Paul Radford Sure Does Play A Mean Guitar......Or Does He?
March 24, 2011
I was particularly excited today as my buddy was the guest speaker. He didn’t disappoint!
Paul started off by putting some music on to set the mood. He strummed his guitar for a bit and then told us that he didn't actually play the guitar.
March 24, 2011
I was particularly excited today as my buddy was the guest speaker. He didn’t disappoint.
First off though, we had some Happy Bucks. Glen was happy because he just took part in a great ski fundraiser where they were able to raise $15,000.
Barb was happy because she just signed up for a 10K run.
Bonnie was actually sad because her school lost a child this week. She thought it was great how the community in Sackville really pulled together though.
Out guest today was Don MacKenzie and he was happy that in July Clarke is taking his position over as ADG.
Paul is happy because Rotary received some great press from the Community Herald for Sackville Rotary. Lanc fined himself as he locked himself out in the morning and his wife had to come down and let him in.
For announcements Ken Geddes reminded everyone about the upcoming Fundraising committee meeting and I reminded everyone about the International Committee meeting.
Next Gerry was presented with the Distinguished Rotarian Award and both Paul Radford and Kathleen Houilhan were presented with their Paul Harris fellow. That was a great moment! Congrats to all three, and thanks for showing us the way!
It was time for Paul Radford’s classification speech. Personally I thought the beginning was the best part. He brought out an ipod deck, a guitar, and we started listening to a little Gordon Lightfoot. He strummed the guitar for a bit and then told us “I don’t actually play the guitar”
Paul’s early years were spent being rejected from a
Paul joined our Rotary Club in 1995. He said that he found that there was a light in our club. He is a past president and has been on lots of committees. He encouraged the newer members to become involved, “Rose day is awesome, and the Car Rally is a lot of fun”
Paul has two kids, one is a sports nut, and one is a techie. Paul mentioned that he came home yesterday and his son was playing basketball on a pogo stick. His 10 year old recently signed on with Apple to create apps for them. Paul’s wife Shelly is an Occupational Therapist, our President pointed out that she is a St. Fx grad.
Paul was born in
In 1993 he started at his current firm Coady Filliter. He works as a business lawyer there.
An interesting story he told was about the time he worked as a tree planter. He said that pretty early on he realized that as awful of a job that it is, he could only make money if he worked hard at it. He realized that if he was going to be out there, he might as well give it all he had.
He thinks that this translates into how people run businesses and business partnerships. If you are going to form a business you have to work as hard as you can, because if you don’t, you won’t get anything out of it.
Paul helps business partnerships draft agreements and he believes one of the most important parts of his job is to ask ‘What If’? He wants to be able to have his clients get everything on the table before they sign paperwork. Let’s see how everything is going to work, and what everybody is going to bring to the table, before signing anything.
Paul made a point to say that a lot of what lawyers do is try to make things as precise as possible. That’s why in agreements sometimes a regular person thinks should be 4 pages may turn out to be 33 pages. A lawyer needs to make sure there are no loopholes that can be exploited. He gave a couple of great examples of this and I am not sure I can fully articulate them. It did give me a great appreciation for what lawyers do.
Business succession is huge today and Paul works with a lot of clients doing this. He also works on tax planning and setting up trusts in wills. Paul is surprised that so many people leave very little in their wills to charity.
The 50/50 didn’t go…pot will be over $1200 next week
