Please join us at Odd Fellows Hall, 218 Concession Street, Kingston ON.
The Rotary Four Way Test
Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned
Rotary Reflection
For food in a world where many walk in hunger
For peace in a world where many walk in fear
For friends in a world where many walk alone
And for the opportunity to serve others through Rotary,
May we be truly thankful!
The Loyal Toast
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Queen of Canada!
Acknowledgement of Territory
We are gathered on traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory. we are grateful to be able to join together in Rotary Fellowship on these lands.
Sean Cassidy, guest of Murray Cotton; Michael Henikers, Scott Sissan, guest of Ana Sutherland;Taras Kawolchichen, Jeff Hancock,Chas Murphy,Pat Murphy, Charles Burbank, Kathy Burbank,Lee Vallier,Greg Gies, Richard Strong, guests of Bill Gray;
Stephanie Lafond,Tom Shillington, guests of John Farrow; Jeffrey Hodgson, guest speaker
Visiting Rotarians
Anne Desgangnes, Kingston Frontenac club
Heather Nogard, Friend of Rotary
Makeups
Elizabeth Cohoe, Community Service, Bingo, Board
John Richards, Auction
Rick Frasso, Board
Terri Hodges, Bingo
Member Sharing
Fun Master - Murray Cotton
Time constraints only allowed Murray time for two fines; Ana for eating and making Rick do her duties, and Rick Frasso for last in.
Happy/Sad Bucks
Rick Fiedorec with an apology buck for giving the impression in the Courier that Greta was leaving us.
Terri Hodges with a happy buck for awesome move by Glenn Warner’s Capital movers
John Farrow with a happy buck that his financial advisor here from Limestone Financial
Murray Cotton happy a week away from his surgery
Bill Gray is happy to be here and to have so many guests here. Stock market doing well and so it’s a good time to donate!
Robert Reid looking for help at the dump today! Move out week!
Hakim is happy to be back from East Africa
Scott Sisson happy to be here and see old friends.
Service Activities
The Rotary Foundation Walk is Saturday the 11th of May this year, which is the anniversary of our Club. Perhaps we can all participate! It’s only 2.5 km It starts behind City Hall at 10am. You pay $20 to participate and you receive lunch afterwards. Dogs are welcome! Greta is organizing on our behalf, so please get your $20 to her by the beginning of May.
Everyone registered will get a pledge sheet – please ask your friends and family to sponsor you and make cheques payable to The Rotary Foundation.
Also from Greta, our Fearless Foundation Walk Leader;
I will need to know that day the names of the walkers, whether they
will participate in the lunch or not and that I will collect their participation
fee that day. I will give this to Kingston Frontenac on Wednesday as they need it by 9 May. The participants must please keep their pledge sheets and Foundation monies. These are to be handed in at registration on the day of the walk
The Rotary Club of Kingston has a special speaker May 16th;
Fellow Rotarians,
In case you have not heard, The Rotary Club of Kingston will be hosting a very special guest speaker at our luncheon on Thurs May 16th. His name is David Lockett and he is a Rotarian in Toronto that many years ago started a program called PACT Urban Peace. PACT stands for Participation, Acknowledgement, Commitment and Transformation and it is an award winning charity that is already supported by 25 Rotary Clubs in Toronto and several in the Belleville/Trenton area. As many of you know, Bernie Robinson has been hard at work over the last 7 years growing a very productive garden at his farm just west of Kingston and donating all the vegetables to the local community to help those in need. His recent focus has targeted those children in need in Kingston’s north end and we have been looking at how to best integrate this into the local schools here in Kingston so that it is educational and sustainable. David’s Grow to Learn program is already entrenched in the Toronto District School Board and his garden had over 4000 student visits last year alone. His program goes one step further by targeting those in trouble with the law and helping them get their lives back in order, helping to prevent them from entering the justice system where it becomes very costly to our social system to house them on a long term basis. Because of David’s programs success he is looking to take the idea worldwide with Rotary. He has the blueprint for his program that he is looking to share with us in Kingston as a pilot and the reason for the pre-meeting dinner is that he would like a chance to discuss this with us and so that we garner some very healthy support to attract a very good crowd of influential people from Kingston for his official presentation on May 16th.
Morning everyone!
I can confirm that David Lockett's presentation to Rotarians and friends will be at St. Lawrence College on May 16 beginning at 11:45 am in the new conference center. Lunch (buffet style) put on by Tulips and Maple will be served promptly at noon. The buffet features roast chicken breast with Farro cremini mushrooms with baby spinach, risotto & chef’s salad. A vegetarian option will be included. The cost for the lunch is $25. David will speak when lunch is finished. The event should be concluded by 1:30 pm.
Please confirm numbers attending from your club to me by May 2.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Looking forward to it!
Paul Elsley
elsleypaul@gmail.com
Club Business
Some board positions still open – President Elect; Treasurer; Foundation (Greta leaving in June to focus on Friendship Exchange)
Karenna Chen is our club's Rotary Exchange student, spending her year in Denmark. Karenna has been updating us on her year away, and here is her spring update:
Jeg håber, at det går godt i Canada. Det går rigtigt godt her i Danmark. (I hope this is going well in Canada. It goes really well here in Denmark.)
Everything is just getting better and better here. I moved into my 3rd host family in the beginning of March and they have been absolutely wonderful. I have two host siblings, a 15 year old girl named Josephine who will be going on exchange next year to Kansas and a 18 year old boy named Sebastian who also does a lot of music. I get along very well with both of them and my two host parents who are so lovely. However, I can't say it was easy to say goodbye to the 2nd family. I am glad we have kept in touch but I do miss them.
I just came back from a trip to Barcelona with my class which was so amazing. It was through the school so they planned a lot of interesting activities for us, from dancing flamenco to touring Gaudi's architecture. It was a really wonderful opportunity to get closer to my classmates and my friends. In late March I was also on a trip with my choir to Dresden which was fantastic. We got to perform for a range of audiences, see an opera and really get to know everyone in the choir. Those two weeks were so special and so much fun.
Regular school is coming to a close now. The last day of classes is May 16th but in the meantime, there are a lot of projects to do before it's over. Overall school has been good although I feel like it has been a while since I have been. We were in Barcelona and now it is Easter break so we have the whole week off of school. When we get back there are only a few weeks left!
Rotary has also been going very well. I am in the process of preparing a performance for our district's Inspiration Day. I will be singing for the gala that night. I am involved with my club and I must say that I am a bit disappointed that their next service project is after I go back home. I would have loved to have been involved.
I am currently staying at my counsellor's house for this Easter week as my host family is going on a trip with their grandparents. It has been quite wonderful to see how so many different families work. Every family is different.
It is now two months until I am back home which feels like it is so soon. I am also going on Eurotour so it is just about 4 weeks left where I am actually in Denmark! It will be hard to say goodbye but I am so grateful for the wonderful experience I have had here. I know that this won't be the last time I am in Denmark either -- I love this country too much to not come back!
All in all, I have been having a wonderful time here. Spring has come and the trees are starting to get their leaves. The weather is warm and there is no where else I'd rather be.
Best wishes,
Karenna
1) On the top of Montserrat (about an hour drive from Barcelona) with my class
2) At Gala, the Danish version of prom
3) The cherry blossoms are only in bloom for two weeks but I got out to see them with my host family
4) In Leipzig, Germany -- we visited when we were in Dresden
5) Riding my host sister's horse (not an experience I was expecting to have but a lot of fun!)
6) Every exchange student has Legoland on their bucket list and I got to go!
Announcements
May 4th - Joe's Mill Music Festival - Downtown Kingston
May 4th - Rotary Park clean-up, 10 am to 12 noon, gloves provided
May 8thBoard meeting at Response IT at 7am
May 10thHeritage Fair at Donald Gordon Centre, 9:30 am to 4 pm
May 11th – Foundation Walk; Trixie Lou and President Rick will be participating
May 16th - National Committee meeting, The Sanctuary, 8 am
May 23rdGiggles, Grapes & Brew; Kingston Club fundraiser
May 23rd - Youth Committee meeting at Sizzles, 7 am
May 24th Almost Home Annual Charity Golf Tournament 1PM shot-gun start, $130 per golfer or per team
May 28th – Pat Brown classification speech
June 11th - Mayor’s Address at Seniors Centre on Francis Street will replace our regular meeting. 7AM breakfast and your meeting cards can be used or cash at the door.
June 12thBoard meeting at Response IT at 7am
June 19th - Auction Committee, Kingston Dodge, 5 pm, cookies provided
John Gale introduced guest speaker Jeffrey Hodgson, Director of Industry and Stakeholder Affairs/Public Affairs & Communications with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).
Jeffrey grew up on a farm outside Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, a town with 492 people and 2 service clubs. As a teen, got to go to the Terry Fox Centre in Ottawa because of the contribution of the Lion’s Club and that set up a path of post-secondary education, and a life in public service. He remarked that Rotary is much like the CPPIB, because it also takes a long term view. Planting the seed of sending a young teenager across the country pays benefits far down the road.
There are many facets to financial stability for retired Canadians: workplace pensions, private savings, Old Age Security (OAS), then Canada Pension Plan (CPP). CPP was created in the 1960s when the government felt something else was needed to support retired Canadians. It was a pay-as-you-go system until 1995 when it appeared CPP was going to run out of money by 2015. Lower birth rates and increased life expectancy meant fewer workers to support more retirees. So, in the 1990's the country’s political parties worked together to come up with a solution: increased contributions, slightly decreased benefits, and an arms-length agency set up to manage investments and improve returns (the CPPIB). It worked! And CPP is now funded for the next 75 years! (More on that later)
Jeffrey talked about what are Canadians thinking today:
66% are worried CPP will run out of funds. 56% are worried that government raids or will raid CPP funds. There is a general lack of confidence given that CPPIB is arms-length, and the 1990's scare about lack of funds. We also hear that the US system (Social Security) will be depleted by 2031 and that big story influences attitudes. Canadians also hear about private plans running out of money (Sears).
The basics of CPP are; a maximum payment in 2018 of $13,610.04 per year; the average Canadian collects $6,726.48. CPP is not the ‘be all’ or the ‘end all’ of retirement income. The latest reform was a 2016 decision to expand to $20,000 per yer maximum benefit.
The CPPIB manages more than $368 billion and has more than 1,600 employees with offices around the world (Toronto, London, and Hong Kong which is the largest) and is the 8th largest pension fund worldwide. The CPPIB is reviewed every 3 years and the Chief Actuary for Canada confirms that the CPP will be sustainable for 75+ years. Please pass this message along! It is important to change the narrative around CPP.
The CPPIB’s job is to achieve the fund’s returns, not make the policy decisions. It manages the investments but doesn't deal with eligibility or benefit levels. The good news for Canadians is that the CPPIB has a net return (annualized) of 10% over 10 years! The CPPIB has a professional board comprised of people with experience in the financial services industry, and they operate independently and at arms-length. The Canadian Government cannot influence investment decisions. Before the CPPIB, CPP funds were invested very 'passively'. Now there is a more ‘value-added’ approach as of 2008 and they are more active investors. Size and scale is on their side, with professional managers, a long investment horizon, and the ability to take on more equity risk because all the funds are not being used. CPPIB has moved more into infrastructure investing and long term assets – they own parts of the largest British port manager, the 407 hwy, Puget Sound energy and more.
What about social consciousness? Jeffrey is also responsible for Sustainable Investing – the CPPIB believes in integrating sustainability factors into their investment decisions. They ask/work with organizations to influence/engage their decision-making in these areas and be a positive force for change. Jeffrey said they want to be active and engaged owners, voting nearly every proxy they are entitled to – several thousand in fact!! There are some ‘no go’ areas - for example, they would never invest in a company making land mines, but push companies as investors to look for long term steady gains and ethical operating principles.
85% of funds are invested outside of Canada, with 15% Canadian exposure. Like most of us, this allows better diversification of funds. Largest market is invested in is the US, but China is growing in importance (now the 2nd largest economy in the world). They have a bit in South Africa, but are a bit cautious about some countries. CPPIB does look to emerging markets; China, India (soon to be world’s most populous country), Brazil.
Bill Grey thanked Jeffrey, noting that the conversation to get him here started in 2011…… The story of the CPPIB is such a good news story for Canadians.
