Happy New Year - 2026!
to this week's meeting of
The Rotary E-Club of Canada One
For the week beginning December 29, 2025
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The documentary about Casa Hogar Los Angelitos was especially meaningful to me, having visited the orphanage many times since 2003 when I was first introduced to it by founder Nancy after meeting her at the Manzanillo Rotary club. The video of the high school girl sports team’s visit brought a tear to my eye, seeing the beautiful children whom I know from my visits there. I am so happy that our Rotary club has been involved with this wonderful project.
I also enjoyed the speech about adolescents, having two teenage grandchildren myself, and hearing that social media does not have such a negative impact on them as we keep hearing about.
-- Judy Brown, Club President – E-Club of Canada One, D6330
A contribution from Rotarian Neil
We didn’t start in 1604.
Just a reminder for Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik / Maliseet family: our story didn’t begin with Champlain, the Church, or the Indian Act.
Long before anyone was planting flags, there was one older Wabanaki people spread across these lands. Over a very long time, that one river of people branched:
• One branch tuned itself to the big beautiful river – Wolastoq – and became Wolastoqiyik / Maliseet.
• Another tuned itself to the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and became the Mi’kmaq of Mi’kma’ki.
Not a breakup. Not a feud. Just relatives specialising in different parts of the same homeland.
Later, when the French, English, disease, and guns rolled in, those branches braided themselves back together:
the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Peace and Friendship Treaties, standing side by side as “People of the Dawn.”
So if someone tells you “Maliseet and Mi’kmaq are totally separate, always were,” remember:
the languages still look at each other like cousins, not strangers.
And then there were the pigeons. Ples. Poles.
Our ancestors watched skies that would shock us today. Flocks of passenger pigeons so thick they darkened the daylight.
In Mi’kmaq, the pigeon is called ples.
In Wolastoqey / Passamaquoddy, you hear poles, and kci-sips – “big birds.”
Same bird. Same land. Almost the same word.
Mi’kmaq stories remember Ples in the sky, a constellation chasing the bear (Muin), returning each spring just like the birds did. Wolastoqiyik and Peskotomuhkati speak of hunting poles now gone, like the great auk and sea mink – wiped out in a blink by commercial hunting and settlement.
For our people, those pigeons weren’t just “food.” They were season, relief after winter, teaching, story, star-sign.
Animism is just a fancy word for what our Elders already know: the birds, the rivers, the stars are kin, not background decoration.
Why this matters now
When the settlers finally drew maps of “ancient mounds,” they mostly stopped at the U.S. border and pretended our side was empty. When they wrote history, they started at “discovery” and pretended we just walked on stage when the French showed up.
But:
• Our languages still carry memories older than those maps.
• Our river names and coast names are a land-based archive.
• Even one little word like ples / poles is proof that Mi’kmaq and Maliseet have been watching the same sky, same migrations, for a very long time.
Our history is not a church record.
Our history is Wolastoq at spring flood, Mi’kma’ki’s tide, and the ghosts of pigeons who once fed everybody.
If you’re reading this and you’re Mi’kmaq or Wolastoqiyik / Maliseet:
• Ask your Elders about bird stories, star stories, old words.
• Learn one more word in the language today. Maybe start with Wolastoq, Mi’kma’ki, ples, or poles.
• Remember: Ketuwihtahpon — we are still here. Not as museum pieces, but as the same people, in the same homeland, still under the same sky.
That’s our “ancient history.”
Not lost. Just waiting for us to listen.
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January’s focus on Vocational Service invites us to reflect on how our everyday work can be a force for good.
If you have ever come across the name Cholmondeley – and wondered how to pronounce it – you may not be surprised by what’s to come. I learned a long time ago – in one of my classes – that a wee girl – a Miss Cholmondeley – was Miss Chumley! 😊
That’s not the only name that shows quite a change in pronunciation from the spelling. Here are a few of my favourite examples — names that drifted just like Cholmondeley → Chumley:
Aristocratic and Family Names
• Beauchamp → “Beecham”
From Norman French beau champ (“beautiful field”). The -eau- and -champ softened over time as English speakers anglicized the sounds.
• Featherstonehaugh → “Fanshaw”
One of the most astonishing transformations. Over centuries, stress shifted, syllables dropped, and the middle sounds disappeared entirely.
• Marjoribanks → “Marchbanks”
Simplified by the Scots, who tended to harden the j sound and clip syllables.
• St. John → “Sinjin”
A classic old-English contraction — the “t” and “J” blend together so quickly that it becomes a single flowing sound.
• Mainwaring → “Mannering”
Another case where spelling stayed Norman, but pronunciation adapted to regional English speech patterns.
Place Names
• Worcester → “Wooster”
(Just like the “Wooster” in Jeeves and Wooster.) The -cester ending comes from Latin castra (“camp”), but in English, it collapsed into “-ster” or “-stuh.”
• So, Worcestershire sauce → “Woostersher”
• Gloucester → “Gloster”
Same evolution as Worcester.
• Leicester → “Lester”
Again, the -cester quietly vanished in daily use.
• Norwich → “Norridge” or “Norritch” The local English dialect dropped the middle w sound centuries ago.
• Greenwich → “Gren-itch”
The w again disappeared — a typical case of a letter kept for tradition’s sake.
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