Meeting notes from August 18, 2021
August 18, 2021 Breakfast meeting
Denise started off with another famous quote from John F Kennedy: “Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.”
Guest of Lora Miller: Ken Williamson
Guest speaker: Iain MacLeod of Squam Lakes Natural Science Center (SLNSC) (on Zoom)
Zoom guests: Iain MacLeod, Omer, Nancy, Lisa, Walter and Marbeth
Tony offered up a few NH trivia challenges
Our speaker, Iain MacLeod provided us with a fantastic PowerPoint presentation with pictures of many of the animals they have at SLNSC. All of their exihibits contain animals that are native to New Hampshire. Recently one of their black bears passed away at age 24 and they are looking for a younger black bear male to keep the company of the female.
SLNSC programs are not only at their site on Route 113 in Holderness NH, but they travel all over the state doing presentations at schools, libraries, community centers etc except for the year 2020. We all know why… During normal times they also host 12,000 school age children each year that come on their school’s field trips. The programs are typically outdoors, using their trail system, summer and winter. They believe there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.
They also have summer boat tours on Squam Lake and introduce guests to the natural life, animals, birds and fish that are in and around Squam Lake.
2019 brought a record number of vistors, that approached 100,000 including their visitor center, Blue Heron School, and boat tours. In 2020 that had dropped to about 40,000 visitors. It was important to assess their expenses and tried their best and due to PPP loans and grants they never had to let any staff go.
Their pre-school and kindergarten, Blue Heron School, was a challenge last year of course. The center has an incredible and adaptive team to learn to teach virtually, and they have an incredible amount of praise for the parents that helped their kids continue with this amazing program.
Their new campaign Education Matters and has been raising funds to build a new New Heron School and are geared up for about 40 kids in person learning in the fall.
So far 2021 visitors are on pace for matching 2019 numbers and they are thrilled to have everyone back. Due to Covid the guests now have to pre-buy their admission tickets, but it turned out to be great as the center could schedule and stagger visitors during the day. It has helped create a much better customer experience doing this.
Their next project is a solar array and they hope to work within their existing parking lot footprint. More to come later.
Denise had an ask of the members if anyone would be willing to step in as Sargeant at Arms in Tony’s absence? It’s a great opportunity to meet and know every member who attends meetings in person. The meeting duty is to get there early, help set up the room, take the attendance and money for breakfast, tip and raffles, and then help put everything away after the meeting. Let Denise know, or just show up and help out. Thanks.
Next week, August 25th, we are not having a breakfast meeting, but a dinner meeting. We will meet at 6PM at The Common Man Inn, Boiler Room, and there is access to the rooftop outdoor area. Please feel free to bring a guest. You can order what you want off the menu and will get your own bill for your order. No obligation for that. However we would love everyone to participate in the 50/50 raffle and card game raffle. Tickets are $1 each ticket each game. Its great fun!
Discussion was brought up about the Plymouth Senior Center and they are still not open, however, are providing meals on wheels. They’ve also lost about 80% of their volunteers. If this is something dear to your heart, I’m sure they would appreciate a hand with the services they do provide.
Plymouth’s Got Talent committee will be meeting every Thursday morning at 7AM on our Zoom link. Please feel free to join in anytime!
The Board is meeting Friday August 20th and the members will be updated on our dinner meeting, Wednesday August 25th.