The Spinner April 29 2021

President Chris greeted everyone.

He then began the meeting by welcoming guests Stan Pike, Lionel Keeping, Dr Stephanie Powell and the guest speaker Dr Justin French.

Chair Lesley gave a report. She noted that the winner of the speak-off last year will be attending the virtual conference this May. Maryam is looking forward to the experience and will talk to Rotary later in the spring

 

Linda reported that the club will partner with Xavier House during the summer months by helping as we did in the fall, with Drive-In Bingo by selling bingo sheets and crowd control to ensure people follow covid social distancing regulations.

The first Bingo will be held on Sunday, May 16 and volunteers will be needed.

The Bingos will be held monthly and each month we will be looking for volunteers to help. Friends and family of Rotarians will be welcome to assist as needed.

 

Tulip Sales coordinator Olaf, spoke about the 2021 selling of boxes of tulips to support the eradication of polio. This year the District will have only 1600 boxes to sell with no more boxes after that available. Stella Roy has requested each Club to submit the number of boxes they would like ASAP.

Olaf would like Rotarians to ask friends and family for their orders and to let him have the number of boxes accounted for by at the latest May 13—the next meeting. This will be a pre-order with money to be collected later and bulbs to arrive in the fall. 

 

Linda let everyone know that handbid.com has been contracted so will officially have the auction on their site.  Andre will look at the technical side and then recruit imputers of the data. Very important: Check with all your businesses for donations and any received pass the items and details onto Linda or Kathleen. Some items have already been received and recorded and photographed. 

 

 

Remember the Rotary district office is requesting the names of the new executive for 2020-21 so the executive is looking for a Rotarian volunteer for President for next year. Contact Chris is you are willing to be President in 2021-22 or would like more information on the work involved. The remaining present executive members are willing to serve for another year

Jackie is looking after the lunch meal notices and ordering at the Glynmill Inn and would like another Rotarian to take over this role. Contact her or Chris if you are interested in volunteering to do this. This is all done virtually

 

Program – chair, Ian introduced his guest speaker Dr Justin French.

Dr French spoke about his new development in Corner Brook of an Ophthalmological and Heath Centre which he has built on Grenfell Drive.  This development has been set up as a publicly funded but private ambulatory ophthalmological centre. This development began 51/2 years ago when Dr French felt this was a possible way from an ophthalmological perspective to take cataract surgery from the operating rooms in Western Memorial Hospital to a separate clinic. This would in the long run be less expensive and allow more time for other surgical procedures in the hospital. As his plans progressed and he was allowed to have other professionals in his building he bought land and built a building of over 12,00 square feet per floor.

Dr French described some of the building standards in place so that the building meets natural disaster regulations having back up generators in the surgical suites. The 20-million-dollar building was designed by Rotarian Ian

Dr French went on to discuss the various problems that occurred at the government level for him to be allowed to build and do ophthalmological surgery in his centre.

He feels it is now functioning as of January 14 2021after delays as one of the best eye care centres in Canada offering full eye care in the one building. He talked about the number of surgeries done, the reduction in waiting lists for cataract surgery and the financial benefit to Western Health as well as the benefits overall to the city