At the November 22, 2023 Hamilton AM Club meeting, a second new member, JoAnne Chalifour gave her Classification Talk.

 

JoAnne is a natural for Rotary, with both her father and brother in Rotary.  In 2022-2023 her brother Martin was President of his club and recently her father celebrated 50 years in Rotary!  Joanne grew up in a Rotary world and fondly remembers international exchange students staying with them and helping her improve her English skills.  In 1994 JoAnne moved from Montreal to Toronto.

 

JoAnne has spent 20 years managing health and social service programs and her interest in developing leadership skills let to a Master's degree in Leadership and Organizational Development, graduating in 2022.  Key skills developed included how to plan, structure and operate in the  health and social services world with a focus on caring for people. leading staff and managing resources.

 

JoAnne felt that she had found her niche -  starting new programs from scratch, identifying needs, searching for resources, planning, implementing and evaluating.  She organized many events and pilot projects.  This led nicely to a second career as a self-employed consultant in 2018, providing services in both English and French.  She has worked with provincial and territory governments, Ministries of Health and health planning entities as they struggled to provide quality services in both official languages.

 

Some of her other specialties are Quality Improvement, Research and Program Evaluation. She has produced a series of podcasts in French for "Dementia Dialogue" and has developed content for online programs.

 

Joining Rotary not only takes JoAnne back to some of her fond childhood memories but also fulfils a need to give back to her community.  She has contributed to non-profit boards in the past but Rotary membership provides a new opportunity to give back.  With eight local Rotary Clubs in the Hamilton area, the Hamilton AM Club is honoured to have her join our membership.  Bienvenue JoAnne!

 

At the November 22, 2023 Simon Boucher gave his "Classification Talk".  In Rotary parlance, "Classification"  is the occupation/profession held by the member.  This heralds back to Rotary's first meetings where only one person in each local classification could be admitted to membership.

 

Simon was aware that another new member would be talking about the same classification in the near future so instead, he chose to talk about his penultimate classification, full time clinical support worker for Bethesda Services in the Niagara Region.  Bethesda's Vision is to inspire, encourage and empower children, youth, and adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities, and their families, to live their best lives. They take on those individuals that might be considered high behavior, or in need of more specialized care, so this is done through a network of clinical supports.

 

As frontline staff member he worked with an interdisciplinary clinical team to help bring individuals to a healthier place holistically. This is done by engineering an environment were they could help them meet certain goals.  This was a very demanding but rewarding role.

 

 

Members who have met Simon have been impressed with his warm, engaging manner and willingness to help out where he can.  In a short time he has achieved some notoriety by winning the raffle at this past summer's Imagine Summer Gala fundraiser.  Not only that, he picked as his prize, one of the Live Auction items - a glider ride even though he is afraid of heights!  Thankfully he has lived to tell about the experience and looks forward to more Hamilton AM Rotary opportunities.  Congratulations on joining our club, Simon - we are very glad to have you as a member!

 

Hamilton AM Rotary Club President, Mac Lashley and Past-President Clare Freeman welcomed to the the November 22, 2023 meeting District Governor-Elect Dave Alexander and Assistant Governor Paul Gibel.  The reason for their attendance was to present the club with a District 7090 "Lighthouse Award" which was earned during the 2022- 2023 Rotary year when Clare was President.

 

All Rotary Clubs are challenged to meet annual goals set out by Rotary International and Districts can add their particular priorities where achievement will result in the Lighthouse Award.  Not all clubs manage to operate to such a high standard but the Hamilton AM club does its best to achieve this status every year.  You can be sure that Mac Lashley has his eye on one of those plaques!