December 24, 2025 Breakfast Meeting Notes
Jerry Stringham was our guest today. He is a member of the Lincoln-Woodstock club and sits on the finance committee of the NH House.
The 50/50 was won by Lora, who gave the money back to the club.
Tony drew the 8 of spades in the card game.
Erica opened with holiday trivia.
Today’s meeting was a club forum.
Anniversary grant options: We are discussing trails, dog parks, and various and sundry other things. Phil will be scheduling a meeting with Scott Weden and the water and sewer district to discuss ideas..
Election of officers: The board reaffirmed the option to have co-presidents. Ben has agreed to serve as president and is looking for a partner, but he will serve alone if need be.
Public image: Mike asked us to please share from the Facebook page and the website. Next week we will have our scholarship recipients attending and we will post pictures of that meeting, so that’s another good opportunity to spread the word about Rotary.
Styrofoam Project: The truck has been out of service for the last 3 weeks, but this weekend we were finally able to pick up material. Thornton was overflowing. Thornton and Holderness are still working with styrofoam. Plymouth has unfortunately not been cooperative. They have one bag and when it’s full they do not replace it. A lot of residents were complaining about the styrofoam overflowing the bin and so Plymouth stopped collecting it altogether. It was suggested that we should move the bin to Ashland, where they would likely be much more receptive. We could also have a collection point in Plymouth at another location.
Membership: Omer is working on a satellite club for Wentworth and Warren that would meet at night. Plymouth Congregational church has also approached us about becoming an organizational member of our club.
Tony is thinking about an evening meeting in January, perhaps at Yamas. He will try to figure out a date.
Foundation: Sharon sent the updated year-end Thank You ad to Lisa Lundari. Once she gets it back we can publish it on the website and in the papers.
Tony has volunteered to re-institute the position of club historian. He has thought of several ways to celebrate our anniversary, both publicly and in the club. He has thought of making up a little history book about the club and selling it for a fundraiser. Jerry said that Lincoln Woodstock will be having their 75th anniversary celebration in conjunction with their changeover dinner next year on May 17. He extended an invitation to us to attend the celebration. They are also thinking about creating a time capsule.
Steve has just returned from Ukraine and gave us an overview of the trip. They brought essential products to villages on the front lines of the war, along with gifts for the residents. These towns are destroyed; everything is shot full of holes and there are buildings that have been bombed and are lacking roofs. The Ukrainians came back and rebuilt a bit and the Russians shot the villages up again. But the residents had nowhere else to go, and many of them are old and infirm, so they stayed. They are living in their cellars because all that’s intact. The towns appear deserted, but when tour convoy rolls into town with 3 truckloads of food, the word gets out. There is a community organizer who shows up to make sure that only residents of that village get the food and supplies. They pass out plastic grocery bags and fill them with 30-35 lb of items. Many come with bicycles and they put the bag on the handlebars and push it into the village. The trucks are driven by Polish volunteers as well as volunteers from other EU countries.
They could cover 4 villages a day and they visited 10 villages over 3 days. They also had a station on the side with gifts for the kids. English Rotarians had sent toys and cookies. American knitters made over 6000 hats to distribute as well. These were wildly popular with both children and babushkas.
Crossing the border is always tricky. They are going into a war zone, and the border guards thoroughly review the paperwork; they need to be sure that the people you are going to see in Ukraine are expecting you. The weather is just like here, which means cold and snowy at this time of year. The Common Man team stayed in a variety of hotels, none of which had power unless they had a generator. In the cities at night, it is quite noisy, because all of the restaurants that are open have their own generator. They apparently they have no problem getting fuel (gasoline) for the generators. Heating is provided by liquid propane delivered by above-ground pipes. There are places where people are doing road construction right next to mine fields.
Removing decorations from the Plymouth town common will be on January 3. We will need to have someone go to Meredith Village Savings bank to pick up the boxes. We meet on the common at 9. If it is wet and snowy we can go up to the high school. Robert from Parks and Rec would need to be consulted abut the takedown. Note that we will be going through the Christmas decorations this summer to make sure that we are ready for fall. This will include throwing out worn-out garland and making sure all of the lights work. Steve requested that we throw out the white lights as they do not match the rest of the yellow lights and the effect is not aesthetically pleasing.
Jerry noted that the Warren food pantry used to operate out of Warren Ambulance service, which is now out of business. They are part of the NH Food Bank, so they have access to food; they serve around 200 boxes of food to local families. But they are now having to pay rent on the facility to store food, and soon they will lose access to the space altogether. So they are trying to figure out where to go and how to pay for it. A church basement or elementary school could potentially have the room. Omer suggested some people who could be consulted.
Happy dollars were shared by Denise, Tony, Mike, Jerry, and Russ. Thanks to these folks for making “Super Happy” happy dollar contributions.
Respectfully submitted,
Lora Miller, secretary