Image

The Rotary Club of North Bay participated in the local YMCA's Peace Week 2013 opening ceremonies on Monday, November 18th, in place of their regular noon meeting at the Legion.  Rotarian and President-Elect Colin Thacker was presented with the YMCA Peace Medallion for his international work in Guatemala.  

The presentation was made by YMCA Board Chair, Tom Welton and Kim Kanmacher, CEO and a fellow Rotarian.

 

 

 

 

Colin Thacker, CEO of Thacker Voluntary Management Services, is an excellent candidate to receive the  2013 YMCA Peace Medallion. Coming from a Rotary family, and as a member of the Rotary Club of North Bay for 14 years, Colin has more than demonstrated a key characteristic of Rotarians: concern with the development ,encouragement and fostering of understanding, good will and peaceful relations among people throughout the world based on the ideal of “service above self”.  As an active participant in Rotary International’s Guatemala Literacy Project (GLP), he has gone above and beyond for children in impoverished areas in the Highlands of Western Guatemala.  For the past three years, he has given his time, energy, enthusiasm and personal resources to the project and he is not done! Both he and his wife Marlene have already traveled to Guatemala in 2011, 2012 and 2013 with the next trip early in 2014.

Colin has become a spokesperson for this project among Rotary Clubs in Ontario and has made many trips to encourage their involvement.  Colin values family. In memory of his son Chris, a special Olympian, he has sponsored a local scholarship and a memorial bench at the YMCA.  In honour of his father, former President of the Rotary Club of St Thomas and District Governor, Colin has sponsored Chixuar school in Guatemala in his name. 

Image

Joe Berninger, Executive Director and co-founder of the Cooperative for Education, recently wrote a letter to the Club praising Colin’s efforts for all his work in Guatemala.  You can read it here.