This Rotor can also be found on the FRONT PAGE OF OUR WEBSITE,
on the right side (where it used to be).
ANNOUNCEMENTS
A funeral mass for long time Eastview member Gord Wicijowski will be held on Saturday November 12, 2022 at 11 a.m. at Blessed Sacrament R.C. Church, 2049 Scarth Street, Regina with reception lunch to follow.
Remember Ham sales close on Sunday, Oct, 30, 2022. If you haven't already done so please get your order in to John Van Koll.
Allen Hillsden thanked members for their donations to Polio Plus totaling $76 gathered during the meeting.
Peter Neufeldt reminded members of the District Fall Retreat being held in Regina on November 11 & 12, 2022. The Club will sponsor 2 more members--if you would like to attend this leadership event to help grow Rotary.
Next week's speaker at our ZOOM meeting is Chris Offer of Vancouver, a Past District Governor and Rotary volunteer in many national and international Rotary endeavours. There will be no meeting at the Delta. See you on ZOOM at noon next Thursday.
AN EASTVIEW DOUBLE FEATURE: AN INSPIRING MESSAGE FROM A ROTARIAN POLIO SURVIVOR AND A COMMUNITY PAUL HARRIS FELLOW AWARD (CPHF) TO A DESERVING REGINA CITIZEN!
Following a welcome by PP Jean-Marc Nadeau, O'Canada led by Allen Hllsden and the land acknowledgement by Jean-Marc, Gail Bradley was called to introduce guest speaker, Ramesh Ferris, a Rotarian with the Rotary Club of Whitehorse-Rendezvous, a Paul Harris Fellow and a polio survivor.
Ramesh is passionate about ending polio and has travelled throughout Canada, India, USA, Puerto Rico, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, all to convince more people to support the end of polio. Ramesh has spoken to delegates at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City and to many Rotarians at various Zone Institutes and District Conferences.
He has shared the Rotary End polio message with countless heads of state and other world leaders including: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Former Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon, The Director General of the World Health Organization Dr. Adhanom Tedros, as well as Bill Gates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, & His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Ramesh is currently employed by the Gov’t of the Yukon as Case Manager, Organization Department: Yukon Workers Compensation Health and Safety Board; Claims Branch.
Ramesh told us how he contracted polio 25 years after the world already had Dr. Jonas Salk’s vaccine. He was living in poverty in India in 1980 in the Southern state of Tamil Nadu, and his birth mother hadn’t heard anything about the polio vaccine. At the age of six months, he contracted the virus and it paralyzed his legs for life. His birth mother gave him up to a Canadian-founded orphanage and he lived there for a year prior to being adopted by a couple in the Yukon territory, where he lives now.
Thanks to corrective surgery and rehabilitation at the Vancouver Children's Hospital, he learned to walk with aids starting at age 3 years. He received much encouragement, love and support from his parents to live as normal a life as possible and from then on that is what he has done. In 2002 he went back to India and had the opportunity to thank his birth mother for the life she had given him. He vowed at that time to make a difference in the lives of polio survivors and following the example of Terry Fox and Rick Hansen decided to raise funds for polio through a cross-Canada hand cycle tour launched in 2008. He travelled 7140 Km through all kinds of weather and terrain but made it from Victoria, Milo 0 to the eastern most point of Labrador. This was just the beginning of his advocacy for polio which continues today to a global world. Thank you Ramesh for your heartfelt, inspirational message. You are making a difference in the world case by case.
Ramesh Ferris on his End Polio Mission
And so the effort continues as we are reminded of the need to banish polio--we have work ahead of us.
COMMUNITY PAUL HARRIS FELLOW AWARD
PDG Peter Peters came to the podium to provide a context for the value of the CPHFAward. In Peter P's words: "today’s presentation provides this audience, Rotarians and guests, with the important role The Rotary Foundation plays in our commitment as Rotarians to improve the lives of the less fortunate in our world.
Paul Harris Fellow recognition is named after Rotary’s founder, the late Paul Harris, a Chicago lawyer, who started Rotary with three business associates in 1905. The Rotary Foundation had its start in 1917 when that year’s Annual Convention realized a profit of $26.50, and the then RI President Arch Klumph declared this to be the beginning of a fund created, “To do good in the world”. And so, over the next 104 years it created resources for educational, health, hunger and humanitarian endeavours through the work and creativity of an ever expanding community of Rotarians around the world.
On the death of Paul Harris in 1947, Rotary Directors created the Paul Harris Fellow designation and awarded this recognition to persons who donated, or in whose name was donated, $1,000.00 to The Rotary Foundation. Being named a Paul Harris Fellow is a demonstration that such named persons have a shared purpose with the educational and humanitarian objectives of Rotary International and its Foundation. This recognition has been bestowed on 27 of our current 45 members and in most instances many times over as they have become multiple PHFs, in support of our Foundation. So this is in recognition of individual donations.
At the same time the RC of Regina Eastview contributes to TRF initiatives. These funds are raised through our Club’s fund raising activity for a number of our international service projects, like Rotary’s PolioPlus program which our guest Rotarian Ramesh Ferris addressed in his presentation
For these donations TRF provides Foundation Points to Rotary Clubs. The RC of Regina Eastview decided to use those points to honour persons in our community, who while not Rotarians, reflect Rotary values and the principles on which we stand. Like Rotary’s Motto of Service Above Self; like conducting themselves in accordance with the dictates of Rotary’s Four-Way Test; and, like Rotary’s commitment to world understanding and peace. Having reflected these ideals they have become real in their personal, professional and community focused lives.
It is my pleasure to call on Regina Eastview’s most recent Past District Governor, Peter Neufeldt to introduce our Club’s Community Paul Harris Fellow Awardee."
PDG Peter Neufeldt presenting Michael Fougere with a Community Paul Harris Fellow award
Following is a summary of Peter Neufeldt's comments:
Michael Fougere is an American-Canadian politician who served as mayor of Regina. He was elected mayor on October 24, 2012 with 42 percent of the vote among nine candidates, running on a platform that included affordable housing, infrastructure, regional economic development and continuing the Regina Revitalization Initiative. Prior to being elected as mayor of Regina, Fougere served as a city councillor in Ward 4 which covered the majority of the city's south-eastern neighbourhoods, being re-elected five times. He was first elected to city council in 1997. At the time he was the co-founder of the Association of Concerned Taxpayers.
Before becoming mayor, Fougere served on various civic boards such as the Wascana Centre Authority, Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association, Tourism Regina and the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District. During his first mayoralty campaign, Fougere was the lone candidate that supported the funding arrangement between the city, the province and the Saskatchewan Roughriders for the construction of the new Mosaic Stadium, which opened in 2016. It is also important to note that Michael was passionate about Affordable Housing for our city and consistently worked towards that goal.
Under his tenure, a city-wide referendum on a new waste water treatment facility was held on September 25, 2013. The issue of the referendum was whether the facility would be financed through a Public-private partnership (P3) or through the design-bid-build (DBB) approach. After initially opposing the call for a referendum, Fougere's administration campaigned in favour of a P3. The result was 57% against the DBB approach, and the treatment plant ended up being financed by a P3.
In January 2019, Fougere came out in support of an NHL game to be played at Mosaic Stadium. On November 9, 2020, Fougere was defeated in the city's municipal election by Sandra Masters.
Michael was born in Michigan and has dual Canadian/American citizenship. He is married and has 3 children. Michael earned a degree in Economics from the London School of Economics.
On a visit to a virtual meeting of the Rotary Club of Regina Eastview during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Michael spoke about his first thoughts when it was announced by the World Health Organization that we were in a pandemic. He thought to himself ‘what do we do’; this is uncharted territory.’ Publicly he announced that we had to remain calm, that the city would be monitoring information from governments provincially and nationally on first and next steps. One recalls that his messages and presence to the public in those first worrisome days were calming, while providing leadership and guidance to the citizens of Regina in a turbulent time throughout the remainder of his tenure as mayor.
A hobby of Michael’s was playing in the Garage Band. The band featured Mayor Michael Fougere on drums, Murad Al-Katib as the lead singer, the late John Hopkins, Steve Compton and Frank Hart on guitar and Dr. David Malloy on base. In 2019 in two fundraising events the group raised over $1.5 Million for Regina’s Allan Blair Cancer Centre.
In the presentation of this award, the Rotary Club of Regina Eastview recognizes that Michael Fougere exemplifies the Rotary motto, ‘Service Above Self’ in all of his efforts on behalf of our community.
Michael Fougere is currently serving as the CEO of the Saskatchewan Pharmacists Association. Michael expressed his thanks for the award and shares it with all who stood alongside him in his years with the City of Regina. A well-deserving candidate indeed.
FELLOWSHIP HIGHLIGHTS
The highlights have been outlined above. It doesn't get much better than the presentation of a Community Paul Harris Fellow award to a deserving local citizen--a councilor, with the dream of becoming a mayor--to deal with affordable housing--who tried to make Regina a better place all the while exemplifying "Service Above Self". We also witnessed the determination of a young child from the age of 3 years unable to walk. He is brought to a strange country and is the gift to a wonderful Whitehorse couple who with their encouragement, love and support watched that young child grow to an adult who tries every day to change the world of one child one polio vaccination at a time.
Is there any more incentive we need to donate to PolioPlus. Doreen is happy to take your e-transfers and I am happy to help you with the form that RI requires. I think today's meeting gave us a lot of food for thought.
Have a good week.
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“When people think of me, I hope they think of someone who dedicated his public life to serving the best city in Canada and making us a better place. I worked well with my fellow colleagues and we got along well and got some good things done.”
When asked how he wished to be remembered: “So nothing earth shattering, other than to say that I hope people will see the earnestness in my desire to make Regina a much better place."
“I have nothing but gratitude to residents, to voters, and I respect their decision completely. I wish the new council all the best. I'm wishing mayor-elect Masters all the best in her role as well.”
The following comments from M. Fougere were recorded in the media following his defeat in the 2020 mayoralty race:
“It's an honour and a pleasure to have been first a city councilor and then mayor for the city. It was my dream job and I'm so happy and honoured to have been in this role for 23 years.”
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