Mr. Henri Dommel Talk, October 3rd

Ok, so we have been extremely lucky, thanks to the kindness of the Laval Rotary Club, to have Mr. Henri Dommel come and speak to us. Mr. Dommel is the Director of Inclusive Finance for the United Nations Capital Development Fund. He will give the presentation "Microfinance recent trends, and the role of the United Nations Capital Development Fund in building Inclusive Financial Sectors." We have raised money for microcredit projects in the past, and as such I personally am very interested in the topic, and I hope that we get a large, diverse group coming out. The details are as follows:

Friday, October 3rd
Bronfman Building, room 422
Mr. Dommel will START at 5:30, and his talk will likely last around 1.5h.
Light refreshments (juice and snacks) will be served

Note that we will be taking donations (good-will offering) for a microcredit cause that evening as well.

Please advertise this - the more people the merrier. Its an honour to get this quality of a speaker come to our meeting, so the more people we get to come out, the better. Bring a friend! a great way to start your friday evening! We will have posters made up if anyone is interested in passing them out or having them available if friends are interested.

Gert's After Meeting Thursday!

Hey everyone,

Just a quick note to let you know that we are going to go and have a drink at Gert's (the bar that is in the same building) after the meeting, to get to know each other a bit. I hope that everyone comes out - its going to be lots of fun!

Rachel

First Trip Ever to Montclair Senior's Residence!

So This Saturday, September 20th we are going to have our first visit to Montclair! This is a project we have tried to set up for a while, so it is exciting for me to see it finally realized. We are going to spend time with the residents, and have some fun basically! I think that we are going to play some games, some cards etc. SO if you would like to come, and have a good board game or a deck of cards, please let us know on the comment function just below this post.

We are going to meet at the McGill college and Sherbrooke bus 24 bus stop to catch the 12:36 bus. If you are not there, unfortunately we as we group will leave without out you, as we need to get to the residence on time. We will catch the 24, get off at Sherbrooke/Decarie, and catch the 102 or the 105 bus (whichever comes first). From that we will get off at Somerled / Walkley (102) or Sherbrooke / King Edward (105) and walk the two blocks to the residence. Note that these buses do not come very often, so it is important that we are ontime. if you do happen to miss the 1236 bus with us, do not fear, you can still make it! Take the next 24 that comes, and get off at Sherbrooke/Decarie and take the 105 - it comes much more often. You will be a few minutes late, but no so much that it is no longer worth coming.
For those who are more bus-savvy or it is quicker to come from another location, the adress for the home is 4413, av. Montclair, and you can meet us there for 1:30. You will have to ring to get into the residence, and jsut tell them who you are.

We will be done at 3:30 and will again make the journey home together.

Please sign up using the comment function, and if you plan on bringing a game/cards, please state that when you sign up (this is highly encouraged). Also just leave a note if you are planning on meeting us there.

See you all saturday!

Samosa Sale

Our first samosa sale of the semester will be on Monday, September 15th, in the Leacock building. We are looking for volunteers to come and work at the table in 1 hour shifts; ideally we will have 2 people signed up for each shift.

If you are able to help out, please leave your name and preferred shift in the 'comments' section. If you sign up for a later shift (after 1:30), also leave a phone number, so we can contact you in case we run out of samosas early.

Shifts:
11:30-12:30 (I will be there for set up and the first shift)
12:30-1:30
1:30-2:30
2:30-close

Thanks!
~Nicolette

First OBM Trip

Our first trip to the Old Brewery Mission homeless shelter will be on Saturday, September 13th!

If you are not sure what this entails, anyone interested in volunteering meets at the Roddick Gates at 3:45 that afternoon. The mission is in Old Montreal, and we all walk down together from campus. If it is more convenient, you can always meet the group at OBM at 4:30. We help serve meals, and generally we finish by 6:30 or 7, depending on how busy it is.

If you are interested in coming along on this first trip, please sign up by clicking the 'comments' link at the bottom of the post... leave your name, and whether you will meet us at Roddick gates or come directly to the mission.
Also, please sign up by this coming Wednesday (September 10), since we need to let OBM know how many people are planning on coming down.

Thanks, hope to see you all there!

2008-2009 McGill Rotaract Year

Hi Everyone!

I hope that everyone's summers were fantastic and relaxing! Welcome back (or just welcome!) to everyone, veterans or rookies alike! As I am sure you have noticed, due to come technical difficulties (or lack of access to our old website) we have come up with a new idea - this blog! Using this technology we can do live sign-ups, even if you cant make meetings, post meeting minutes, make comments if we ask for opinions, or just make a smart-ass comments on my likely spelling errors.

We have quite the year planned for the club, its going to be very buzy. We came up with "Equal Opportunity" as a theme for the year. I thought that I would give everyone a little update as to our plans, meeting dates and locations, events, and volunteering opportunities that the exec has planned. As per normal we love suggestions, ideas, and any comments, but here are the tentative plans:

Volunteering:

• The third Saturday of every month we will volunteer at the Montclair Senior's residence at 1:30-3:30
• About every three to four weeks we will volunteer at the Old Brewery Mission homeless shelter. We meet at 3:45 at the roddick gates or 4:30 at the mission. Dates for this semester are listed at the end of the post.
  
• Mentoring at Tyndale Community Centre: the Dare-to-Dream Program (Year long committment).
  

Events:

• fundraising competition in march
• volunteering day in january
• barbeque in september
• UN speaker on microcredit (October 3rd)
• Halloween volunteering at shriners hospital and 'trick or eat'
• cocktail party/concert in November

Meetings dates for semester 1:
• Sept. 12th- Meeting from 6- 7:30 in B-30

• Sept 18th- Meeting from 6- 7:30 in B-30 (1st meeting after activities night)

• October 2nd- Meeting from 6- 7:30 in 403

• October 16th- Meeting from 6- 7:30 in 403

• October 30th- Meeting from 6- 7:30 in 403

• November 13th- meeting from 6- 7:30 in 302

• Nov. 27- Meeting from 6- 7:30 in B-30

• Dec 4th- Meeting from 6- 7:30 in B-30

OBM dates for first semester:

• Saturday, September 13
• Sunday, October 5
• Saturday, October 25
• Saturday, November 15
• Sunday, December 7
  

We hope to see everyone out this year for some serious fun and to do some serious helping!

2008-2009 Executive

The Westmount Rotary Auction and Garage Sale

Below are some pictures from the annual Westmount Rotary auction and garage sale held at the Westmount Arena. The Westmount Rotary members have been preparing for this event year-round by collecting items that people donated. During the 2-3 weeks prior to the actual event, Rachel Kyle and I (Man-Yi Yau) went with them on their collection rounds. Then, during the week prior to the event, I also helped out as they needed lots of volunteers to help unpack, sort, price, and arrange the many, many items that they had collected. It was hard work, but definitely worth it as I learned a lot about things people used to use but don’t anymore, and as I met quite a few really interesting and nice people! I was also present at the auction on Friday, June 6, and helped showcase the items. Finally, the day of the garage sale, which was on Saturday, June 7, Rachel worked in the toys section while I worked in the linens section.