Transcript of Dave Roberts Interview – Kinsmen

[Transcript of Dave Roberts interview by Sam Waller Museum staff, edited for clarity]

DY:         Okay, so the date is July 7^th, 2015, and we are at the Otineka Mall, and it is, I think, around two o’clock. I am Dylan Young and I will be interviewing Dave Roberts on behalf of Kinsmen. And this is for the Community Builders Project. My first question is: if I knew nothing about your organization, how would you explain it to me?

DR:         We’re an all-Canadian service group, Kinsmen Club is Canada only, it’s not international. And we’re here to serve the community’s greatest needs. Here in the The Pas, you look around, you see a number of things that we’ve done, we were partners in putting together the bike path, along with the town of The Pas and the Rotary Club. We have our building; called Kin Center, Manitoba Northern Trappers’ Festival have offices there as do the Golden Agers. You see that we have the Kin Court, built across from the arena. Kinsmen Cub built that in two phases, back in the sixties and the seventies. There’s lots of Kin stuff, the Workplace, you’ll see a Kinsmen logo in front of that. So, locally, we’re really big, and, like I said, we’re a national group, we’ve been around for just short of a hundred years.

DY:         Okay. What prompted you to join the Kinsmen?

DR:         Me personally, I joined back in the mid-eighties, probably eighty-six, eighty-seven, I was new to town, and the reason I joined at that time was not the reason I’m a member now, but the reason I joined then was just to meet people.

DY:         What’s the reason you’re a member now?

DR:         I’m here strictly for the community, I do a lot of things in the Kinsmen Club, I’m a very active member. And, basically, the Kinsmen Club of The Pas, that’s where most of my friends are, so, for me, there’s the community work, and then there’s the social aspect of it.

DY:         Okay. Could you talk about some of the projects or programs you’ve participated in, or you know of?

DR:         Well, we’re really busy, our Kin year starts off in September, and we run through till July 1^st, we just did the Canada Day picnic last week. But, some of the events that we run and, probably our biggest number one event is the dog races. We run those for the Manitoba Trappers’ Festival, the Kinsmen Club last year put in over 400 man hours running those races – 1400 man hours running those races. Other things that we, that’s a service project, other things that we do that are fundraisers, we do a comedy night, we do Christmas tree sales, last year, we had Northland Ford, we did “Drive one for your community”, where the proceeds went to one of our national projects, cystic fibrosis. We do “ladies’ night out” in March, we participate in the trade show, we got different raffles that, we raffle off a barbecue, we raffle off an ice-shack, so we’re a really busy club.

DY:         Okay. And so, Kin year, that’s just your operation throughout the year?

DR:         Yeah, our years runs from July to June, so our new executive would’ve started last week. So they will run till June. As far as what we actively go out and do, we normally take the summer off, we don’t do anything in July and August, we have done things in the past, like a couple years ago, we helped participate in the parade for Centennial. But, basically, we start ‘er up in September, and we run till, our last meeting will normally be in the middle of June, but then, behind that, we’ll have the Canada Day picnic, which of course, is on July 1^st.

DY:         Since you’ve joined, have there been any significant changes to the Kinsmen?

DR:         Well, the number of members changes quite a bit. When I joined back in the mid-eighties, we had about seventy members, ’bout ten, fifteen years ago, we were in the mid-thirties, we’re now up to fifty. So that’s the number one change. Basically, the mandate, and everything that we do, the reason we’re here, that’s all stayed the same through the whole course.

DY:         How often do you get new members?

DR:         Well, we’re always looking for new members. Last year we got eight, eight new members. We’ll have a, every now and then, we’ll have a membership drive, or a bring-a-buddy night, call it what you want, where we’ll try to get guys to come out to our meetings. Hopefully, if we feel that the guy has the same values that we have, then maybe we’ll persuade him to stick around and help us out.

DY:         What have you learned, from having been a kinsmen?

DR:         Wow, well, I learned how to speak, in front of people, and probably that’s the number one thing, and I think it’s a real confidence booster. Twenty-five years ago, thirty years ago, when I joined, there’s not a chance in the world that I’d be able to stand in front of a group of people and talk. Now, I feel quite comfortable, and I was on the district executive for a couple years, and we’d be at meetings that’d have over a hundred people. That’s probably myself, personally, that’s the number one thing, is just public speaking. Probably the other things that I’ve learned is some business things, like how to do budgets, how to do reports, all that type of stuff.

DY:         Okay. What are the demographics of the local group?

DR:         Well, age-wise, we’re all over the place. And that’s really fortunate that we have a great club, and we have some really good young guys. We have members now that are nineteen years old, and we also have some members that are in their mid-sixties. In The Pas, the Kinsmen Club is male-only, there are clubs across Canada, or Kinette Clubs, and those be for ladies, and then there’s Kin Clubs that are mixed. Our club is a Kinsmen Cub, so we’re men-only, and we range between nineteen and sixty-five, probably. And all walks of life, all shapes, all sizes.

DY:         What is the best part, and the worst part, if there is one, of being a member of this organization?

DR:         Well, for myself, personally, the best part is that there is a real social aspect of what we get to do. We’re quite fortunate in our club that most of us are friends. We do have clubs in the organization, coast to coast, where they’re very, very small clubs, four or five people, and they have a really hard time of getting members to stay on, and I think probably part of that might be just because of the way you accept somebody. Our guys, I have nothing, no problem at all, sitting down and talking to our youngest member, who’s nineteen years old. Sit down, we’ll have a few laughs together, and then I’ll go and I’ll just go to another table and I’ll just sit down, and I’ll speak to a guy my own age. That’s probably the best part. Probably, I’m not going to say the worst part, but I think the most frustrating part is that some work parties do require a lot of man hours, and we don’t always get the guys out that we need, to get a project done. We’ll always get it done, but sometimes you can always use help. So that gets a little bit frustrating sometimes.

DY:         What do you like most about your organization? I mean nationally, not locally.

DR:         Well, nationally. That’s a good question. Probably the people. Since I’ve been on the district executive, I’ve met people. Now, I’ve met probably four of our last national presidents, I’ve met our vice-presidents. One thing about our club is that they’re all down to Earth, they’re all grounded people. So, probably, the number one, greatest thing I like, about our organization, is that we have some really quality people there.  Secondly, I think what we stand for, in terms of fundraising, and what our goals are, in terms of charities, and stuff like that. That, I think, is real good thing for us.

DY:         Is there a general reaction that someone has, if they’re learning that you’re a member of such an organization?

DR:         You mean, what would they say to me, when they found out? Locally, the number one they say is you guys do great work. We set up a table at the trade fair, every year, in May, and everybody that comes to our table, and talks to us, they all know who Kinsmen are, and they’re all, they all seem to be very appreciative of the work that we do in the community.

DY:         Do you have a story that you can share that has to do with the Kinsmen?

DR:         No. There’s a lot of stories. I’m gonna have to get back to you on that one, Dylan, I’m, ah… There’s a lot of good stories, we have some really good times, like I said earlier, there a lot of really good quality people in our club, and I consider them all friends, and almost with every man in our club, there’s probably a story or two, but, we do have a lot of fun, we can just say that, we have a ton of fun, and some things are best not to tell stories about.

DY:         Okay. How would you personally describe the Kinsmen?

DR:         Well, I think… how would I personally describe the Kinsmen? I think our motto being, serving the community’s greatest needs, I think that most of us are there for the right reasons, and that is the reason. We’re all community minded people, a lot of our guys are, they’re involved in other things, not just Kinsmen, like, some of them being involved in minor hockey, and others, Trappers’ Festival, and all that type of stuff, so, you know, what people learn from Kinsmen, they can grow with that, and they can take it to other organizations, and I think that’s probably what I like the best. Everything I learned, I can apply it to my job, I can apply it to other organizations I belong to, so, that’s probably what I like the best because gave me an opportunity, to grow.

DY:         So, it’s an organization that encourages growth?

DR:         Absolutely.

DY:         What is your group’s greatest accomplishment, thus far?

DR:         Our group’s greatest accomplishment, well, one of the things is, during the Northern Manitoba Trappers’ Festival, we’ve been running the dog races, as a club, it’s been a club project since 1963. So we’ve been running the dog races over fifty years. Matter of fact, our club started, with a group of guys, that were running the dog races. I think the fact, that we have been doing that for so long, is really an accomplishment. In terms of something physical, that’s in town, that a person can use-

DY:         National works too.

DR:         -Well, we did the bike path. That’s a big one. As far as national, our biggest thing is cystic fibrosis. We’ve been associated with the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for over forty years, Kinsmen Clubs by themselves in Canada, coast to coast, have raised over forty million dollars for cystic fibrosis. And, that’s something to be very, very proud of. When Kinsmen got on board with cystic fibrosis, back in the sixties, seventies, sixties the life expectancy of a child with cystic fibrosis wasn’t even, the kid wouldn’t even go to school. He would’ve passed away before then. Now, people with cystic fibrosis are living into their forties and their fifties. I think, being part of that partnership is a very big thing that we should be very, very proud of.

DY:         Do you think your time within the organization was well spent?

DR:         Me? Yes, absolutely. You know, you hear this a lot, where people say it’s like family, well, it truly is. Through the ups and the downs, those guys, our club, they’re always beside you.

DY:         Have there been any movements your group has supported through the years?

DR:         What do you mean?

DY:         Like, uh, I can’t think of a good example, actually.

DR:         I don’t know, because I don’t understand your question.

DY:         I suppose it was a fairly vague question. Do you want to bring attention to anything in particular about the Kinsmen?

DR:         No, most people in our town, they know who we are, they know what we do, they know what we represent, they know where the money goes. All money that we raise goes back in to our community.  There’s been a number of things, you drive around town, you’ll see things all over the place, that’s got a Kinsmen name on it. So, I think, as far as drawing attention, we don’t look for attention, you don’t see us in the paper much, we go about, we just do our work.

DY:         I’ve been wondering this, do you guys use a black ball system to accept new members, or something?

DR:         No, in the most cases, a member will bring out a prospect to a meeting, now, we do have certain criteria, you know, you have to come out to so many meetings, all that stuff. But, basically, when you’ve hit that, the sponsor can make a motion to accept you as a member, at which point, we have a meeting, and the sponsor member will come, and speak on behalf of the member, and we’ll have a vote as to whether to accept, or not to accept the prospect.

DY:         I think that’s all my questions. Thank you.

DR:         How’d I do?-