Rotary, Community and Building a Full Life

Meet Dwight Brown, Rotarian and community builder from the Rotary Club of Kanata. We talk about the impact of Rotary, supporting our communities and the role it plays in our lives.

Transcript

Peter Tonge: 0:00

Hi, welcome to this episode of Talking Rotary. I'm Peter Tonge and I'm a member of the Rotary Club of Winnipeg Charleswood,

Mandy Kwasnica: 0:26

and I am Mandy Kwasnica, past president and also a member of the Rotary Club of Winnipeg. Charleswood, we are so happy you have joined us. Peter and I are so excited for this new podcast and thankful to our many listeners. Let's start Talking Rotary!

Peter Tonge: 1:06

Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of talking Rotary. I'm Peter Tonge, and today I'm welcoming my friend Dwight Brown, and he is in Kanata, Ontario. Hi, Dwight. How you doing?

Dwight Brown: 1:20

Hi Peter, how you doing?

Peter Tonge: 1:21

i'm doing really well. Just we should give the listeners a little bit of a background. We've known each other for many, many years. We were in the same Rotary Club 26 years ago.

Dwight Brown: 1:32

26 years ago. Yeah, Cameron's place

Peter Tonge: 1:35

exactly with the pink tablecloths. So I came into rotary in 1999 and at that time it was the Rotary Club of Canada, sunrise, and you were a charter member. Is that right?

Dwight Brown: 1:54

Yes, that's correct. That think the club was formed, or the genesis of it was conceived in 1998 and then we chartered in March of 1999 I believe there was about 24 of us at the time. There's, there's still two charter members, two or three, I believe two, actually myself in the Zul Devji still a member of the club, so we we're still here, 26 years later.

Peter Tonge: 2:26

Cool. Now, before we get too far into it, can you explain to our listener where Kanata, Ontario is?

Dwight Brown: 2:33

Yeah, certainly. Well, Kanata, Ontario is considered a suburb of Ottawa, although it is a part of Ottawa proper. It's west of of Ottawa. It is the home of Canada's largest tech Park, which has over 500 businesses and 33,000 employees, generating about $13 billion of economic revenue, which a lot of people don't know. And it's also home to the Ottawa Senators hockey club. They play out they played out here for about 30 years, out in the West End, in in Kanata. So, so we're just west of we're just west of Ottawa, right?

Peter Tonge: 3:12

And I'm glad you talked about the business park joy, because I think if people think about Ottawa the first time, they don't see it as a business hub. They see it as a political place, but it's very, very much has multiple personalities, if I can say that. And then business, particularly tech. Business, is part of it. And you're still working in the tech business, right?

Dwight Brown: 3:34

I am still working in the tech space. I was in mobile communications going back when we were in the club together, worked for one of the big telcos, Rogers wireless, and then I spun out of that about 20 years ago and created my own mobile encryption company that helped companies secure their mobile devices. And that wound up with a little under 1000 companies around the world, government agencies, and that was through about 21 countries. So I was in the mobile encryption space, and now I help dentists generate more revenue with the use of AI. And AI is a big buzzword. I always say AI is not new to me, because I've been working in that space for since 2017 developing processes for the dental industry, getting technology credits from the Government of Canada. So so I've had kind of three distinct work careers, being in mobile with a national telecom company. Then I formed my own company for 1520, years, and then now I have an agency with a business partner. We are in the Canada tech Park helping dentists generate revenue with the use of technology.

Peter Tonge: 4:58

And curious, how do you how do. You make the leap to supporting dentists like it

Unknown: 5:04

It was interesting. Well, I did have my mobile encryption company, and that was humming along, but I saw some headwinds in that that industry, and one of my suppliers asked me if I wanted to, because it was I had some ability to do some internet marketing, and I knew that space, having built my company, zezil, so he asked me to create an agency with him, and we were a general agency. We would help anyone, and there was a few other business partners, and we did that for a couple of years. And then one of my friends from my days at Rogers wireless. He wound up working in web security at IBM, and he said, you know, he saw what I was doing. He goes, Well, do you want to do something with me here in town? I said, I thought about it. And I said, Sure. So I sold out of the other company. And what we did is we basically had no connections in the dental space. We were, you know, I did mobile encryption, he did IBM, web security, and we're going to start an agency. What vertical we were going to go into? We weren't sure. The one thing we did know is that we were going to niche, and our view is always go an inch wide and a mile deep. So really understand the vertical you're in and become a subject matter expert. And we just basically went through all the industry codes, and then we came upon that dentistry, and we thought, well, we could reach them, and there's some high ticket items that they do want to bring into their practice, like all on fours, implants, bridges, crowns, veneers, and that's how we decided to choose dentistry. Now, over the last 12 years, we have developed some tentacles in the dental industry, but we went into it cold. Now, when I hire a consultant, yeah, we hired a consultant who knew the industry, and we brought him on for over a year to help us with the processes and reaching out to them, what to say, all of that. So we hired, we hired people to help us get there, but, but, yeah, that's, that's how we got into that that space. It's not something that you know we were, we were familiar with, but now we have a pretty good foothold in the in the industry. Cool.

Peter Tonge: 7:21

I'm biased, but consultants are good people, so I support, I support hiring consultants. Yes, I also support having a strong business partner, because that's my, one of the favorite things about the work that I do now, is I work with somebody that I love working with, and it just, it's so creative it's all productive, right?

Dwight Brown: 7:42

Well, he's a, yeah, my business partner is a good friend of mine. We're actually heading off to with a few other friends to oasis in Toronto this weekend. So so we socialize as well. And some people say you shouldn't go into into business with friends. And I see it the other way, there's a trust factor, you know, and the rubber does hit the road sometimes in business. And that we're no different where things have been tough, but you know that your business partner is going to stand with you and not cut bait, because there's, there is a bond there. So, so I look at it that way.

Peter Tonge: 8:18

I do too. I agree with you completely. I think, I think you particularly when you're working in a small company and it's only two or three people, you need to have somebody that you can trust and you know is going to be there when the bumpy cup bits exactly, you know, because whatever business we're in, we all have them exactly.

Unknown: 8:38

We have had them as well.

Peter Tonge: 8:39

Now it's been a number of years since I've been what is now around, what is now the Canada Rotary Club. So tell me a little bit about the club today, and what, what's your favorite things are?

Dwight Brown: 8:53

Well, the club has gone through a few iterations over the years. Like businesses, it's had its ups and downs, and it's had its its potential breaking points, and then it's rebounded. The one thing that I've I've noticed over the last, let's say, five or six years, we had a pretty good base. Our club isn't overly big. We have about 1415, members. Right just before the pandemic, we were bringing on some, some new members, and it was really, really exciting, and they were taking some some positions within the club. And then, unfortunately, with the pandemic, no one knew what was going to happen. And we, we didn't have meetings for about four or five months, maybe even six, okay, and then we decided to do zoom meetings. So we did zoom meetings, and we did that for a couple of years. But unfortunately, what happened with new club members, the new ones that were, you know, less than two years they just didn't feel that connection. We lost pretty much all of them. And one of the things I've seen being in rotary for 26 years is, you know, it usually takes about two or three years from. My perspective to see that a new member has gelled in you just don't know, in that first two years they could, they could speed wobble. God, I know that even when I joined Rotary, I've never, I never had any plans on on leaving, but my attendance was very spotty, and it wasn't until until the club leadership asked me to be the vocational chair, and I think year two or three that I said, Oh, I now I got some responsibility, right? So the whole voluntold thing got me kick started, because at the time, I was one of the younger members in the club, and you just kind of sit in the background. And you know, we had weekly meetings at the time, and back then, Rotary had a 60% attendance record, and I was above that, but not much. Had a young family, and so it was great that that the leadership kind of looked at me and said, You're going to be the vocational chair. So right, but, but anyways, back to where our club is today. What happened through the pandemic, we lost some of those members, but we also coming out of that and coming into back to having face to face meetings, we got a bunch of new members who really took a leadership role in the club, and that's where we are today. Our club president became president two years in, and it was really, you know, she was hesitant about it, our treasure, same thing he was a couple of years in. But there was a real changing of the guard over the 25 years, we lost some of the stalwart members of the club who had been with the club pretty much since day one. They had moved on. And it was great timing, because it's funny, I was looking at the and I'm the club Secretary right now, and we have our happy, sad dollars. And I said, you know, my happy dollar in the middle of August is that all but two club members showed up in August for our meeting. I said, that's great. And I said, you know, years ago, August would be a really sleepy period of time where you wouldn't get a lot of club members. But this group of club members, they've rolled their sleeves up. We have new members that are now working at the district level. As I said, our club president is is someone who was only in rotary for four or five years. Our president elect has been in for, oh God, maybe three years. So we've really been fortunate that we've got some some members that just came in and they didn't take a back seat. They've taken an active role in the club.

Peter Tonge: 12:34

So it's because it's become a real revitalization of the club that's really interesting 100% Yeah, one of the things I have to fade away, because I've been watching over the last year as you were president for the second time, you had a strong social media presence for the club. And our experience in my district is those are the clubs that are growing and expanding. Are the ones that are putting the good work that they do out there into the world, right? And it's something in our district we've been working very hard at because we can see what an impact that has, and trying to get everybody to, you know, it's great to do great work, but you got to tell people on social media, is the way you do it. Now, it's 100% it's not the local newspaper story or

Dwight Brown: 13:22

no, no. And that's that's kind of the old paradigm that we've had in our club, you know, and I've had some connections to the print media. But what we were fortunate with is a new club member joined about two years ago, Jessica ziltra. Zilstra came from England with her family to Canada. Her work is in social media. That's what she she does. So I was doing it, and it was very two dimensional, the stuff I was doing, the things I was doing, she took it over, and it was just like a kaleidoscope of colors, like it was just a she just took everything to another level. We picked up two members last year just from the work that she was doing, and it's impressed her. It's impressed, you know, the club and even at the district level, so much that now she's doing some work at the district level. Our district governor Graham Frazier has asked her to get involved, and I'm hoping that she does get involved more on the on the district level, because I'm the Public Image Chair of the district, and within that purview is social media. And so, you know, there's this is kind of one of the focuses for the district is now that we've gotten the branding and things are kind of tight, and that was the mandate under our past district governor, Theresa Whitmore, this year, it's going to the focus is about getting the public image and getting the image of the clubs out there that's not just online. And that's one of the things I'm I'm really focusing with the clubs this year, is it's not just about social media. It's about literally having a tent at. That fair in your time, right face to face. We need the online and the offline from the public image perspective, but, but I think that, you know, from our club, we've seen that growth and and we're, you know, we want to leverage the benefits that we have in our club to the district level. And I think someone like Jen, Jessica, can really help all of the clubs in our district.

Peter Tonge: 15:23

Yeah, I think public image has become such an important part, because rotary always had the reputation of doing really good things, but doing it very quietly, and nobody wanted to, quote, unquote, brag and whatever. And now we've learned that, you know, you got to tell the world what you're doing. It's it's great to do good work, but to get support, people need to know about it.

Dwight Brown: 15:45

And you know, Peter, that's been an age old battle in our club up until recently. And you were in the club when we were there, was you kind of did the work and you did it quietly, and that was just how you conducted yourself. Yeah, we're not going to get new members into the club. We're not going to get the millennials and the Gen z's in the club, if we're going to go about our work quietly. So so we have to do the good work, but also let people know, and that's it's absolutely imperative. So we've we've tried, we've now, because there's some younger people in the club, we're steered away from doing things and doing things quietly, that's just not going to resonate. And it's not going to it's not going to show people what rotary can do. You know, in their in their community, the one thing that that, that you any study, or any any you know, analysis, of volunteering with the millennials and Gen Z, is they don't want to go someplace and sit and do nothing they want to roll up their sleeves and do something our generation, the, you know, from the Boomers to the to the Gen Xers like ourselves. You know, we were, you know, when I came in, I was about kind of sitting in the background and observing that. That won't cut it with them. So, so, you know, you have to let them know that what you have out there as as a as a club, and get them in, and get them in and get them involved right away, right away, get them into doing something absolutely, yeah, and when we bring new members in, I'm always kind of bird dogging to see what their interest is. And we've been fortunate where they've, they've they've, you know, picked something that they want to do, but we get them involved right away now, which isn't something we always did in our club.

Peter Tonge: 17:24

I think if you could, if you could do that, it's very it's very effective, and it's very important. It's always, it's always as leaders. It's always finding that balance between not overwhelming people with all the things they could do, but getting them involved so that they have some some ownership, and building those relationships right.

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Peter Tonge: 18:15

so speaking of good works, what's, what's the focus of the Kanata Rotary Club these days?

Dwight Brown: 18:21

Well, we, we've, we've had a few initiatives coming out of, out of the pandemic. One of the ones that we've taken on, which seems to be a bit of a movement within rotary and globally, is there's a group called the K and regions, and they do pollinators. And these pollinators are Ontario Hydro has graciously allowed them to put these pollinators under their hydro lines in Canada, and we have partnered with them, and club member, our incoming club president, Charles burlinget, has taken the lead on that, and what's happened is our activity with the pollinators is has caught the eye at the district level, especially with Elsa Bay falks, and who's our district governor nominee, and she has, she had a presence at the International Convention in Calgary about it. The word is spreading about doing pollinators and how good they are for the environment. So, so that's a big that's a big initiative for us. We recently completed a project to help young girls in Costa Rica have uniforms so that they can go to school. One of the one of the challenges for a lot of areas is the requirement for school uniforms. And in some places, they just don't have the money for these school uniforms. So we had a Club member at the time, who was from Costa Rica spearhead the effort. And we, you know, we were asking for a lot of items on Facebook marketplace, and she would have people drop them off, pick. Them up. We partnered with a rotary club in North Bay to make to get enough funds so that, I believe is about 85 girls could go to school by providing those uniforms. So, so that was, that was something that we had done, coming out of, coming out of the pandemic as well.

Peter Tonge: 20:17

That's fantastic. So you're doing, doing environmental work, which, which I, you know, is going to be, is going to be a particular interest. I think that the millennial crowd, which is good, so I'm glad rotary is going gone the environmental way. And I mean, supporting education, to me, is just key, right? The only, yeah, the only reason I've gotten anywhere in the world is I've managed to get an education.

Dwight Brown: 20:40

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it doesn't just span to school uniforms. One of the local high schools, one of our former rotaryans, who happened to move out to Victoria, he was overseeing a robotics program at March Secondary School here in Kanata, and we have sponsored them for many years now, in in the sciences, by by helping them with their robotics to even and if anyone's not familiar with these robotics programs, is they'll build these robots, control them by remote control, and they will compete with each other on their the dexterity of the machine and and they will compete with other schools in Ontario, not just locally. And I know that the early March team is one of the top three or four teams in Ontario. They've done really well, and we've, we've supported their efforts throughout the years. So so we, we touch on a lot of things. I know since we one of the things about the Rotary Club of Canada is we're the we've always been a little club that did a lot of things. And over the course of the 26 years, we counted it up, and we're pushing 350 to 375 act individual activities that we've done. We've helped the cadets with some tree planting. You know we do? Yeah, we do Park cleanups, we've, we've done a myriad thing, blood donor drives. We created the city's biggest beer festival myself and John beard spearheaded that effort. And and it was that was a whole learning curve to run a festival, you know? It was, yeah, it was quite, quite the labor of love. So our club has done a lot of things for a club that has, you know, it usually is around 14 to 15 club members, so we've been disproportionately active within the district, as far as the amount of activity and things we do.

Peter Tonge: 22:33

Oh, I agree. And it only goes to show that, you know, a small group of dedicated people can do a lot of things, right? Yeah. So this might be an unfair question, but, but I'm going to ask it anyway, and that is, so where, where do you see the club being in five, five years or or, what do you, what do you? Where do you think that's going to be?

Dwight Brown: 22:56

Well, you know, one of the things that I'm starting to see a potential for and we have, just based on where we are in Canada, that the population is growing out here quite a lot. And one of the things that I know our district governor Graham Fraser wants is to see the potential for more clubs, satellite clubs. And we have started having discussions with the Kanata North Business Association, which is the, which is the advocacy group within the city for the tech community, about doing some kind of signature project. And one of the things that we see as a club is there's 33,000 tech workers in this park, a lot of them in that right demographic. A lot of them probably, you know, like me 26 years ago, when I was in my early 30s, saying, I want to get involved in the community. So I think that in the next five years, if we, we might, you know, trying to grow our club to 25 or 30 might not be the goal. It might be to plant that seed like what happened with us 26 years ago, when leaders from another Rotary Club planted the seed to form the Kanata club. There's also some, not just within the tech community, but there's a lot of growth north of of Kanata, where there could be, in places like carp, Ontario, the possibility of another of another Rotary Club. So I think that, you know, there's, there's that potential for that. We've been around for 25 years, it's probably time that we spawn and did what, what happened with us 25 years ago, and and create a, create a another Rotary Club. We have had interact clubs. There's a discussions again, especially with some of the new members, to get an interact club, or going again in the in the area that was hampered by by covid, because we were going to take that initiative again and then covid Pause things. The big thing is to find a teacher advocate within that school. Um, I helped found the Interact Club at one of the schools here in County white Jackson, 20 years ago, with Bruce O'Callaghan, who's still in the club. And we really had some strong teacher advisors back then. And that's, that's the key. The kids are keen. They're, they're, they're, they want to join clubs and be active. It's, it's just that you need that teacher that's gonna gonna, you know, encapsulate that enthusiasm and and say that they're gonna stand behind the project. So of having an Interact Club,

Peter Tonge: 25:30

Absolutely, and I can also very much encourage you on the idea of looking at alternative club formats. My wife, Nancy, who you know, is actually the chair of a virtual satellite club. She spun a satellite club off of our more traditional rotary club that I still belong to, and they meet virtually twice a month. And one of the interesting things that came out of it is about a third of the club members. There's club members from all across Canada because it's virtual. And the other thing that's interesting is about a third of the members have some form of disability. Is not because the club was designed to be that way, just a very easy way for people to be part of rotary and not have to slug themselves to the to the lunch or the dinner or the golf club or whatever it was, to show up from home on their screen and make a contribution is become, really quite a powerful thing.

Dwight Brown: 26:32

Well, that's excellent, that Nazis taking the initiative on that. Yeah, there's a couple of passport clubs in our in our district. One, I believe, I think that's that's a real growth engine. There's some, there's some platforms out there, having being in the tech space, I'm familiar with some of the community tech platforms that will allow people to interact beyond the Zoom meeting right that they have, and it's something that I'm I've discussed with our club as the role of club secretary and public image and to have the membership title as well. I think that going into the next rotary year, as some of the club members can take on some of these roles, I'm going to see if the club wants me to focus on things like getting a new club going, creating some some more communities, whether it's virtually or in town, I think that, having been in the club for 26 years, that I think I'm positioned to help in that that area, it's going to take more than myself. It'll take club other club members as well. But, but yeah, creating those past creating passport clubs, virtual clubs, clubs in, you know, where people meet face to face, clubs that are in a specific area, like, as I said, the tech Park, where it's, it's, it's a, you know, it's, it's a Rotary Club of tech workers. That's, that's the kind of thing that we have to look at as a as Rotary International movement.

Peter Tonge: 27:57

I think that's a really good idea to sort of find something like a tech park, or something like that, where there's a pool of people with common experience and common interest to draw on. I mean, they can come together and do and do good community work in the tech field, if that's what they're comfortable doing, right

Unknown: 28:17

Exactly, and with our with the tech park here, one thing that I've been told is, even if someone is working for one company today, they might be working for a different company two or three, you know, years from now, but they're in that same milieu. There's they're still in that same tech bubble. So there isn't a lot of inter business acrimony that you would think like, oh, well, we're in the same space. No, because you could be working for them one day and get a job the other day, and, you know, guys in each other's, you know, men or women in each other's company. So there's not that, that, that competition in that way, right? So that would help with, hey, you know what? Join, join a rotary club. That's, that's, you know about volunteering in your community.

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Dwight Brown: 29:38

you know that I realized having been in the club for this many years, heading on 30 years now, is that aspect of community. And one of the things that I really want to impress upon anyone who is thinking of joining rotary is I see there's four areas of life, and most people have, you know, most people have three of them covered. They have their. Family, they have their work colleagues, and they have their friends, but the fourth element is community. And at this stage of life, having joined Rotary, and looking back, the amount of experiences I've had in Rotary, I can't imagine my life without it. And I have some of my friends now who are on the verge of retiring, and they're not sure what to do, and they're looking back, and they're trying to fill some kind of void, and I have this whole area of my life that they don't have, and it really is, you know, I'm very fortunate for the people who asked me to come out to the rotary meeting when, when we moved to Canada, because I can't imagine just not having that, this whole other, that fourth element of life, being community, which, which is something that everyone should consider, it just makes for a well rounded life.

Peter Tonge: 30:50

I agree with you completely. And there's the other element that comes to mind, as you're talking about this, is the community in Rotary. And what I mean by that is, you know, the guy who's my insurance broker is in my rotary club, you know, and all that sort of stuff, right? You, you and I, when I was first getting into tech, you were in my rotary club, and I think you supplied me with my first pager and my first cell phone, probably, yeah, thank you for tying me to those things, probably, which are now completely tied to, you know, that kind of stuff, right? There's, there's, there's that. I think this is, this is really exciting. I can see, I can see rotary growing in your area very much. And I think, I think, I think the leadership in your district is strong. I know quite a few of those people, of course, because we all, we all cross paths across districts, yeah, at that level. And so I think it's really good. Dwight, something I wanted to talk to you about, because I think it's, it's pretty unusual, is you not only have been recognized with the sovereign medal once, but twice. Tell me about those.

Dwight Brown: 32:02

Well, they're, yeah, they're, I think they're considered two, two. Well, they are considered two separate awards. I was, I was a recipient of the Governor General's sovereign medal for volunteers, which is given, of course, by the Governor General on behalf of, at the time, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second in 2017 and it recognizes volunteers in the community. And there was a ceremony for that. And then recently, with the coronation of His Majesty, King Charles the third, there was a sovereign medal that was given out to Canadians that exhibited outstanding work in the community and and my member of parliament genocides bestowed that upon, upon me for for the work that I've done in the community over the last two and a half decades. So it's great honor, as a lot of people say. And it's not a it's not a saying is, this is a Club Award. The work that has been done by by the club has been unbelievable. Over the last, you know, two and a half decades that we've been a club so, so it really is, you know, it really is not just about me, but about the Rotary Club of Canada, and the all the members that have been members of the club over the years. And so that was, that was a really great honor. And I was, I was very, you know, I was very touched to be nominated for that this year.

Peter Tonge: 33:36

That's, that's really amazing, have to say, very well chosen. And I agree it's so, so nice for recognition, not only for you and what you've done in the community, but what the Rotary Club has done as well. I mean, that's really, it's really what we want to see. Now I Dwight, I only have one sort of standard question in my in my podcast, and it is, what was your aha moment in Rotary? What was the thing that sort of took you from being an everyday Club member, as you say, sometimes, sort of sitting in the back, to this is my thing, and this is what I'm going to do, and this is why it's important that I'm a rotary

Dwight Brown: 34:17

the aha moment was about three to four years in, there's a program that a lot of people might know in Canada called Adventures in citizenship. And what it does is takes students from across the across the country, and brings them to Ottawa, and over the course of two or three days, they learn about government and get a sense of Parliament and they meet other young Canadians from across the country. A lot of distinguished Canadians have gone through that program, a lot of former politicians, business leaders, and we took we took young people in over a. Few years. And what I, what we, what we really, and this is going back 20 years ago, what we really got a sense of, and what I got a sense of is that, you know, Rotary isn't just about us. It touches the youth. It touches on, on on, developing their sense of self. And that really, I saw the bigger picture of of Rotary. It was organized by one of the rotary clubs here in town, the Rotary Club of Ottawa, which is a well established club downtown, I believe, is Marco Nichols that ran it, but we're oversight. But I got a bigger sense of of what rotary could do. It wasn't just in the local community. So so that really sealed it for me. Enough of you know there's been other programs, like RYLA, the Rotary Youth Leadership award programs that we've been involved. We've been very heavily involved in youth. I helped start the Interact Club at one of the clubs at one of the high schools as as I'm as I mentioned. And one of the things you probably have seen as well, Peter, a lot of the club members that we get now were either Youth Exchange or Student Exchange, or their father was a rotary and there's this connection back, and that brings them back, brings them back home, in a sense. So, so these little these touch points are good for the young people at the time, but you know, 20 years later, they could come back to you and become club members regardless of where they are in their life, because of they've had that positive impact of Rotary,

Peter Tonge: 36:34

Yeah, for sure. And with something that we do in my district is we're working very hard about keeping in touch with those folks right, finding out where they are, where they've been, and letting them know what we're doing. Because some, sometimes folks can, can drift off, but as you say, happily come back, which is fantastic.

Dwight Brown: 36:52

I think it's one of the it's a very fertile ground. Anyone who's had a rotary program or been involved in the rotary program, they are, they are the potential, and they are the future. Rotaryans, to a large degree,

Peter Tonge: 37:06

Absolutely, I agree with you. What? What haven't we talked about that we should talk about?

Dwight Brown: 37:12

Oh, What haven't we talked about which we should talk about? Well, the big one of the biggest bugaboos in Rotary, of course, is always membership. You know, our club has had its ups and downs. We have a solid club, although it's a smaller club. How do we deal with with membership? I know that in North America, it's it's it's a struggle. I think one of the things we have to do is, is think about rotary and we are doing it now as not just, Hey, we got to meet every week. You know the different designations, we're really going wide and thinking laterally about about membership. We really have to, and I see this in any organization, you really have to drive the young people to rotary. So rotary needs to, and it's it's coming, but it's still going to take some time. Rotary needs to look like a youthful organization and be a youthful organization. You know, it didn't take long Peter for us to be from the young bucks to now senior, senior folks, and I see the changing of the guard. I mean, my daughter was the rotary baby of our club because we had her. She was the first baby to to be born within our club when she was born in the fall of 99 and now she's 25 and it's that generation that you want to start to, you know, get it in their head as they start to get married and start their careers, is that fourth element, community,

Peter Tonge: 38:44

the community? I could be the answer. I love that framing of the four elements. I think it's really true, and it's it's really vital. And for those of us that have all four of those elements into our lives, it's so although it can be demanding, it's also super, super rewarding. Yeah, well, if you have the

Dwight Brown: 39:05

four way test and you have those four elements you've got, you've got things on track, things are sort of coming

Peter Tonge: 39:12

together pretty well. I agree with you completely. Dwight, this has been a great pleasure, such great fun to connect with you again. I know that we've chatted back and forth very briefly from time to time as we run into each other

Dwight Brown: 39:26

down in the airport in Calgary. We're heading back to Winnipeg and I was heading back to Ottawa.

Peter Tonge: 39:30

Yeah, Peter, yeah, there he is. It looks so pretty easy to spot. Yeah, no. This has been really good. I really appreciate your time.

Dwight Brown: 39:42

Well, thank you. It's, it's great to talk about the club and the district, and it's great to see that you've taken your involvement in rotary to another level, and that Nancy started another Rotary Club as well. That's, that's exciting stuff. And you know, we have. Some club members who have left the club for whatever reason. Moved like when you went to Winnipeg, I believe to article at that time I did, yeah, and we've seen other club members who've left, but they've joined other rotary clubs and and I keep in contact. I ran into a couple, a couple of them at the international conventions. It was great. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, it was just in the hall. It wasn't planned. It's like, oh, there you are.

Peter Tonge: 40:26

It's interesting. I don't know if I've ever told you the story, but my wife, Nancy, joined my rotary club when I was in law school so that we could have dinner together on Monday nights, because it's the only time I saw her, I was so involved in law school and whatever it was like, go to school all day and come home and crash, yeah? If we, if we set aside that Monday night dinner, we had that together each week. So at that time, they were all meeting weekly, very traditionally and stuff, right?

Dwight Brown: 40:56

Maybe that's a key to your success , yeah,just one night a week. Thank you, Peter. Take care.

Mandy Kwasnica: 41:38

I thank you so much for joining us on another great episode of talking Rotary. We would love to hear from you. Please send us your comments and story ideas, and you can share with us easily by sending us an email at feedback at talking rotary.org. Let's keep Talking Rotary.