Our meeting was called to order at 18:15 by President Jim Richards. We sang O Canada, toasted Queen and Country and sang Rotary Grace.

Sergeant at Arms duties were performed by Jim Miners. There were no fines tonight, but members were offered an opportunity to help top up the Snowarama total in exchange for draw tickets.

President Jim reminded us that the board two weeks ago approved sending $3,000 to the Rotary Foundation as half of our payment. A motion to do so by Peter Forgrave, seconded by Jerry Walker, was voted on and passed.

Greg Scheffee spoke about last week’s Snowarama event. 95 riders brought pledges of $19,915, our second best effort ever. Joe Isles was the third top rider with $1,665 and Curry Bishop was second with $1,720. Art Dawson gets his name on the trophy as top Rotarian with $2,335 in pledges. Thanks to Brian Black and Sid Stamp Fuels for the gas. Thanks to Len Pizzey for the press coverage. And thanks to the Schleifenbaums for the use of their excellent facility again. The final comment was from Ted Brandon in the way of a request for a menu revision for the Friday crowd.

Dave Bishop spoke again about this year’s car draw, announcing that the 3 teams have been drawn up and that team leaders will be contacting members. The car will be made on or about March 1 and will be in our hands shortly after that date.

Ted Brandon announced that it is possible to do makeups online (no meal credit). The website for this exercise is http://www.rotaryeclubone.org/.

President Jim announced that District 7010 has created a Zone 22 history project. Anyone aware of the location of copies of our history book or with any ideas about this topic should get in touch with Jim.

Bob Nichol introduced our speaker, Linda Baumgartner, a well known figure in our local real estate community. Linda gave us a thorough introduction to what is involved in organized real estate in the Province of Ontario.

As is the case in many areas, real estate has local, provincial and national levels – Linda has been active in the first two of these as president of the local board and soon to be president of the provincial association, OREA. With 31,000 members in 41 boards and overseeing a $14,000,000 budget this will be no small responsibility. The numerous meetings, interactions with board members and regular staff, lobbying activities, conferences and speaking engagements Linda may be kept very busy in her one year term. Similar to Rotary, the OREA has a foundation that oversees charitable activities.

Linda asked the question herself, "Am I a little crazy?" In a year we’ll ask her. Good luck Linda, and don’t forget to tell all you new contacts where Haliburton is.

Andy Salvatori said thanks with a photo book.

Upcoming Rotary Meetings:

February 6 – Maureen O’Hara and Bob Stinson

February 13 – Drew Carey

President Jim sent us home at 19:01.