President Barbara opened the meeting with the gong, the singing of O Canada, toasts to King and Country and Rotary International as well as a recitation of the 4-way Test, led by Maggie. Paraphrase of a quote from Paul Harris: "The only way a man can prove himself to his fellow man is through service."

 

11 members and two additional visitors attended. Visitors were Bob Warnock and Joanne Howarth.

Mark Holmes introduced our speaker Mayor Joe Preston. Mayor Joe Preston started his political career in grade 8 when he became the class president. He was our MP for a number of years and this is his second term as Mayor of St. Thomas.

 

Small teams from St. Thomas beat out many communities from around the world for Volkswagon to build the largest manufacturing plant in Canada to produce batteries for electric
vehicles. Council’s Action Plan has 3 pillars –
1. Vibrancy – art, parks, events

2. Compassion – The city provides a hand-up in terms of supportive housing with the goal of reducing homelessness to zero. The city makes to be aware of who in the community requires housing and information comes from many sources. The latest apartment building with a supportive housing focus opens from mid-May to mid-June and comes with 45 units.

3. Growth of St. Thomas – The council believes that a workforce working from home is not a sustainable local economy; therefore it pursued manufacturing. The province came knocking at the council's door. A recent study stated that more than 1000 new people come here each year; that translates to 500 new housing units. Home Builders group is great but the supply of market-rental apartments is lower than needed. Along with housing, there is a need for jobs, roads and parks for newcomers. St. Thomas started purchasing land for increased industrial use. Province also talked to St. Thomas, knowing that there was a need worldwide for a huge industrial site proposed by Volkswagen for car battery manufacture. There was no expropriation involved in purchasing the land the size of 1500 acres. Joe talked about the philosophy of saying “yes – then asking the question". This gives any endeavour a positive mindset. It will take 3 years to build the battery plant and 1000 workers each year. Now the City is faced with a new set of hurdles – workforce and housing for supporting the build. It is proposed that the shipping of resources to the site and the shipping of batteries around the world will be done by rail. Metallurgic resources will come from the Ring of Fire, west of Hudon Bay, Ontario or Canada rather than other countries. That will require mining and transportation endeavours from the Ring of Fire to St. Thomas. Joe discussed the difficulty of putting this initiative together while people were always asking what was happening and the city could not tell the community what was going on until the confirmation of the Volkswagon announcement. Joe talked of his skill of networking saying that you get to know people and they trust you, then things happen.
Questions:

Who signs off on this? Federal, provincial and city representatives

This year’s home building is focused on rental townhomes and market-rental apartments with at least over 300 of these planned.

Tiny Hope – 40 x 1-3 bedrooms; city is committed to zoning and development charges. YWCA and Sanctuary Homes are the other partners. Funds are needed to outfit these small homes plus Indwell apartments.

 

Barbara presented PHF +1 to Stew Shouldice and PHF +2 to Trish Shouldice (see pic below)

Announcements:
Keynotes Concert will be Friday March 31, 2023 at Central United Church at 7:00 p.m.

Trudy reported on the Home Show with sales of tickets for the bear about $275. Trish reported that at the Home Show, many Rotarians spoke to potential members very interested in our Club.

 

Malcolm represented the Club at the Hospice Open House last week and was excited to see the plans.

Spring Extravaganza is a go and we can use all members to help set up from 8-10 at the Seniors Centre on Saturday, April 1, 2023. Trish can't accept more vendors as there will be no place for more.

The meeting on 19 th of April is not at Senior Centre, but at Hawk Cliff and you need to bring a brown bag lunch.

Next week’s speaker 5April: Jane Schalk, Destination Church

 

See the picture below of  President Barb and Ron

 

50/50 was won by Ron
 

Happy Finns
Ron – Joe’s presentation, Joanne as our guest, winning 50/50
Barbara – Joanne and Bob and Joe as guests today
Maggie – Joe’s very informative presentation, son in heaven with his grandfather and saw the sign of a cardinal singing heart out today
Bill – Joe’s presentation, and memorial service for Maggie’s son was wonderful with many from across the USA in attendance
Nancy – Joe’s presentation, welcoming Joanne and reconnecting from years ago and work done by Spring Extravaganza committee
Malcolm – Joe and his excellent leadership of our city, Frank Exley’s leadership of Music Festival, good Discovery Tour planning so far
Trudy – quick trip to Greece with long layover on the return trip but good flights, thanking everyone for work at Home Show, speaker today
Adriana – Home Show help

Bob Warnoch - thankful for local leadership

Trish- Joe's presentation, Adrianna's signifigant effort at Home show representing both club and Interactors

Stew - Joe's presentation, thankful to receive another Paul Harris Fellow

Mark - Joe's presentation

Ron - St Thomas will always be small town to him

Edited by Trish and Stewart Shouldice