The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

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1 Tuesday, May 11, 2010 Editor: Russ Mann If you have any comments or questions, the editor. Future Speakers May Program - Member's Day "Chair Jim Greenough" May Victoria Day - Meeting Cancelled May Edmonton Eskimos Upcoming Events Rotary District 5370 District Conference 2010 May May Rotary Lunch - RSVP May May Regular Luncheon Meeting- Move Jun Jun Youth Service Committee meeting Jun Jun Downtown with a Purpose Gala Jun This ebulletin has been generated by ClubRunner club communication software. Visit clubrunner.ca for details Doxess. All Rights Reserved. ClubRunner Sponsors Print this bulletin for future reference. 40 Days and 40 Nights The Object of Rotary The Countdown begins for "Downtown There are just 40 days and nights to the much loved and enjoyable Rotary Club of Edmonton Dinner, Auction and Dance. We need everybody on board to make this work at the level we want to be. The Key words are sell raffle tickets, sell dinner tickets and find acquisitions. The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster: FIRST. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service; SECOND. High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society; THIRD. The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life; FOURTH. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service. Rotary Program May 17, 2010 This will be an exciting program lead by Rotarian Jim

2 Greenough. 30 minutes or more of dynamic thought and energy. Observation or General Truth Please visit our Sponsors. To place your ad click here. Club Site Sponsors A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you are in deep water. Reform School Redefined Akeem Stephenson, a graduate of PACT's LifePlan coaching program, cautions others about his past transgressions. President Richard Dickinson Young violent offenders in Toronto have an alternative to jail: meeting the victims of their crimes. The PACT Urban Peace Program, launched by Toronto-area Rotarians Dan Cornacchia and David Lockett in 2000, brings the teenagers, their victims, and local residents together to talk about the crimes and craft restitution plans. The program is modelled on a conflict-resolution technique used in Australian Aboriginal communities. "Violence is a learned behaviour," Cornacchia says. "By helping children today, we can stop the cycle of violence." Please visit our Club Website Sponsors. To place your ad click here. Founding members of the Rotary Club of Parkdale-High Park, Cornacchia and Lockett opened the Redwood, a shelter for abused women and children, in That work inspired them to tackle the growing problem of urban violence. PACT (Participation, Acknowledgement, Commitment, and Transformation) helps more than 500 teens a year. Along with the mediation program, it offers vocational training and life coaching for teens who have been charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act as well as for at-risk youth, such as those living in homeless shelters. Learning by doing There is also an economic benefit to PACT, run by volunteers and funded by more than 15 Rotary clubs. "Fifteen per cent of youth offenders will cost society $3 million each" during their lifetimes, Lockett observes. PACT has facilitated over 2,000 meetings between victims and offenders. The restitution plans developed at the sessions often include monetary compensation, letters to the victims, and community service. The teens can fulfill community service requirements, whether handed down by a judge or recommended at a meeting, through PACT's eight LifeSkills programs, in areas such as film production, urban reforestation, and construction. Toronto high schools are adopting Grow to Learn, an offshoot of the LifeSkills urban agriculture program. The students plant and

3 tend a vegetable garden, then donate their harvest to local food banks. Many young offenders lose interest in traditional academic instruction, Lockett says, but PACT allows kids to learn by doing. Business owners and other local residents help run the LifeSkills programs. Some are former youth offenders, such as Paul Davis, director of the film program. Many of the graduates have found jobs and enrolled in college courses related to the LifeSkills program areas, including ecology and communications. "Success is about achieving the goals established by each youth," says Terance Brouse, PACT's communications director. Clubs can make a difference To guide the teens, PACT also offers LifePlan Coaching, which provides one-on-one counselling and mentoring. Craig Trowhill coaches Akeem Stephenson, a former youth offender who was living in a homeless shelter when a judge referred him to PACT. At a meeting, Trowhill reminds Stephenson why he has been successful in the program: "The process was the tool, but it was all you. It was all because of the choices you have made." Stephenson is now supporting himself and pursuing a career in the music industry as a producer and rap artist. "PACT's coaching program gave me a lot of options to see where I went wrong and what I could have done to change certain situations," he tells Trowhill. "I now have a deeper perspective on life and the confidence to reach the big goals I set for myself. The sky's the limit." "Rotary clubs can make a remarkable difference in their own communities by solving this problem of urban violence," Lockett says. When he speaks at club meetings to encourage support for PACT, he tells Rotarians: "It's a game of inches, but inches add up. The journey for these teenagers starts with the choice to participate and the acknowledgement that they need to be responsible for their behaviour." Rotary Humor A teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a pair of compasses, a slide-rule and a calculator.. At a morning press conference, the head of the FBI said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction. "Al-Gebra is a problem for us," he said. "They derive solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values. They use secret code names like 'X' and 'Y' and refer to themselves as "unknowns", but we have determined

4 that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, ³There are 3 sides to every triangle² When asked to comment on the arrest, the head of the CIA said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes." Thanks to Vitaliy for this one. Rotary 50/50 Jackpot How sweet it is...right John. It seems that Rotarian John McKenzie had a shot at the jackpot but the odds were not in his favor. A sweeter man he is thanks to Purdy's. Next week nearing $ Canada's Committment A volunteer marks a child who has received drops of polio vaccine in Kandahar, Afghanistan, as part of a sweeping World Health Organization campaign, financed in part by the Canadian International Development Agency. Eight years ago, Canada assumed the lead at the G8 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, and succeeded in placing polio eradication on the group's world health agenda for the first time. This year, with Canada again hosting the summit - in Ontario's Muskoka region in June - the country is poised to reprise that role and encourage its governing partners to renew their pledge to vanquish the disease in the four remaining polio-endemic countries: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. If the effort succeeds, Muskoka will be noteworthy not just for its natural beauty, but as the place where world leaders helped write the final chapter in the amazing story of polio eradication. "Over the years, the G8 has been a driving force behind efforts to eradicate polio, having mobilized significant political will, international attention, and financial resources," says Canada's minister of international cooperation, Beverley J. Oda. Funding from G8 nations accounts for nearly half of all funds contributed to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Canada is the second-highest per capita donor among the eight countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and has played a key part in influencing other nations to increase their support for polio eradication. The June G8 meeting marks the fifth time that Canada has hosted the annual summit of the world's largest industrialized nations since they began meeting to discuss economic, social, and political issues in "The G8 has been a driving force behind efforts to eradicate polio."

5 Canadian Robert S. Scott, chair of Rotary's International PolioPlus Committee, thinks that hosting the meeting will give Canada a home-ice advantage. "Since polio eradication was first put on the G8 agenda at Kananaskis, the Canadian government should have some sense of ownership," says Scott, a member of the Rotary Club of Cobourg, Ontario, and a past Rotary Foundation trustee chair. He adds that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been keen to continue social aid to Afghanistan. The nation "is so near to stopping wild poliovirus circulation - and would have long ago, if access to the war areas had been allowed," he says. Success at the G8 summit "would be a terrific uplift for the program, and in particular for Canada, to show that its efforts at social change are really working," he adds. When the Global Polio Eradication Initiative launched in 1988, polio was endemic in more than 125 countries on five continents, paralyzing more than 1,000 children each day. In 2009, fewer than 2,000 cases were reported. Unfortunately, the polio eradication campaign runs the risk of becoming a victim of its own success. Since 2002, the G8 members have reaffirmed their commitment to polio eradication at every summit, strengthening the political and financial wherewithal needed to address the remaining challenges. Indeed, the 2010 summit will highlight accountability on previous G8 commitments. Every member state has contributed, but some have demonstrated a much higher level of commitment than others. Scott notes that Canada, along with Japan, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have consistently provided support. "But I continue to be optimistic that as the world economy recovers, the others will - if only from peer pressure at the meetings this year - fulfill their previous promises," he says. A good cause for optimism, says Scott, is the continuing dedication of Rotarians worldwide. "The positive response to Rotary's US$200 Million Challenge is an obvious reminder that Rotarians are still willing and determined to eradicate polio," he says. "I travel often and widely to all the countries that still have polio, and everywhere it is the Rotarians who continue to be the catalysts to their governments. They insist and cajole until joint planning meetings take place, and then are very often part of the group working at the house-to-house level." Can-do spirit Wilfrid J. Wilkinson, a Foundation trustee and past RI president, draws satisfaction from the presence of that same can-do spirit closer to home. "The interest and the involvement of Canadian Rotarians and their ability to energize and support the government have been quite remarkable," says Wilkinson, of the Rotary Club of Trenton, Ont. By his count, Canadian Rotarians active in the polio eradication effort have carried on their dialogue with 17 different ministers of international cooperation since And cooperation has long been the hallmark of the relationship between the government and Rotary. Wilkinson points out that Canada's government first donated to polio eradication in 1985, when Rotary launched PolioPlus. The Canadian government also matched Rotarian contributions to PolioPlus Partners in the 1990s and has provided matching funds during polio eradication fundraising campaigns. In 2008, Canada announced its C$60 million contribution to help eradicate polio in Afghanistan while the RI Convention, led by Wilkinson, was underway. Three months later, when Oda announced an additional commitment of $30 million for polio eradication activities in sub-saharan Africa, she did so with Wilkinson and Scott on hand.

6 "Rotary has been doing exceptional work both at home and abroad," Oda says. "Having a trusted organization like Rotary as our partner is key to our government's success in its international assistance efforts. "I have been encouraging other major donor countries to focus on the eradication of polio in those countries where it remains endemic. We have made polio vaccination one of our signature projects in Afghanistan," she says. The Polio Eradication Signature Project has immunized an estimated 7.2 million children across Afghanistan, including 350,000 in the province of Kandahar. Taliban leaders endorsed the immunizations, providing letters to health care workers as they travelled house to house. Oda also notes that the Afghan polio project funded the first immunizations with the new bivalent oral polio vaccine, which targets two strains of polio. "It was the first time that this new vaccine was used anywhere in the world, and it is hoped that this measure will be an innovative way to tackle this disease in a complex environment such as Afghanistan," she says. In 1999, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien received Rotary International's Polio Eradication Champion Award. Last April, Wilkinson presented the RI Award of Honor to the current prime minister in recognition of his leadership on polio eradication. Wilkinson and Scott hope that Harper's continued leadership at the 2010 G8 summit will produce results. Adds Scott: "I'm biased, of course, but I know that Canadian Rotarians will be, as they say, 'there at the end and cheering the shared success.'" Rotary Club of Edmonton Core Office Hours The Rotary Club of Edmonton Office is open daily between the hours of 9:00 am and 3:00 pm. The office is located in the Sutton Place Hotel - Administrative Level The Club Administrator Bonnie Koch can be reached at or at admin@edmontonrotary.com Fax: