July 10, 2024 Breakfast Meeting Notes
Our guests today included member-applicant Will Hanna, former member Dawn LaMieux, our speaker Pat Cate of Lakes Region Community College, and transition grant recipient, PRHS student Cody.
The 50/50 was won by Lora who donated it to Tom. She also won a LRCC travel mug from our speaker.
The card game was won by Ken Evans, who drew the 7 of spades. The game continues.
We opened with Tony’s famous NH Trivia: NH Commemorated on Coins and Tokens edition.
Beth extended thanks to those who helped at the Family Fun Fair, including Denise, Alex, Beth, Mike, Steve, Lora, Ken, Nancy, Omer and Peggy. They raised $40,000 for the Bridge House!
July 31st will be Cruise Night. This Friday there is a meeting about the planned Food Festival to be held in October.The meeting will be in the amphitheater, where the event will be held, at 11 am. Anyone who wishes to help with planning is welcome to attend.
Alicia and Tony met for the first time to discuss the 2024 Penny Sale. They will discuss this at the July club forum.
Alicia introduced Cody, a recipient of one of our transition grants. He wants to be an auto technician; our gift card will help hime to buy the tools he needs for the 2 year program.
Tony introduced Patrick Cate, new president of Lakes Region Community College in Laconia. Pat has 17+ years of academic and administrative experience. He spoke to us about programs offered at LRCC. He was appointed associate vice president in 2018. COVID affected their enrollment but the LRCC is the only institution in NH that has increased enrollment post COVID.
The college impacts the entire community, both the graduates and their families. It provides a mixture of technical and academic programs. LRCC offers liberal arts classes (credits for these are easily transferred to 4 year college), business courses, and technical instruction. The newest program is industrial automation and robotics In NH, a lot of small shops do contract work, and they reached out to 40 of these shops to find out what their needs were as they designed the program. LRCC also works with high schools to teach robotics, expanding opportunities for adults who may want additional training in their field.
Their biggest programs are culinary arts and fire science. The culinary program has grown exponentially. They have sent students to Washington, DC to serve the US Senate…they got to set up food on the Watergate judges’ bench! The trip also gave the students the opportunity to talk to some senators, and 9 students were able to tour the White House kitchen. LRCC also sent culinary students to Skills USA, which is a national competition, and they routinely place in the top 5. The fire science program increased in numbers after 9/11 due to patriotism; it had declined by 2018 but is on the upswing again. The fire science program also trains paramedics. They send fire science students do compete at a national level and are the only school in NH or VT that does this.
For automotive technology, their students partner with Toyota and GM. They work 12 weeks at the college and 12 weeks with the dealer. The college creates uncommon problems so that the students get valuable experience.
LRCC also has an early-college program. Students can take 2 free classes each semester in their junior or senior year and get both high school and college credits, which helps them get a jump start on college. They have also helped high schools with teacher shortages, by providing key courses so that the remaining faculty at the high school can teach the remaining classes.
LRCC is a cost-effective way for students to learn. At graduation, fewer than 40% of their graduates owed anything for their education, and the average indebtedness was under $3500 per student. 96% of students stay in New Hampshire. Pat reported that his nephew got started just 2 years ago at LRCC. He is now 23 years old and has bought a house with the 6 figure income that he is making!.
Happy dollars were shared by Denise, Mike, Tony, and Dawn. Dawn also thanked the club for its support for her banned-books trip to Florida this winter.
Club members should look at website by the end of week to see speaker assignments. It is listed on club runner under “events.”
Respectfully submitted,
Lora Miller, secretary