Volume 31

The Rotary Club of Calgary is an organization of Number 01 professional and community leaders who come together through commitment and July 5, 2013 fellowship to create opportunities and a better future for generations to follow. District No. 5360

Jamie LeSueur Rotary Peace Fellow

Rotary Peace Scholar Jamie LeSueur, this week’s speaker, also volunteers with the Canadian Red Cross. Jamie provided an update on the response to flooding crisis in Canmore, where he currently lives. The photos he showed of a raging Cougar Creek and the consequent wash out of the TransCanada highway brought home the magnitude of the disaster affecting this mountain town. A significant worry for emergency management personnel was the risk of a large portion of the town being cut off in the event that rising water levels on the Bow River forced the closure of the only two bridges in town.

Uncertainty and despair were prevalent in Canmore during those anxious days, and as a Red Cross representative trained in emergency management he found himself running the Red Cross emergency centre in the town. It was his first personal experience with a disaster of this complexity and magnitude, and Jamie and his volunteers had to work with what they had.

The generous offers of accommodations, food and labour proved to greatly exceed the need, and managing this outpouring of community support was difficult. Despite the personal tragedies, managing the Red Cross response in Canmore proved a valuable experience that Jamie will take overseas when he takes up his Peace Fellowship. We should all be proud of the way we Albertans have responded to the flooding.

Jamie LeSueur is a Rotary Peace Fellow. (Each year RI selects up to 110 Peace Fellows, with up to sixty of them pursing master’s degrees). He will be pursuing a two-year program in Peace and Conflict Resolution at Uppsala University in Sweden. He is the founder of a non-profit dedicated to advancing human rights globally through high school students. Jamie holds a bachelor degree in political studies and economics.

COG Staff July 5 Issue Calgary, Alberta ● Chartered April 1914 ● Club #949 Editor Craig Henderson Suite 300, 105 12th Ave SE, Calgary Alberta T2G 1A1 Reporting Paul McIntyre Royston Tel: (403) 398-9969 ● Fax: (403) 264-2393 Photography Ralph Lundberg www.rotaryclubofcalgary.org ● [email protected] Sponsorships Lorne Larson President: Eva Friesen ● Past President: Douglas R. (Doug) MacDonald Office Support Jo-Ann Clarke RI President: Ron D. Burton ● District Governor: Patrick Killoran Highlights from the Meeting

Roy Boettger, Michael Broadhurst, George Brookman and Ralph Lundberg offered their very own rendition of There Is Nothing Like a Dame (with apologies to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II) to celebrate our new president Eva Friesen, the first woman to hold the post in this, our centennial year. Following the opening The “There Is Nothing Like verse, all the women of Rotary joined them on stage in solidarity and celebration. a Dame” quartet Marmie Hess delivered a tremendous speech in support of the new presidency, in which she acknowledged all of the women who have come before Eva. Although women have only been admitted as members in recent years, many have served through the years as mothers, wives and daughters in building the community we see today. Marmie has appreciated her own opportunities to see the generations of women showing leadership in our community. She closed by thanking Eva and welcoming her to her new post. Past-President Doug MacDonald handed Eva two Rotary President pins, thereby continuing our tradition between Presidents.

Thalia Kingsford delivered a stirring invocation to inspire the spirit of recovery. Welcome to the presidency Eva! Barb Young welcomed our visitors and guests, and acknowledged two weeks worth of birthdays, owing to our not holding a meeting last week.

Eva took the stage to thank Vern Kimball and the Calgary Stampede for sponsoring this week’s issue of the COG Newsletter in this challenging time for our city. She followed this by announcing that the first $100,000 raised during the BBQ events would be directed to the Rotary Club of Calgary Flood Recovery Fund.

Long time member Ernie Carter passed away on June 27th. He had been a member of the club since 1971.

Frank welcomed a summer student we support to attend a music camp in Red Deer each summer. Anna started playing the flute in Grade 7, auditioned, and was accepted in to the program for gifted youth as well as the Calgary Youth Orchestra. Zahra Al-Harazi thanks our Anna played for a beautiful piece by Felix Mendelssohn for us. speaker with a donation to the Canadian Red Cross The Board has withdrawn the requirement that members prepay 50 per cent of the year’s lunches on the pre-paid debit cards. Although this measure was intended to reduce cash handling and speed entry to the meetings, members will now have the flexibility to pay using cash or the debit cards.

Upcoming Meetings

• July 9 Rotary Club of Calgary Stampede Luncheon Fairmont Palliser Hotel • July 16 Rotarian Steve Allen Poverty Reduction • July 23 Rotarian Frank McKitrick Music Scholars Performance • July 30 Cheryl Beatty Stroke Survivor and Author Anna Maclellan, music scholar Messages to Calgarians from Around the World

I've been watching the footage from Calgary from Kabul and it just looks so devastating. I’m thinking of you and hoping you are well despite what's happening there. Knowing Calgarians, I am sure that you will pull together and come out of this stronger and better than before. Take care, Crystal Procyshen; Kabul, Afghanistan

Ed: Crystal is one of our Rotary Peace Fellows. She studied in Japan and is now serves the Afghan government in Kabul.

Dear Fellow Rotarians:

My name is Ahmad Elzoghby, a board member of the “Rotary Club of Cosmopolitan-District 2451-".

On this new Rotary year, 2013-2014, please allow me to share with you our Rotary organized initiative: Cross Egypt Challenge that aims to promote tourism to Egypt as well as world understanding. Cross Egypt Challenge is a series of cross-country endurance scooter rallies conducted throughout one of the most mysterious countries in the world, Egypt. The series started in 2011 and the first season was a 9 days ride from the shores of the in the North of Egypt to the temple of , on the southern borders of Egypt with a total distance of over 1700 km.

The 2012 season witnessed a 2400 km route starting from Egypt’s famous capital and passing through the most exotic oases of the Egyptian western desert before ending the season in the world’s largest open air museum, the city of .

The 2013 season of Cross Egypt Challenge will start on November 8, 2013 and will last for 9 days. The successful series will include a fascinating and challenging route of 2400 km which will start from the Mediterranean city of Alexandria; pass by Egypt's capital, , make stops at the Western Desert Oases of Bahareya, Farafra, Dakhla, and Kharga, then heads east towards Luxor, , and Sokhna before ending the journey in Cairo under the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Cross Egypt Challenge provides a very rewarding and challenging experience for participants from around the globe as it combines the best of adventure travel and extreme sports. I invite your respectful Rotary club to take part and support our initiative.

Share the news with your respectful members and invite interested Rotarians to ride in this season’s rally. Sponsor a Rotaractor with a solid motorcycle riding experience to ride in this season’s rally (Participation fees per person is USD 1,500and covers all accommodation, meals, transportation, permissions, gas, oil change, etc…).

Spread the news out to your local community and local press to promote this Rotary initiatives, and the image of Rotary worldwide - Please ask us for a press release and we will be glad to send it to you. For more information or to register, please visit our website: www.CrossEgyptChallenge.com and LIKE our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/CrossEgyptChallenge.

We look forward to having members from your respectful club join this once in a life time experience. For any more information, please do not hesitate to contact me. Stay-in-School Golf 2013 Stay-in-School Golf 2013 Our ensemble cast salutes Eva!

Thanks to the Calgary Stampede and Rotarian Vern Kimball for sponsoring this issue of the COG Newsletter