The District 7010 Conference in Sudbury was an amazing weekend with great speakers such as Matthieu Bonin who is a very recent addition to the Sudbury Club.  He spoke of his swim across the entire north shoreline of Manitoulin Island.  He gave us a very personal, emotional account of why and how he did this.  

 

The focus on the conference was Peace and the Environment.  We had the honour of hearing Kim Phuc Thi speak on Peace.  She was the little girl that was a victim of Napalm bombing in Viet Nam back in 1972.  Her clothes were burned right off her body and she talked about her struggles to come to terms with her injuries, the anger and finally her ability to forgive.  If you get a chance to get her book, do read it - an amazing story of Peace out of war.

 

Speakers talked about how climate change is impacting Canada and also a speaker who talked about the opioid crisis and polluted drinking water connection.

 

We learned how to help enhance our Club's presence in our communities through Social Media.

 

Bryn Styles spoke on how important in these times the Rotary Peace Centers are.

 

Our Club was featured in a video put together by Wayne Dennis showcasing the Kid's Against Hunger event we had in July - collaboration among many clubs to do something amazing.

 

With all the issues around COVID these past couple of years, our Youth Exchange is finally ready to ramp up again.  Many people feel this is one of the best programs Rotary has and definitely builds peace.  We had several inbound Youth Exchange present a skit on their day.  There were no outbound youth but hopefully this will change for next year.

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