Meeting Recording
A recording of Today’s Meeting can be found
here.
President's Comments
President Louise was pleased to announce Jim Brown as the Rotarian of the Month for June, in recognition of his passion for Rotary, ongoing suggestions for club improvement and his humour.
In recognition of this being Indigenous Peoples Day, a day for everyone in Canada to recognize and celebrate the heritage, cultures and contributions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis, President Louise is providing the following links to a National Indigenous Peoples Day article and video.
Guests
Diane Wiles, Leadership Waterloo Region, Guest of the Club
Happy Jar
Shawky Fahel was pleased to spend Father’s Day also celebrating his 45th wedding anniversary and to enjoy a fish caught, cleaned and barbequed by his son.
Paul Rostrup and partner Paula were happy to visit with their granddaughter in Toronto and to learn that his son and family may be relocating to KW in the near future.
David Martindale is very happy that his two week waiting period after his second COVID-19 vaccination has come to an end.
President Louise is very happy that for the first time in well over a year their grandchildren will be coming for a sleepover this coming weekend.
Club Announcements
It's week 41 of
Catch the Ace KW and last week Katerine L., a Rotarian from Kitchener-Westmount, won the weekly prize of $1,380 when she picked card #5, the 8 of Spades.
The big question is, where is the Ace of Spades? All we know is that with 12 cards left to choose from your chances of picking the Ace are getting better for a progressive pot of over $41,000!
Our guest, Diane Wiles from Leadership Waterloo Region, made a brief announcement about her organization.
Introduced in 2000, Leadership Waterloo Region is a social-profit organization that delivers educational leadership experiences to a diverse range of individuals in the community through collaborations with like-minded organizations in Waterloo Region. The organization provides community leaders with the opportunity to acquire and practice leadership skills.
Leadership Waterloo Region addresses the community's leadership needs through the delivery of carefully tailored programs – the
Core Program for emerging adult leaders, the
Young Professionals on Board program for young leaders ages 18 to 23 and the K-W Multicultural Centre's Healthy Lifestyle Ambassador program delivered in partnership with the
Volunteer Action Centre, the K-W Multicultural Centre and the
City of Kitchener Aquatics Department. The 10-month Core Program is the cornerstone of Leadership Waterloo Region's services.
Using the community as a backdrop, Leadership Waterloo Region encourages participants to realize their leadership potential by teaching them about local challenges and developing the skills they need to overcome these obstacles by pooling resources with established community leaders. The Core Program is built on a framework of four key areas:
- Community Understanding
- Relationship Building
- Collaborative Leadership
- Community Readiness
Graduates from the Core Program join a network of over 440 established leaders in Waterloo Region. Leadership Waterloo Region is the only community leadership development program in our region.
Diane let members know that they are recruiting now for the 2022 class that will begin in September and run for 10 months. The deadline for registering is July 7. For more information please check out their website at:
leadershipwaterlooregion.org. To register contact Diane directly at: diane@leadershipwr.org
Program Highlights
The balance of our program today was two new-member Who Am I presentations by Erin Way and Ailton Santana. First up was Erin who presented in a most interesting way through an essay called - Places I Never Intended To Be . . .
There were many places I never intended to be. As a kid, lighting stores were among the most enjoyable of those places. Behind every pendant light, a gaudy chandelier or a tiffany lampshade peaked out like an iSpy book brought to life. With lights hanging at all different heights, it was seemingly made for a child to explore. At four foot nothing, I spent most of my day looking up already so this angle nothing new.
Coming into the world via Hamilton at a hospital for risky births, I was a saving grace to the loss of two previous babies my parents experienced. My first cry was fast drowned out by a collective sigh of relief. Red faced and goopy, I was swiftly wiped clean and returned to my euphoric parent’s arms, dressed as a tea cozy. I had never intended to be there that day, I suspect I may have been a product of my sheer will on my parent’s part.
I spent many a night as a child at Galas I never intended to go to, spread across my parents laps picking at the hardened pieces of dirty pink gum stuck to the bottom of the banquet tables until the Big Band music and clinking of glasses faded with my consciousness. Most of those Galas took place at conventions I never intended to be at.
I never intended to be at the top of the second World Trade Centre two weeks before it collapsed but there I was, in a pink and purple striped halter top, indicative of the times, with a matching bucket hat shading my eyes while my Dad and I donned crooked smiles for the camera. That was before we both got braces. I clutched my Dad’s waist as we posed for a photo.
My freedom and independence still had that new car smell as I drove my new-to-me car nowhere in particular after high school one day. After a quick call with Mom, I re-routed to an industrial park in St. Clements where we corralled a scraggly mutt into her car. I wasn’t about to turn down a chance to help a dog, and who knows, maybe the dog would have to come home with us for the night.
Early one morning, with a gargantuan purple backpack on my back, I swayed in place waiting for a dated and unremarkable subway car to take me from one terminal of the Brussels airport to the other. I never intended to visit the site of an airport bombing 25 hours before it happened, but an internship abroad being cut short triggered a domino effect of changes in plans that made it happen. A month earlier, that same shift in timing put me on the top of the tallest hill in Prague, overlooking the city, unexpectedly, with a man I never intended to travel with, let alone fall in love with.
Being in places I never intended to be feels equal parts familiar and unnatural. These bits of life manage to be mundane daily moments and shifts in the universe simultaneously. They are near-misses and perfectly serendipitous at the same time. My life would not have turned out how it did, and I would not be the woman I turned out to be without these unintended places. I look forward to seeing which unintended places my life takes me next.
Ailton shared some interesting facts through a PowerPoint presentation.
My Background:
- Starting even before I was born, December 1972, a supermarket collapsed with my entire family there. My mother was expecting me. I was the only baby who survived. Eight other pregnant women did not have the same luck. I guess I was meant to come to this world
- Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 3 sisters. All relatives still live in Brazil, except 2 of my nephews who happen to live in Toronto and I hosted them while they were studying at Conestoga College.
- Living in Breslau today with my partner Sharon, my teenage daughters Louise and Gabrielle and Maggie, our 3-year old rescue dog.
- Other than donating funds to a few different charity associations (part of my Real Estate commission goes to a different institution each month), I volunteer for the Waterloo Immigration as a link between the new immigrants and landlords trying to reduce the stigma of renting to new immigrants
Career Highlights:
- Brazilian Navy Academy for 3 years
- Graduated as Electronics Engineer at the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro
- Owned a technical training business for 10 years
- Immigrated to Canada in 2010
- Worked at Bell Mobility in Toronto until 2011
- Moved to Kitchener for a job in Sandvine in 2012
- Today:
- Technical Product Manager in Sandvine
- Real Estate Salesperson with Davenport realty
Business Travel Experiences:
- I have visited 38 countries around the globe
- I hugged a Koala in Sydney
- I was drugged in a bar in Johannesburg
- I became a 15-minute celebrity for the kids in Tokyo
- I was almost robbed in Beijing
- I was followed, even to the bathroom, in a high security facility in Frederick, US
- I survived an earthquake in Lima
Personal Interests:
- Soccer, biking, and hiking
- Drone photography,
- Beaches, and traveling,
- Home automation, TV Shows, and World War history
Coffee (as in the good stuff from Brazil), and wine
Closing Remarks & Reminders
President Louise reminded everyone about upcoming dates and a special reminder about the Turnover meeting on July 5th to welcome, Adrian DeCoo as our 100th President.
