November 23, 2022 Breakfast Meeting Notes

Tony was away today so we had no trivia.

50/50 was won by Denise, who donated it to Tom.

The card game draw was won by Ken Williamson, who drew the 5 of spades and so the game goes on.

Today was a club forum. Steve opened by discussing the upcoming Hometown Holiday Celebration (HHC.) We need volunteers on December 3. First order of the day is to build the bonfire from 6 to 8 am, across from the Senior Center. Volunteers are also needed for the Barbeque Chill-Buster; setup will be 3-4:30. We also need people to march in the parade. The parade will start at 5 (line up on Green Street; see Armand Gerard for your place in line.) The Chill-Buster and bonfire will start at 6 pm and at the same time, Santa will visit with children in the Senior Center. Someone needs to come up with a big chair for Santa. We will need people inside the building to help set up and clean up afterwards. Sunday morning at 7am we will need people to clean up the remains of the bonfire. Steve passed out posters promoting the HHC and asked us to distribute them. Mike offered kudos to Steve for the article about HHC in yesterday’s Laconia Daily Sun.

Peggy is in charge of decorating the common this coming weekend on November 26. She will need volunteers to hang garland and bows on the common. She will also need teams of 3 people to decorate the poles around the common (including the large tree at the north end of the green) and downtown as well as on the bridge across the river. One person will climb the ladder, another will hold the ladder, and the third person will handle the garland. Be sure to secure the garland and bows SECURELY both above and below the top of the pole or things may come off in the wind, especially on the bridge. Ladder climbers will need a ladder that extends at least to 14 feet. Wear warm clothes, and bring wire cutters. Alex will pick up the garland at Peggy’s shop at 8:30 that morning.

Alicia discussed the float for the HHC parade. She will volunteer a 24 foot flatbed trailer. So far there have been 2 meetings to decide on how to decorate it and the final design meeting is at Chase Street market this coming Tuesday; anyone who wants to have a say in the décor should attend that meeting. The float will have a large Rotary sign on the back end and have elevated lights all around the edges. There will be a fire and Chill-buster display up front to encourage people to visit those places after the parade, as well as signage promoting our new Styrofoam recycling project. The float construction will take place on Friday Dec 2 at Sharon’s house.

Braden provided a brief summary of last week’s board meeting. We approved donating $1000 to the Angel Tree Project, which helps provide needy families with holiday gifts. The board also approved $1000 for Pemi Youth Center’s coat drive. We are invited to their Christmas party on Dec. 9 at 4 o’clock and do caroling while there. The board also approved up to $1500 in expenses for the Styrofoam project.

Mike spoke about the Styrofoam project. He is aiming for a first collection date for a Saturday or Sunday morning at the ReStore. We need to begin promoting the project now so that people save Styrofoam for the event. They will pass out candy canes attached to a small flyer about the program at the HHC.

The board also discussed the ongoing fundraising efforts for Ukraine. We will have a new entity, the Common Man for Ukraine, which will have its own bank account to handle donations. While Steve was in Ukraine, he spoke to the lead editor of Rotary Magazine about doing an article on our fund in the February issue of the magazine. The additional publicity should help our fundraising efforts.

Mike then spoke about the speech contest. The information is posted on the district website. We must hold our club version of the contest by February 20 and we are hosting the area-level contest on March 8. It is important that we get the word out to high school students about the speech contest so that students sign up.

Mike also put out an appeal for board members and VP for the 2023-2024 year. He and Beth hope to have ballots and an election at the first meeting in December.

Peggy asked for additional feedback from the club on how the Penny Sale went and what we would suggest to improve it. Steve noted that next year we will need someone to chair the event, and whoever winds up doing it will need to start thinking about how it will run NOW. Alicia suggested that committee chairpersons write up a list of standard operating procedures so that people next year will have a template from which to work.

Danielle questioned whether 7 pm is too late for a family event and also suggested selling all tickets at the start to avoid the delays caused by having 5 different sale periods. Others countered that it would be too hard to keep all the tickets straight if we were selling for multiple rounds at once. Beth noted that the Bristol club does 3 rounds of 100 prizes each, so as to reduce the number of times they have to go out and sell tickets. We should keep ticket sellers stay in the gym rather than have them running to the back room for more tickets. An earlier start time may be considered but we need to work around other events (ie football) at the school. Finally it was suggested that we NOT sell tickets right at the doorway, as this impedes the entrance of people into the gym, and that we call out the next number as the last number’s prize is being taken to its recipient. Steve even suggested having a board so that numbers drawn could be displayed.

Peggy also commented on the food setup. The food was served late and there did not seem to be good coordination between the culinary program and the Bobcat Café. In addition, the food concession has typically helped raise about $700-$800 for the Penny Sale, and we did not receive any of that money this time.

Respectfully submitted,

Lora Miller, secretary