RCBI President Damien Bryan writes:

We had a good meeting last night with Chuck Venhuizen giving a great talk about proposal for an un-named trail on Mt. Gardner to become the  Denis Lynn Trail and what steps still need to happen.

We also had a presentation from Rotarian Cynthia van Hoof Barthel RN BSN about the impact of COVID-19 on communities and health care providers — not a lot of good news there. This is becoming a very serious problem around the world as you know, and the greater Vancouver area will see a significant rise in the population being diagnosed with the virus in the upcoming few weeks.  This will happen.   It is super important that we do our best to mitigate the spreading of the virus, and thus the following recommendations are worth noting:

• Self-Distancing practices will be very important, immediately. 
• Don’t travel unless you have to.
• Avoid large social gatherings/public events.
• If you start to get flu like symptoms, stay at home — “self-isolate”
• Hand washing, keeping surfaces clean is very important.

I’m sure you are up to speed with a lot of this, as it is saturated on every news and social media outlet.   In this regard, I want to cancel our meetings for the next month until we see what the general outcome is. 

Rotarian Jen McGowan, Emergency Program Coordinator, Bowen Island Municipality, (who is currently in Mexico) has confirmed that the above points are very important and that we should avoid gathering(s) for the immediate future. She also suggested that there will be people needing to stay at home and thus will need support  — running errands, delivering food, helping with childcare, etc, etc — and that as Rotarians, we could service our community by offering our services in that regard.  I think that is an excellent idea.

In that regard, can you please let me know if you will be available in the next few weeks to help and if you can offer a service like driving/delivering/support. Call me at 778 388 1827. Once I know how many people are available to help, we can create a strategy around what we can offer.

Stayed tuned for more news and also the possibility that we may have Rotary meetings using Robert’s virtual meeting software. If anyone would like to learn how to teleconference, Rotarian Robert Ballantyne has offered to hold a demonstration tutorial with you, on your computer. Call him at 604.947.0815. 

Many thanks, Damien