I am lucky enough to be a charter member of our club.  I was brought into the club by our first President, Peter Moore.

I remember the first meeting that was held out at what is now Dimitri’s Place Restaurant on Woodlawn Rood.  It was quite a scene and I loved to meet all these new people.  The restaurant was not ready for such a crowd and the service was slow.  We moved around somewhat at first trying to find a place to call home.

A strong memory I have is of receiving a call from Fred Black one Tuesday evening.  Fred asked me if I was interested in having my name stand to be on the board of directors of our new club.  I, feeling quite proud to be asked, said immediately “yes” (not that Fred would have taken no for an answer). 

I remember wondering how we would elect a board since we really did not now each other very well and, what process would be taken to decide who would be a member to elect.  Naively, I did not think I would be serving since I was new to Rotary.  The next morning, Fred Black stood up and like a proud father, began to introduce the board of directors of the new Rotary Club.  You can imagine how surprised I was, when he announced my name!  It was my first lesson in how things sometime work in Rotary.

It was very interesting learning all the in’s and out’s of Rotary at my President elect weekend.  I filled out all the forms, set me goals and objectives, put my chair people and board into place, and thought “this is great!”

Then I got copies of the Firesides for my year coming up.  The voice of the club was loud and clear.  After raising thousands of dollars to build the orphanage in Nepal (our first project) and working very hard to do so, the membership wanted to take a break.  So my year became a rebuilding year.  We needed to look at other larger projects for fund raising as all the projects in the past had been small.

On the board, I had:

                   Past-President                    Jack Tacoma

                   Vocational                         Cindy Robinson, President-elect

                   Club Service                       Virginia Robinson

                                                          Betty Kashur

                   Community Service             Bruce Macpherson

                                                          Ash Kapur

                   International                      Ralph Marziano

                   Secretary                          Diane Squires, Ken Boyd

                   Treasurer                          Dorothy Carroll

The Rotary theme for the 1994 – 1995 year was “Be a Friend”.

The projects for 1994 – 1995 had to be inexpensive in nature due to a lack of funds.  Some of these projects were, working on Four C’s, Ellington Bingo, RYLA and the Fred Black Scholarship.

We bartended at the Guelph Club’s Riverboat night and supported a new club, Burlington North, by purchasing their charter night pins.

Sarah Holman, from St. James High School, was selected by Fiona McCrae and myself to go to Ottawa in a program called “Adventures in Citizenship” through the Rotary Club of Ottawa.  We donated $1,000 to the new Rotary Children’s Centre in Waterloo and we participated in a program called “Tools for Development” where tools are collected and donated to developing countries.

We also had a great time in the first July 1^st celebration for the three clubs.  We sold ice cream, glow rings and small Canadian flags (which we may still have some of).

In February, 1995, we, with the Wellington and Guelph clubs, chose Hospice as the 75^th project.  The major undertaking was to mark the anniversary of 75 years of Rotary in Guelph.  The project started when I was Vice-President and the committee was made up of Rotarians including the three vice-presidents since it was to be completed in our year.  The number of projects was as varied as they were interesting and it was a tough task to choose just one.  As a side note, the new dialysis centre in Guelph was proposed and strongly looked at for the 75^th project but we could not get through the government red tape to consider it!

Through the past ten years, the Rotary Club of Guelph Trillium has had to say goodbye to many as their lives took them in new directions, but, we have also been privileged to welcome many new faces to our family.  Babies have been born, sorrow and joys have been shared, but through it all, the club has continued to thrive.

I feel quite honoured to be member of the Trillium family and look forward to seeing what the future has in store for us.