March 20, 2024 Breakfast Meeting Notes

 

Guests were Tiffany Dube and Jennifer Leonzi of the Covered Bridge Restaurant, as well as  Erica LaBella.

 

50/50: Nancy won and donated the money to Tom.

 

Card Game: Ken Evans drew the 3 of spades so the game continues.

 

Tony presented his trivia: Sinners and scoundrels in NH, part 3!

 

Today’s meeting was a club forum.

 

We passed around Rabies Clinic signups. The event will be held March 30 at the police department. Volunteers should arrive at 12:30.

 

Ballots were passed around. We still have one opening for a board member. 

 

Committee work: Mike passed around the signup sheet that we filled out last spring. If you want to stay on a given committee, leave your name there. If you want to join another committee, put your name under that committee. If you need to leave a committee, cross it off.

 

Other service projects: Omer had suggested we buy birthday cards for seniors at the Grafton County Nursing Home. Mike spoke to the director there and she suggested we pick a month to sponsor. They will give us a list of residents having birthdays and we just need to buy the cards, address them, and tuck $1-$5 inside each one. The cards need to be delivered to the facility by the first of the month, either in person or by mail. We have signed up to cover the month of October. We are looking into having Rotarians visit in person as well.

 

Cruise Night will be held downtown onJuly 31. The group has requested that we provide the food as a fundraiser. If you are interested in being the person in charge of this and organizing a group, please volunteer within the next week. The idea is that any funds by selling food that night or from donations would be used at the high school for a grant to pay for driver’s ed classes for lower income students. 

 

Students need to do drivers’ ed in order to get licensed at 16…otherwise they need to wait until age 18, which is hard for students that need to work to help support their family. In addition, car insurance is cheaper for those who have completed the course.  There is a long waiting list as there are only 2 companies that offer driver’s ed in this area; the cost is $850 and students must put up a 50% deposit to even be placed on the waiting list.  Many students from lower-income families can’t even come up with the deposit. The board would like to support this effort. We will discuss further at the April board meeting. Steve also suggested that we might want to help pay to get someone trained to work as a driver’s ed instructor, as there are also significant costs to getting this training. The local businesses that do the training have said that they would like to hire another teacher.

 

District teacher scholarship: There is $5000 grant from the district that can be given to a teacher to further his or her education. The candidate must work for at least a year before they can be considered. Denise has a candidate who is working with special ed at Mt Prospect. He would like to get a 2nd master’s degree in special education. At the district training, Denise asked if they would consider his student teaching as part of his one year experience, and they said that they would consider it. The club must also endorse the candidate. Once we have the application, we can consider it nominating him. 

 

The district has proposed a youth exchange and is looking for host homes. Finding student host families can be difficult. They have two students, juniors, one from the Ukraine and one from Tanzania. The student would arrive in August and spend 3 months here. Alex would like to speak to Lisa to see how she feels about taking a student. The club would have some financial obligation. The school must also be willing to accept the student. Other club members can help the host family by taking the kids to activities and outings.

 

Steve noted that there will be a line dance tomorrow night at the Barn on the Pemi starting at 6 pm. He wants to see all of us there! Cost is $30 at the door and there will be a 50/50 drawing. If you’d like to help, show up at 5:15 to assist with intake. There will be Common Man refreshments and ice cream. All proceeds go to Common Man for Ukraine. 

 

Alicia spoke about the last Admin committee meeting. We have committed $10,000 to start and possibly continue into a larger 100 year anniversary grant. The first step is to meet in teams of two with thought leaders in Plymouth, Campton, and Thornton. We will be meeting with teachers, students, town officials, and various charities to figure out what the needs are in the area. The activity needs to be broad, involving a lot of people and benefitting a lot of people. We would also hope to work with another group so that the project is sustainable. We have 4 teams and each team will be doing 4 to 5 interviews. Interviews should be done by April 15.

 

Tonight there will be a Chamber after Hours event at Whole Village, starting at 5 pm. This month’s event is supported by the Bridge House and Gowan Realty as well as Whole Village. Tonight is also Plymouth Historical Society’s talk on the logging industry and the dangerous job of driving logs. This is at 5:30 pm at the Historical Society.  In addition, note that every Wednesday is Whiskey and Wings at the Covered Bridge restaurant. 

 

Trade talk Tuesday had nurses speak yesterday. The room was full, with about 30 kids. Good job!

 

May 2 will be our first post-covid Rotary After Hours  and Friends of Rotary event at 5 pm at the Dam Brewery, moving down  to the Sunset Grill at 6 pm. 

 

Alicia and Beth did a quick review of what they learned at President-Elect Seminar (NE PETS). They discussed diversity, equity, and inclusion, membership (getting people to do service projects so they become acquainted with Rotary), marketing in different ways, and the Rotary Foundation so people understand what it is and how it works. Incoming DG will be Kelly Drew from North Conway.  The attendees at PETS approved the district budget (there will be a dues increase); they will also decrease the number of days of district conference. The district is spending $6000 on a membership drive.

 

Our club goals: get 4 new members; create ad hoc committees, with committee meetings once a month for 30 to 60 minutes; getting reps to chair the meetings and make sure everything happens; ideally have a monthly service project to keep us in the public eye. The Admin committee made a budget this year and would like to report on it monthly,. They would like to have a Friends of Rotary after hours meeting quarterly and do a Chamber event once a year. Public image would like to send out an email blast or photo each month. The new year starts July 1 so that’s when things would kick off. Steve noted that if we want 4 new members, we have to get 8 to deal with retention issues.

 

Happy dollars were shared by Denise and Tony.

 

 

Alex requested that people not carry on side conversations at the tables during meetings as it makes it difficult to hear the people who are speaking to the group.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Lora Miller, secretary