Dinners... District Governor Nomination... and Destination Halifax!
After the usual singing of the anthem, Rotary minute and breakfast, Sergeant at Arms Lanc facilitated the sharing of news, we heard numerous people comment on the fun they had at the Potlucks for Polio last week, these Dinners were great fun. Louisa and Evelina each hosted dinners and Adrienne’s family turned their usual family gathering into a Polio event as well. Louisa was pleased that Jim Axell from the Halifax Club and his wife attended the dinner at her house, it was great to have more inter-club activity.
We welcomed two guests to our meeting, Patricia Lyall, President and CEO of Destination Halifax was our speaker. Valerie also had a guest attend our breakfast.
Hilary brought a banner that her father sent to us from Ontario. Peter shared his excitement about Halloween, turns out he is a serious Halloween enthusiast and has been invited to be the candy man at his apartment building on the 31st.
A short business update included reminders about ordering shirts, and about the Interact Club meeting on November 1 when the students will be rolling the bucket of coins they collected at their Purple Pinkie event. They had a great time and learned about polio! Louisa offered Harbourside members an opportunity to “purple” their “pinkies” as well. She also distributed Declarations of Rotarians in Business to those who had not been at the meeting last week when the DG gave these documents to those present then.
A very special activity was the nomination of Stella to be considered for the role of District Governor in 3 years. A motion by Gerry, seconded by Glen, was passed unanimously; we are very excited about this nomination and will look forward to supporting Stella.
It was a pleasure to learn about the work of Destination Halifax, Destination Halifax is the dedicated tourism marketing organization of the Halifax Regional Municipality. It was created in April 2002 by a merger of the Greater Halifax Conventions & Meetings Bureau and the tourism marketing arm of the Halifax Regional Municipality Tourism, Culture & Heritage Department.
Destination Halifax is an exciting partnership of the Hotel Association of Nova Scotia, the Provincial Department of Tourism, the Halifax Regional Municipality, and the World Trade and Convention Centre. Funded by a hotel marketing levy and the tourism industry at large, this organization works to increase business and leisure tourism activities in the region. Governed by a Board of Directors, Destination Halifax promotes the Halifax Regional Municipality as a year-round destination of choice for business and leisure travelers
Patricia told us that Nova Scotia has a $1.8 billion tourism industry of which $750 million is in HRM. This results in a $12 million/year impact on municipal taxes in HRM, wow. She also told us that we had over 260k cruise visitors to the city this year and next year, we will welcome the Disney cruise line to the City! People of the world are searching for interesting experiences and we have so much to offer, from birding to surfing... lobster experiences and shopping to the old world charm of our city.
We ended with the 50-50 draw, another unsuccessful attempt and the usual toast to Rotary around the world.
