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CAMPBELLTON — The Campbellton Rotary Club’s new president, Jocelyn Paquette, said on June 25 she plans to use her role to concentrate on supporting youth and the club’s membership. She said this focus on youth engagement has been well directed by the international president.
“Everywhere you talk to people who are suggesting ideas, talking about their desperation for jobs for youth, opportunities for youth, direction for youth, training for youth. If we can assist, help, create, lighten the load, heighten the interest in providing support for youth, I think that would probably be our biggest challenge this year.”
She said the second biggest challenge is membership, as with any other non-profit organization. She said it’s not important to have a huge mass of people, but a diverse group of people committed to making the community a better place.
“Membership leads the way to community involvement, to reaching your level of becoming a conscious citizen, to having other people assist you to do good in the community. I agree with most people. I can’t do anything by myself. And everyone will tell you the same thing.”
The Campbellton Rotary Club has 17 members. Paquette said it had three new members join and stay for an extended period of time.
“Retention is really, really difficult. It’s one thing to grow the club by 20 per cent and then the next two months you’re back down to zero again. So for us we did it very slowly and we wanted people who were really wanting to put Rotary as their commitment, as their effort.”
She said she’s happy to now have two people from Listuguj in the club and that the male-to-female ratio is closer to balanced.
Paquette said one of the club’s big projects will be the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra. It is coming to Campbellton in January and she says Rotary wants to take on this initiative.
“It’s literally going to take the entire community to do this because it’s 80 kids from around New Brunswick.”
There are three children in the orchestra from Campbellton.
“The second part of that initiative is a special project where children from low income families have been taking part in their own building of an orchestra.”
She said that initiative is in its fourth year. It’s called Sistema and is modeled after an orchestra in Venezuela that allows all children to learn to play in an orchestra if they so choose.
“They’re going to be able to now appreciate so much more that’s around them because the kids begin with no music instruction at all. They start with nothing at all, except their willingness, and this is the big one, the willingness to commit to three hours a day, five days a week. That is astronomical, but that’s what it takes.”
She said Rotary wants to create a chapter of the low-income youth orchestra in Campbellton next year.
“It’s trying to create an opportunity for low-income families to consider the possibilities, to create hope and the hope is for all of us. It’s literacy, it’s relationship-building, it’s learning all kinds of life experiences while you’re learning to play an instrument and working in an orchestra.”
She said providing lunches and breakfasts in the schools will continue, along with their partnership with the Campbellton Centennial Library (where she is librarian) which supports “Storytent.” This involves setting up canopies and blankets for library staff to read to children and let children read to others.
Rotary is also planting a community garden for the food bank. Rotary has two years of work left on the Rotary Peace Park in Tide Head. She said Roy Rushton, a member for 52 years, has wanted to build something of this nature for his community for a long time. This is the club’s peace initiative.
“It’s huge. The park is huge. So it was a fabulous collaboration with the community of Tide Head. So, we’re really proud of that.”
Paquette joined Rotary in 2006 and said she likes the community and international aspects of the club. Rotary is the only non-governmental organization with a seat at the United Nations, where it is a non-voting member.
“The greatest challenge of all is to learn all the things that are available to me to help our club be the best it can be and to share that information about the network that we actually belong to. And learning from our members, I think that’s going to be my biggest challenge.”
Paquette takes over the role of president from her husband, Bob Ewing.
SOURCE: Campbellton Tribune
