Our meeting was called to order at 18:15 by President Jim Richards with 31 members present. We sang O Canada, toasted Queen and Country and sang Rotary Grace. Our only guest this evening was Dale Walker, wife of Rotarian Jerry Walker.

Sergeant at Arms duties were performed by Jim Miners. Following a reminder about the Four-Way Test, the only members asked to pay a loonie fine were those who had either neglected to welcome Kim Varty, our newest member, or hadn’t signed up for Snowarama duty.

There was one birthday, Jamie Cowen.

President Jim mentioned on piece of correspondence: JDH elementary school thanked us for our $250 donation towards their anti-bullying program, "Steps to Respect".

Greg Scheffee spoke about next week’s Snowarama event. The duty roster will be posted on the website. Those signed up for trail marking will meet at the Kozy Korner at 8:00 a.m. on Friday. If you haven’t found someone to sponsor yet, Curry Bishop or Art Dawson would be happy to accommodate your donation.

Dave Bishop spoke again about this year’s car draw, beginning by listing the 7 prizes to be awarded, 5 as early birds and the last 2 at the carnival:

President Jim reported that the board today 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, will be voted on at the next club meeting (January 30).

Third quarter dues are now due – Treasurer Jim Henwood will be happy to receive your cheque.

Ted Brandon introduced our speaker, Alan Clark, Executive Director of Business Development for the CBC. Although Alan has spent much of his career with the CBC in "the city", he has chosen Haliburton County as his home. Part of his commute to us this evening was via an 8-wheel vehicle.

Alan began his talk by telling us of his Haliburton roots. On February 21, 1921, his grandmother performed on the stage on the way to Coby. That’s as far as the story went, so we don’t exactly know the extent to which Alan has real roots in this community.

On to today – Although he had cottaged in the area since 1967, it wasn’t until 1991 that he purchased property on Devil’s Lake, making it his permanent residence in 1995. The 8-wheel Argo is needed due to the fact that the lake has no road access. Unfortunately, although Alan gets his mail here, he sleeps in the city about 200 nights a year – he’s working to reduce this number.

To say that Alan has been involved with sports at CBC would be an understatement. He entertained us with stories of his experiences with a number of well known on-air personalities – Don Cherry, Ron McLean and Brian Williams to name a few. He gave us an inside look at contract negotiations and Olympic bidding, two areas that would give anyone gray hair and a desire to get to the country.

We got the sense that he could have told stories all evening, but Alan respected the needs of our own athletes (curlers), and left a few stories for another time.

He thanked Rotary for its work in his chosen community and Ted for the invitation to speak.

Jerry Walker said thanks and presented Alan with a copy of The Essential Haliburton.

Upcoming Rotary Meetings:

January 23 – meeting cancelled

January 25 – Snowarama

January 30 – Bob Nichol and Jerry Walker

President Jim sent us home at 18:59.