Happy New Year, everyone! July 1 each year brings new leadership throughout Rotary and our club is no exception. Brand-new President Ann-Shirley Goodell started the new year right, with perfect summer weather in Vancouver. She's used her connections to guarantee that every Wednesday will be just like today's weather, all year long. Count on it.

To start our new Rotary year, 17 members squeezed into the smallest meeting room at the Coast Coal Harbour today, along with guests Steve McGrandle and Valerie Saunier. Milie Taing opened the meeting with the 4-Way Test in German. Did she get it right? Who knows?

Rotary moment

Ann-Shirley advised that the RI theme for the new year is "Engage Rotary, Change Lives" which encourages every member to be fully involved in our club and the worldwide work of Rotary. She quoted Ron Burton from Oklahoma (the new RI President), Garry Shearer from Tsawwassen (our new District Governor) and Paul Harris (the 1905 founder of Rotary). All agreed that we have a great club and should keep up our good work.

Club news

We received a nice email this week from Luisa Fiori de Godoy, our inbound Youth Exchange student from Brazil, saying how much she's looking forward to being here with us. She's awaiting her Canadian visa so she can finalize her flights. The Youth Exchange Committee has proposed that we hold a potluck BBQ at Abigail Turner's home, to welcome Luisa and give her a chance to meet everyone. If this idea gets board approval the date will be Friday, August 23. Details will follow, once the board has spoken.

Georgina Hargreaves, our outbound YE student, is making preparations to leave for Sweden in August. She will be our speaker next Wednesday, so we can wish her well for the exciting year ahead.

The board will meet next Tuesday, July 9, at 7:30 am at President Ann-Shirley's downtown condo.

Cam Scott still needs ideas for future club programs. If you know a speaker who might be interesting, please get the contact info to Cam. Meanwhile, he's heading to the Okanagan this weekend for a big Fondo bike event. Apparently didn't learn his lesson when he did the Whistler Fondo.

Today's program

Our topic this morning was Teck Resources Limited, a major corporation headquartered in downtown Vancouver. Edwin Shadeo, Manager of Investor Relations, began (as all Teck meetings do) with a safety message, urging everyone to drive carefully during this summer season. Then he presented a wide-ranging review of the company's businesses, the outlook for the major markets it serves, and some of the challenges it faces.

Teck is Canada' largest diversified mining company and the number 1 producer of steelmaking coal in North America. Teck is the number 2 exporter of steelmaking coal in the world and the number 3 zinc miner in the world. Teck is also a top-10 producer of copper and is growing in the oil sands sector of the energy business. In the last 3 years, Teck has increased its annual coal production by 30 percent and copper by 21 percent. At the same time, costs have been reduced, largely by increasing the truck fleet and modernizing several plants. The facility in Trail, BC, is a high-margin smelting and refining complex for zinc and lead. Recently, steel production has been weak in traditional markets (which results in lower coal prices and reduced profits for Teck). But China is still growing, due to rapid urbanization of the Chinese population. Teck has 2 offices in China and sees great potential there.

Edwin pointed out that Teck stock (symbol TCK.B on the Toronto exchange) pays a regular dividend, currently yielding 4.1 percent at today's price of about $22.  By the end of the meeting, we were all phoning our brokers to buy the stock.

 

Enjoy the summer weather. See you next Wednesday at the Coast.

Rob