September 20, 2023 Breakfast Meeting Notes

 

Tony opened with NH trivia: unusual jobs which you never held edition. 

 

50/50 was won by Beth, who added it to Tom’s tip.

Card game: Sharon won the chance to draw but she pulled the 8 of diamonds.

 

Guest: Susan Mathison, Steve’s partner and director of our local Habitat for Humanity. Susan is past president and first woman member of a Rotary club in Oregon. She will be profiled in an article in USA Today tomorrow! If you get a copy, please pass it on to Steve or Alex afterwards for their archives. 

 

Membership committee report: The committee is working up some new ideas. Denise suggested that we could hold an open house as a means of attracting new members. It should be held at a  business owned by a local Rotarian; Bill suggested coordinating with the Chamber of Commerce and holding a joint event at Yamas. Sharon also suggested the 6 Burner Bistro as they have a room upstairs for meetings. Bristol Rotary would also like to do an evening meeting with us (they do one meeting a month that is purely social). 

 

Service committee update: The committee will meet tomorrow  at 7 am by Zoom. One project they envision is helping Steve with Rotary publicity at the amphitheater. They are also working on new signage coming into town and getting some Rotary swag for our public events in order to enhance our visibility with the public. They aim to get more articles in the paper with pictures, again to enhance our visibility. Mike suggested a mental health service project.

 

Admin committee is working on a budget for the current year so the board can identify financial goals and make sure we are trending appropriately. We are talking about reviewing our grant process to encourage nonprofits to apply. There is also a planned review of changing of the guard procedures so things go smoothly from year to year. 

 

At last Friday’s Board meeting, we voted to give $2500 to Speare for security at their obstetrics service. 

 

Styrofoam bins are in production and hopefully will be shipped next week! 

 

It’s time for the Penny Sale and our Annual Fundraiser! Steve brought information for us to review about this year’s fundraising activity As we have done for the last couple of years, we are having combined fundraiser for our annual fund, the Penny Sale and the Hometown Holiday Celebration. Each member has been emailed an assigned list of vendors to solicit for prizes and donations. The sheets list contact information for each vendor; if you see any blanks, try to get that information (ie missing emails). Send this information to Sharon so she can enter them into the database and we can email donors in the future, perhaps with a newsletter, to keep them involved. People can give us items for the Penny Sale and/or a cash donation. Please try to solicit donations promptly; we are getting a late start this year and it is imperative that we pull things together for the event on November 4th!

 

There are a number of forms on our plymouithrotarynh.org web sit. First, there is a sheet listing how we reward people who help us with the fundraising. We can use this when we talk to potential donors so that they understand the advertising benefits they get for helping us. Gold, silver, and bronze  sponsors will be listed on the plymouthrotarayfoundation.org. At $100 contribution you become a friend of Rotary. Try to be a salesperson…encourage bronze sponsors to move up to silver or gold. Don’t tread on other people’s territory…we don’t want donors to be solicited by multiple Rotarians.There is a list of assignments on our web page as well…if you would like to trade a potential donor with another club member, speak to that member directly.

 

The  club webpage also has templates for the donation request, donation acknowledgement,, etc. There are also forms for a gift certificate as well as a letter explaining the purpose of Rotary and the Penny Sale. We would like to be able to accept credit cards but aren’t ready yet. All of the money will go into our club foundation; donors should make out checks to Annual Fund so they don’t get confused with Common Man fund.  There is also a form stating our nonprofit status…some donors will ask for this. Ben noted that we should not be soliciting from nonprofits. 

 

Happy dollars were shared by Mike, Denise, Tony and Russ. 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Lora Miller, secretary