Rotary in Oakville is a House with Five Doors
For almost 100 years, Oakville Rotarians have raised funds through special events to support local area charities and not-for-profits, dispersing financial aid to many deserving organizations and their very worthy projects and initiatives. As well, funds are donated and leveraged to support Rotary International projects that impact the global community in a meaningful way
We meet via Zoom every Tuesday at 7.30 am
We meet via Zoom every second Monday at 6.00 pm
Meeting every Thursday at 12 noon in person or via ZOOM. Please check our website for details.
We meet via Zoom second Thursday each month 7.00 pm
We meet every second Tuesday of the Month at 7:00 PM
Events
On June 14, the Roatry clubs in Oakville awarded 31 studens bursaries of $2,000 each toward furthering their education at university or college.
You can view a Zoom video of the event by clicking here.
This year we recognized eight community members at our Annual Rotary Paul Harris Fellow Community Awards event held at the Oakville Conference Centre on Jan. 26.
Community recipients, who are not Rotarians, are recognized annually in this manner as club members believe the nominees’ choices to give back to the community reflect the Rotary motto of “Service Above Self.”
Marsha Smith, Halton Environmental Network’s new Board Chair, was the featured speaker and spoke about Achieving Social Change Through Community Service.
For more details on the event and the recipients, please click here
Newly minted Paul Harris Fellows (left to right): Bob Elliot, John Sweeney, Herb Schroeder, Rahul Singh, Gary O’Neill, David Tetreault, Andrew Tyrrell, (missing from the picture, Louise Tetrault).
New Rotarian Presidents
Local Rotarians are pleased to announce the new 2023-24 Presidents for each of the five Oakville clubs.
They are Mahendra Shah, Rotary Club of Oakville; Co-Presidents June Oliver and Lauri Asikainen, Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar; Susan Sheppard, Rotary Club of Oakville West; Norma Gamble, Passport South Rotary Club; and Co-Presidents Romeo Mitchell and Ben Rudnick, Halton Rotaract.
A resident of Bronte for over 40 years, new president, Mahendra Shah joined the Rotary Club of Oakville (RCO) in 2017. Since joining Rotary, he has taken on many leadership roles in the Club including Treasurer. A member of various fundraising and service committees, he is also on the Board of all RCO entities. A CPA by profession, Shah had a long career with a major Canadian Bank in its Executive Office before retiring.
June Oliver, new co-president of the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar (RCOT), is a retired CPA, though actively involved in volunteer positions including Treasurer for Amistad Canada, as well as a school for the deaf in Mexico and her HOA in the neighbourhood she lives in each winter in San Miguel de Allende. As a snowbird, she is sharing the presidency with another traveller, Lauri Asikainen who will step in November 1st. Oliver is looking forward to a very exciting summer as RCOT re-introduces the in-person Oakville Family Ribfest July 28-30 at the Sheridan campus.
A Rotarian for almost 20 years, Lauri Asikainen is looking forward to his co-presidency of the Rotary Club of Oakville Trafalgar. He will bring his interests in fundraising, international and environmental projects to the members developing opportunities for community engagement that help the environment. Born in Canada, he was raised in Finland and spends his summers there. Though he has international sales and marketing experience, and is a leadership coach and mentor, the gifted handyman in him shines when building birdhouses and beautiful saunas.
A South African immigrant to Canada, Norma Gamble, the new President of the Passport South Rotary Club, settled in Oakville 40 years ago. She was one of the first women to join Rotary at that time and in 1997 Gamble led a Rotary Group Study Exchange team to Austria and the Czech Republic who still meet annually. In 2003 she received Oakville’s prestigious Athena Award for social entrepreneurship, business excellence and mentoring and in 2017 received Halton’s “Honouring 150 years of Exemplary Women” Award in celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday. As a social entrepreneur, Gamble remains passionate and committed to “affordable housing for all” and has initiated multiple social housing programs in Halton and Caledon.
The new president of the Rotary Club of Oakville West (RCOW) is Susan Sheppard who chose Oakville as home over 30 years ago. She believes in service to her community completing three community projects that initiated lasting legacies for Oakville including the Heritage Trails, Oakville’s Millenium Clock and enhancing the Bronte Waterfront Heritage Park. She is also a Director of the Canadian Club of Halton. Sheppard joined Rotary in 2011 and has chaired RCOW communications for several years, co-chaired the annual Rotary Golf to Give Tournament and sits on the Oakville Awards for Business Excellence Committee with the Oakville Chamber of Commerce. With a community and …/2 media relations background, she collaborated with other Rotary clubs to build awareness of Rotary and raise funds for local organizations during Covid. Her term as Club Secretary will end as she enters her second term as RCOW President for 2023-24.
As co-president of Halton Rotaract, Ben Rudnick is hoping to increase engagement and membership within his club. He studied History and Psychology at the University of Guelph and is currently working in the Information Technology field with Cybersecurity in his future plans.
Romeo Mitchell, the new co-president of Halton Rotaract has been volunteering with Rotary since he was eleven years old. He officially became a member of both the Milton Rotary Club and Halton Rotaract four years ago. Since then, he has volunteered as Media/Marketing manager for Rotaract and Technology/internal communications for the Milton Club. With a bachelor’s degree in legal studies, he will be attending law school at Toronto Metropolitan University in the Fall. As co-president, he will work towards advancing Halton Rotaract while continuing to promote Rotary values.
Rotary Helping Oakville
To help respond to the global COVID-19 crisis the four local Rotary clubs have joined forces to create the Oakville Rotary Relief Fund. This fund will address pressing needs within our community during this time of great challenge and turmoil – during the Covid19 crisis.
All donations to the Fund are tax deductible, and a tax receipt will be issued to you by CanadaHelps.