Dr John Tibbits – Guest of the Club and Bill Stevens

Jennifer Dunnsmoor – Guest of Tom Funk

Avtar Kambo – Guest of Mahmud Hussein

Announcements

Shelter Box Appeal - Jo Anne Penfold – announced an urgent appeal for donations to Shelter Box to help address anticipated need for shelter for displaced persons from this week’s mammoth “Super Typhoon” about to devastate the Philippines and other parts of South East Asia. Donations accepted via the Shelter Box website.

Lobsterfest Wine Drive    

Bonnie Evans thanked members for their generous cash and wine contributions to the Lobsterfest Wheelbarrow full of Wine auction prize.    

Impending Rotary Retirement

President Paul forewarned the club of long term member Don Parr’s impending announcement of retirement from Rotary for reasons of deteriorating health of both himself and his wife.  Likewise, for Ken Hamill.

Alms for the Poor

The disappearing Sergeant at Arms brought cookie “Alms” for the poor members who had to endure her absence from the meeting and the prospect of wallet thinning fines until at least next week – no cheers were audible to the hearing challenged scribe. 

Happy Bucks

Bill Stevens introduced Dr John Tibbits to the club - John is the long-term President and CEO of Conestoga College (More formally known as Conestoga Institute of Technology and advanced Learning). Dr. Tibbits is, and has been, instrumental in developing Conestoga into a leading college within the Ontario College System during his extensive tenure.

Dr Tibbits presented an enlightening and fascinating snapshot of the “Past Present and Future” of Conestoga College – he probably could have had several other workable titles for his presentation: Conestoga College – Who Knew?  Conestoga College – The Educational Cog supporting the Economic Future of Ontario’s Golden Pentangle.

• To support the training needs of the local community by providing highly skilled workers for business and industry while inspiring students to achieve their full potential.

• Conestoga has approximately 60,000 full and part-time students at campuses in Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, Cambridge, Stratford, Ingersoll and Brantford. These numbers include approximately 16,000 full-time post-secondary students.
• Conestoga’s geographic reach now includes Brantford and Milton with joint educational programming with Laurier University in both locations. The expansion in its catchment area is generating a broader footprint in southwestern Ontario with the scale and scope to become a more comprehensive institution with greater breadth and depth of programming in the fastest demographic and economic growth centres in the in the country
• The scale and scope will raise the profile of the College and increase the potential for significant growth employer partnerships and attract students from a broader base. In this latter regard the College has approximately 7,000 international students from 85 countries. (This enrolment is equivalent of having a 140-million-dollar export business in Southwest Ontario).
• Conestoga has 7,200 students in co-op and field placements that contribute 2 million hours of work annually

• By helping both younger and older workers adapt to the changing and challenging economic environment, Conestoga is indispensable to local prosperity and the health and competitiveness of the labour force. No other institution can rival the scale of its contribution. Moreover, it directly addresses the needs of the area’s most vulnerable workers and residents. Significantly, Conestoga draws equally from the four socioeconomic quartiles, whereas the universities draw from the top socioeconomic quartile.

• basic upgrading, including high school completion, continuing education mainly in evenings and weekends – 80% of these students are taking courses to advance their careers – to:
• Corporate training with clients such as Toyota and Linamar; (170 employers have upskilled their employees)
• International English language testing (30 offices across Canada and 20,000 tests
• Apprenticeship Programs (Conestoga is one of the top 3 providers of apprenticeship training hours within the Ontario college system);
• Degree programs, (Conestoga is the college with the most degrees outside the GTA and the only college in Canada to have accredited engineering degrees);
• Graduate Certificates Programs (Over 50 providing workforce skills to university graduates; the graduate certificates are one of the fastest growing parts of our academic programming, as they attract thousands of university graduates both domestically and internationally.)

• A Media Centre,
• More joint degree programs with Laurier
• A cheese institute in partnership with the Ontario Dairy Council
• An applied research centre, entrepreneurship and accelerator centre
• Development of a comprehensive undergraduate engineering school. (U of waterloo refused 10,000 students with averages above 90%)
• More STEM-based programming
• tinued growth of international enrolment and prospectively
• Expansion of Industry based training in partner facilities
• A justice institute, and develop new programming in business, and health.
• Expanded Applied Research Programming - the goal is to be in the top 5, out of 200 colleges, within the next 3 years – now 21^st.
• Addition of several research chairs plus
• A Centre for smart manufacturing:
• An Accelerator centre generating new products and processes working closely with industry.
• The Magna centre for supply chain management
• Expanded enrollment of international students

Helmuth Slisarenko, Paul Taylor and Peggy Currie in absentia thanked Dr Tibbits for his talk and the role and contributions of Conestoga College to the community, their staff and or to them personally.