Call to Order:

President Elmer called the meeting to order.

Invocation:

‘Rev’ Ben Albury gave the invocation.

To our Queen and to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

Ricky Fox read the visitors

None today

Following members had guests, PP Joanne (guests from Atlantic Medical), Kahlil, Denzil, Nicola (her hubby to be) and Barry’s wife Esther.

None today.

 

Sergeant at Arms:

PP Adam stepped up to the plate (although he was unscheduled) with the usual mild welcome and got his own back with a broad distribution of fines

 

Call to Order:

President Elmer called the meeting to order.

 

Invocation:

‘Rev’ Ben Albury gave the invocation.

 

To our Queen and to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

 

Ricky Fox read the visitors

 

None today

 

Following members had guests, PP Joanne (guests from Atlantic Medical), Kahlil, Denzil, Nicola (her hubby to be) and Barry’s wife Esther.

 

None today.

 

Sergeant at Arms:

PP Adam stepped up to the plate (although he was unscheduled) with the usual mild welcome and got his own back with a broad distribution of fines –including Robin for his now bald head, PP Geoff for lateness (apparently due to a late shave!), Dianne for passing her guests to Denzil, Frank and JR for lateness and PP Joanne (for briefly forgetting her guests names ..). Unprepared, he finished quickly with an Irish joke which required some thought !

 

(Make checks payable to:  EAST NASSAU ROTARY CLUB FOUNDATION, $2/yr)

 

Melissa Knowles, Michael Pinder and Ian Reid.

 

Debbie Reid (Ian)

 

Lindsey and Lesley Cancino, 23yrs

Adrian and Mirlane White, 10yrs

 

Membership Join Dates:

Kahlil Parker,6yrs

 

 

 

 

Announcements:

PP Adam promoted the Fishing Tuna Classic tournament on 5/6^th June – booklets were distributed on the tables. This is followed by an awards evening at the Green Parrot on 12^th June.

 

PP Geoff advertised the RCOB - Broadway Under the Stars events at Sapodilla Restaurant May 28th($75 and $225 tickets) and Opera in Paradise, May 31^st ($150 ticket) at the Atlantis Theatre. Both concerts feature international and local opera stars in two never to be forgotten evenings.

 

Amol reminded the meeting of the upcoming Retina Screening Camp at the Nassau Sight Centre on 29/30^th May from 9am to 6pm and volunteers are requested for the registration administration. There will be 3 doctors visiting from the US and 1 local doctor involved.

 

None today.

 

PP Joanne introduced the speaker - newly elected chairman of the Bahamas Insurance Association (BIA) - Mr Emmanuel Komolafe. Mr Komolafe is the Chief Risk Officer at Colina Holdings Bahamas Limited and Head of Risk & Compliance at Ansbacher (Bahamas) Limited. His talk is around the road to achieve universal health coverage in the Bahamas and the newly proposed national health insurance plans. He sits on the Advisory Committee.

 

Mr Komolafe initially spoke of the generic/humanitarian right to health care and that the concept in principle is to be applauded. Apparently, there is 5 times more likelihood of death without a public health system. The issue of course is how to achieve it in a cost effective, sustainable way to the benefit of Bahamians.

 

There are various stakeholders and they all need to ‘be at the table’ to manage the way forward. The BIA first drafted a report in 1989, and have since prepared a position paper for the Govt. but has received no feedback in last 6 months. This is a concern given the Govt are talking of an implementation date from 1^st Jan 2016.

 

Key issues include :

There is a concern that it may be rushed forward (like VAT) and that generally it is considered ‘the right thing to do, but let’s do it right’. Appropriate consultation is required.

 

The existing infrastructure of health care delivery needs to be improved to ensure that the additional burden of a national health system can be accommodated – otherwise cost will rise and quality will fall. There may be leverage with the current private health infrastructure.

 

PWC are completing an economic impact assessment and has yet to be disclosed.

 

President Elmer gave thanks toEmmanuel for the insights to the complex issues involved in this brave Govt initiative.

 

RAW

 

Call to Order:

President Elmer called the meeting to order.

Invocation:

By Reverend Gary Sweeting

To the Queen and to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

Rekell Griffin read the list of visiting rotarians

Ivan Carroll, South East Nassau

Cameron Symonette, Sunrise

Dotty Rae, Nassau

James Malcolm, Abaco

Taran Mackey, Rotaract East Nassau

 

None today

 

There were a few guests present today including family, friends and colleagues of a few members.

 

 

 

Call to Order:

President Elmer called the meeting to order.

 

Invocation:

By Reverend Gary Sweeting

 

To the Queen and to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

 

Rekell Griffin read the list of visiting rotarians

Ivan Carroll, South East Nassau

Cameron Symonette, Sunrise

Dotty Rae, Nassau

James Malcolm, Abaco

Taran Mackey, Rotaract East Nassau

 

None today

 

There were a few guests present today including family, friends and colleagues of a few members.

 

None

 

Sergeant at Arms:

PP Geoff Andrews received a warm welcome to the podium. He started by giving fines to several people who were late. He started off with a Spanish Wells joke that few members gave applause to, Geoff then picked up the pace with two more jokes that received loud laughter.

 

(Make checks payable to:  EAST NASSAU ROTARY CLUB FOUNDATION, $2/yr)

 

Vibert Williams, May 29^th

Ralph Forskin, May 30^th

Robert Jagger, May 31^st

Zoltan Szasz, May 31^st

Phil Andrews, June 1^st

Bianca Carter, June 1^st

Wendy Sneff, June 3^rd

Burton Wallace, June 5^th

 

Sonia Iglesias (Juan Iglesias’ spouse), June 1^st

Mirlane White (Adrian White’s spouse), June 1st

 

None

 

Membership:

Gavin Christie, 6 years – May 29^th

Frank Crothers, 23 years – May 29^th

Graham Thornley, 26 years – June 1^st

 

None

 

Announcements:

President Elmer announced that there are 110 people signed up for the retina screening at Nassau Sight Centre. Special thank you to John and Jason for a huge turnout at the board meeting last night. He also urged our members to support tonight’s Nepal Fundraiser at John Watlings starting at 7pm, $50 per ticket.

 

Uli announced that tomorrow there will be 20 US Coast Guard crew members in the Lewis Street area from 9:30 onwards as part of the ongoing efforts in their community. President Elmer announced that PP Adam helped to get the community truck for their area and its being used every day to clean up the area.

 

Incoming President Jason Robertson urged members to attend the June 27^th installation banquet for Felix Stubbs and all the Rotary club presidents. Tickets are $100, please see Jason if you’re interested. Elmer urged we come out to support Jason’s installation.

 

Upcoming events to close out the Rotary year:

 

None today.

 

Corrine announced the speaker, her brother, Mr. Glen Laville, GM of Water & Sewerage for the past 5 years. Mr. Laville started with a short video clip which grabbed our member’s attention. They exist to provide safe, potable water to the Bahamas. They are committed to growth and quality.

 

Their operating cost recovery has dropped significantly over time. 25 million per year is given to them in government subsidies.

 

They have recently developed their own form for transformation in order to improve performance. Their four main challenges are:

 

 

They are trying to obtain operational and financial stability by:

 

 

They have brought in an outside company to help them with the reduction of water losses. Since 2013, they have reduced waste from 7 million gallons a day to 3.4 gallons per day.

 

They were operating at 30X worse than a good company would be operating and they have now reduced that to 12X a good company would be operating.

 

Improve Employee evaluations and measuring performance in order to incentivize them for performance.

 

They have formed a regulatory committee in order to help improve functions.

 

Mr. Laville closed by going through the next steps in the organization’s detailed plan to achieve their goals. He received several questions from the members which he answered informatively.

 

Denzil thanked Glen for the informative and thorough speech, expressed his confidence from the club that Water & Sewerage will be successful with Glen leading the way.

 

RATW