Notes from the Rotary Meeting 12.30pm Thursday, June 5, 2025
President Jackie chaired the meeting.
Rotarian Linda’s husband Neil was welcomed.
Club Business
- Gerry confirmed that the Lobster Social will go ahead on Thursday, June 12 at the Steady Brook Community Town Hall any time after 3pm. All Rotarians and friends are invited to drop by and enjoy time together. Gerry will order the lobsters, and two or three people will help with the splitting etc. It should be a good time.
- Olaf mentioned that he had visited Jim in the hospital and Jim is doing well.
Guest Speaker
Verbon introduced the guest presenter Susan Walsh, Seniors’ Advocate for Newfoundland and Labrador and her technical support assistant Gabrielle Dupont. The Office of the Seniors’ Advocate was created through the Seniors’ Advocate Act which came into force on July 2, 2017. The focus of the Office of the Seniors' Advocate is on systemic issues impacting seniors with a goal of improved services to and for seniors in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Susan began her presentation being giving information about the office of the Seniors’ Advocate, the Senior’s Advocate Act and the role and authority that the advocate office has. An interesting fact she mentioned was in Canada there are only three Seniors’ Advocates with herself, Susan Walsh representing Newfoundland and Labrador being one of the three.
She went on to speak about the Seniors’ Report 2024. This report monitors key indicators affecting seniors and from these trends can be forecast. She gave some provincial demographics including the fact that over 134,000 people in the province are over 65 years and in 10 years this population is expected to increase by 25%. She also looked at the 80+ plus population and how much that will grow in 10 years by about 70%.
She went on to consider the different indicators such as health care, cost of living, housing, transportation, and safety and protection.
Each of these indicators she looked at in detail even to comparing how Western Newfoundland compared to the whole province.
This talk was extremely interesting and informative especially to note the difficult areas common to many seniors and the different agencies available to
alleviate some of these problems and the recommendations suggested.
Susan answered many questions before being thanked for taking time out of her busy schedule to talk to Rotary.
Copies of the Seniors’ Report 2024, Status Report on Recommendation 2023-24, An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure, April 2025 and a contact information list were on hand for Rotarians to take. Rotarians appreciated being able to review this information in detail and to understand the valuable work being done.
Corner Brook, NL A2H 2V3
Canada