Fil-Can lady is new president of Rotary Club of Toronto

Fil-Can lady is new president of Rotary Club of Toronto

Swearing-in ceremony for Rotary Club of Toronto, President Susan Flores Hunter with outgoing President David Hetherington.
(Photo provided)

By Mann Nacario

Philippine born Susan Flores Hunter made history by taking the helm of one of Toronto’s most prestigious and one of Canada’s oldest clubs, The Rotary Club of Toronto. Since its inception in 1912, the Rotary Club of Toronto had evolved to one of Canada’s premier club, serving the community with unselfish fervor and undying dedication to public welfare.

Ms. Hunter graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in political science, worked as Vice President at AON Canada, a global human consulting and outsourcing solutions firm. Later, she continued in private practice as President & Senior consultant at Hunter & Associates, a consulting firm that helps companies manage and improve organizational effectiveness and performance.

Susan was cited by the Lions Club – for Outstanding President of Young Liberal Party, at the University of Toronto and by the Rotary Club of Toronto – for Outstanding Award for Canadian and International Community Services.

Susan Flores Hunter became a Rotarian in 2002 following a long family tradition of Rotary service and community involvement. She was Chair of Community Services, participated in the One-on-One Mentoring Program and the Forward Planning Group. She was the lead volunteer organizer for the Rotary Drive Build with Habitat for Humanity.

In 2006, Susan joined the Board of Directors. She was involved in the Search Committee to find a new Executive Director for the Club. She worked with Catherine Lloyd to establish the Pauline Hill Award. She then joined the Strategic Planning Committee and initiated the work involved in Effective Committees, member of the Research & Appeals Committee, served as Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee, the Executive Committee, the Honours & Awards Committee and is a member of the Foundation Board.
Along with her husband Hedley, Susan has travelled on sweat equity trips to Siem Reap, Cambodia. She recently returned from her fourth Rotary International Convention in Seoul, South Korea.

The Rotary Club of Toronto continued its various programs through its RCT Health Bus that provides quality health care to 13,000 homeless people in the community, Toronto Transition Centre, a medical facility sponsored by the club that provides temporary and safe environment for homeless people, Toronto Adolescent Recovery Centre (TARC) the club’s commitment to get street children out of the street and provide residential treatment for young addicted people, and many more public services for the community.

In her swearing in ceremony at the National Club last July 8, 2016. We witnessed a historical moment were Susan received her Presidential Pin from outgoing RCT, President David Hetherington. Susan’s family was in attendance to show full support to her campaign and leadership for the continued success of the Rotary club of Toronto. Susan is a daughter of Eligio and Clarita Flores.

The Rotary Club of Toronto new officers are: President: Susan Hunter, President-Elect: Pat Neuman, Vice President: Jeff Dobson, Treasurer: James McAuley. Executive Director: Carol Hutchinson, Rotary Club of Toronto Charitable Foundation: Peter Love, President.
In a one on one talk with Susan, this is what she has to say as president:

Q: How does it feel to become the first Pilipino president of Rotary Club of Toronto?

A: It feels very exciting and it’s really an honor to be appointed as president of Rotary Club of Toronto. I consider it a privilege to be the 1st Filipina and 4th woman to become club president. Our club has a very long history, 105 years old, it is an old club, so I am very honored.

Q: Being the president, what are your future plans for the club?

A: If a could put it in a simplest way as I could, one of the challenges, one of my main goals for the Rotary Club of Toronto is to focus the club on the future. When you have a club as old as our club, people don’t like change.
They stick to be what they know, they stick to the tradition, but our challenge just like in the Philippines, we have membership challenges, we got to be more relevant in the community and for us to do that we have to be more future focus. So, we got a number of changes that we are going to consider, so that we can be even more impactful and more relevant. So, those are the changes we are considering.

Q: Any particular projects for the Rotary Club of Toronto that you will be pursuing vigorously during your term?

A: There are number of projects, in fact one of the challenges we have, because we have a charitable foundation that has about $17 million. The size of our projects are so huge, we are giving, I just give you an example, we are giving St. Michael’s Hospital
$ 500.000.00 to build the transition centre, which we started about 15 years ago. And they are rebuilding our hospital so we are giving them $ 500,000.00 to rebuild that centre.

We are giving $150,000.00 to Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) for their dental clinic for homeless people. We are also building with Covenant House a house for victims of human trafficking which is a major, major problem worldwide.
You all know, that these are huge projects that are actually in play, are in progress right now. There are a number of other proposals that we are looking at and they are all significant and they are over $ 100,000.00.

Q: How would you pursue your relationship with other Rotary Clubs Internationally? Would you be pursuing any particular projects with them or continue existing projects?

A: See that’s the thing, most of our global projects we have, are done through our philanthropic committee and at the international services committee. Everything else because we are in Toronto is all local.

Right, so how we participate with other Rotary Clubs is through global grants, so as you know as Rotarians. Here is a sad thing, I will tell you about our club, because we don’t have many Rotarians that are Filipino here, except me, right.
There are very few projects in the Philippines that we actually support. So there is a gap here. A really big gap, that I think we can fill if we had more Filipino members that are supporting projects in the Philippines, because we know there is a lot of need, but because we don’t have a lot of Filipinos those projects get done here. We do projects in Tanzania, in Africa, in Cambodia but not it the Philippines. That’s why we need members.

Q: Talking about Filipino participation, do you have a strategy to attract Filipinos to join your club, and be more active in Rotary?

A: I struggle with it and we don’t, we struggle with membership in general, right. My particular focus for this year is to be diverse. And to look at members that are from different communities including the Filipinos.

I’ve talked to Rodel Ramos about this and the challenge we have is that the Filipino community is so diverse, that’s the best word I can used. There are so many different groups, it is not like you could go to one association and say, hey come and join me and be a part of this great organization. But I think by reaching out and talked to people individually, but it is very hard to create campaign without help from people from the community. But I am very much interested on how we can do that.

Q: When you get sworn in today what is your first duty?

A: My first official duty is have someone present a parting gift to our past president. That’s going to be my first official duty. I don’t and have very little time in the podium today because there is so much going on in terms of the program for change over. My speech next week will cover my plan for the next year. But today is the official swearing in where I actually get my presidential pin, and I do the oath and all that official stuff.

Ms. Susan Flores Hunter begins her first day of dispensing duties for the club in the next meeting. This writer has no doubt about the brand of leadership that she will bring to the club. I just wish that she wins more Filipino Canadians to join her in her pursuit to public service, as they say it in Rotary “Service Above Self”.

To learn more about the Rotary Club of Toronto or get in touch with Susan Hunter, go to their website: www.rotarytoronto.com, call Susan Hunter at 416-822-8409 or email: sfhunter@hotmail.com.