williams – July 25
Sue Ricketts – July 26
Ruth Thatcher – July 26
Head Table
Paul Truex– member since 1979 with the classification Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Cyndy Moffat Forsythe- member since 2018 with the classification Business Development
Mahmud Ali Hassain- member since 2013 with the classification Menswear Retailing
Noah Irvine– today’s guest speaker
Barb Holmes- member since 1990 with the classification Education Administration
Paul Dredge– Club president, member since 1996 with the classification Real Estate-Commercial
Announcements
Paul Dredge reminded everyone that we are still looking for a couple of volunteers to take turns at writing our weekly club bulletin. Contact Terrie Jarvis for details.
Joanna Penfold reported that our club had collected $1,579 in donations for the family of the high school student, Kimberley Burnet, who had unexpectedly passed away at the end of June, a week after graduating from College Heights. Francis Noventa, principal of CHSS, thanked our club and will arrange transfer of these funds to the family.
Norm Bindon, our District Foundation Chair, was delighted to deliver a cheque for $3,214 to our club, for the projects we have been supporting in Cameroon. Furthermore, he'd just received news that the Food4Kids program (which is being supported by all four Rotary Clubs of Guelph) has just received approval for a District Grant.
Barb Holmes told us that today’s guest speaker, Noah Irvine, had recently been the recipient of our club’s annual Gary Tatum Award for inspiration and resilience at his GCVI high school. Recipients are nominated and chosen by the school staff. Barb re-presented the award to Noah in front of our club members – a warm and happy moment.
Luisa Del Rosario reminded us that Lobsterfest tickets are on sale for $85 each until August 15, after which the price will rise to $100 each. Wine donations are still being sought from members for the “Wheelbarrow of Wine” auction prize. See Luisa or Rosemary Clark for tickets, or any questions. Lobsterfest takes place September 29.
Happy Bucks
Mahmud Hassain is celebrating exactly five years since he was introduced to our Rotary club. He’s also excited to be flying to N. Manitoba for a week there.
Sergeant-At-Arms
SSA Bev Trist-Stewart kept her comments short today, fining Aldo Villanovich for his forwardness in "advising" her that she fine Randy Seager for not wearing his badge today (she fined Randy anyway and he had a rebuttal about shameful double standards, sure to get him a future fine as well!) All in good spirits for the benefit of our Polio Plus fundraising.
Presentation:
Noah Irvine – Guelph teenager advocating for mental health services
Paul Dredge reminded us that this year’s Rotary International motto is BE THE INSPIRATION, so when he heard about a Guelph teenager who had contacted every MP and MPP in the country to advocate for more and better coordinated mental health services, Paul saw that as truly inspirational.
Paul got in touch with Noah and invited him here today to share his story, which is still being written. Noah has already been recognized by several awards:
- He received our Rotary club’s Gary Tatum Award as a student of GCVI in 2017
- He was named to Guelph’s 40 under 40 in Guelph’s media
- He was one of four winners in Samara’s 2017 Everyday Political Citizen Under 30 award
- He received an Everyday Hero Award from the Upper Grand District School Board
Paul said:
“It is indeed an honour to introduce Noah Irvine who has been recognized as one of Canada’s leading mental health advocates – that’s right, a TEENAGER, and one of Canada’s leading mental health advocates.”
Noah explained that he’d lost his 24 year old mother to suicide when he was just five years old, and then had lost his father to a prescription drug overdose when Noah was 15. Both had struggled with mental health issues, so now he feels he is speaking out on behalf of his mum and dad.
He credits his GCVI history teacher, Jill Goodreau, with being the catalyst that turned him into a mental health activist. She was impressed by an essay he wrote about his family’s experiences with mental health issues, and persuaded him to share it with others. So he sent it to all 336 sitting MPs and MPPs, asking what they were doing about suicide prevention based on a parliamentary report that had been standing idle since 2011. After six months, Noah was disappointed that only 40 had responded – and half of those were “form letters”. He then personally called all of them, and was disappointed that most said that they didn’t reply because he was not one of their constituents! Noah respectfully reminded them that this was not a constituency issue but a national issue that transcends everywhere and concerns everyone.
Noah’s research into politics has identified that 12 different ministries have involvement with mental health and addictions but that they could be much stronger working together rather than separately.
While Noah hastens to explain that he himself is entirely non-partisan, he credits MPP France Gélinas (NDP) from Ontario’s Nickel Belt with actually getting involved and proposing Bill 149 to create a ministry dedicated to mental health and addictions – it didn’t pass, but it brought the topic to the surface.
Noah also credits local reporter Ken Armstrong from Guelph Today for giving initial media coverage to his mission, which then got the attention of other media and some “higher ups” in government, leading to his meeting with Canada’s Minister of Health and other officials, and receiving a personal phone call from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Noah advocated with the PM for a Secretariat of Mental Health and Addiction to be established.
And then nothing happened, leaving Noah feeling deflated … but not for long before he got fired up again to continue with this mission for better coordinated mental health services across the country.
Noah is now reaching out to every Premier and Health Minister across the country - federal, provincial and territorial – to advocate for a centralized system of good public services, making it easier for people to get mental health services.
In Noah’s words, “We need a new infrastructure – trying to fix the potholes in the existing structure isn’t working.”
Noah continues to be inspired and driven by this quote from Tommy Douglas, the founder of Canada’s national health care system:
“We are all in this world together, and the only test of our character that matters is how we look after the least fortunate among us. How we look after each other, not how we look after ourselves. That's all that really matters, I think.”
Noah received a standing ovation from the 80+ people in the room.
Anne-Marie Zadjlik, Rotarian and family physician, rose to reinforce the importance of Noah’s mission and our mental health crisis, saying that her medical practice spends several hours each week triaging teenagers and others in need of mental health support with nowhere to send them for help. The local medical community is petitioning for at least four more psychologists to be hired for public health in Guelph, to supplement the two on staff right now. She strongly endorsed Noah's efforts with her encouragement to “Go high, Noah. We’ll support you!”
Paul Truex rose to thank Noah and award him with Rotary’s Certificate of APPRECIATION for being our speaker. However, Paul announced he was taking the certificate back to have it reworded as a Certificate of INSPIRATION that he will also have framed for Noah!
50/50 Draw
Visiting guest Ann MacKay’s ticket was drawn and she insisted on her winnings being handed to Noah Irvine towards his campaigning costs!
