September 24, 2025 Breakfast Meeting Notes
Today’s guest was Mike Sun, who will have his fireside chat in 2 weeks.
Ken Williamson won the 50/50 for the second week in a row.
Ken Evans won the chance to draw for the ace of spades but was unsuccessful. The game continues.
Club weekly highlights: Thanks to Ken and Russ for helping to move canoes 2 weeks ago at Paradise Point; thanks to Mike and Raisa for getting Penny Sale tickets and posters ready to print. Also thanks to Ken Evans for lining up 9 Grand Prize sponsors and to Sharon for getting the donor solicitation lists ready.
Board meeting was last Friday. Public Image committee reports that we were discussing getting ready for the Penny Sale, and also looking to get some Rotary clothing ordered. Alicia and Mike went to Renee and Montana’s shop yesterday and looked at a lot of hoodies, vests, etc. so each of us can order whatever we want. We need to decide on whether we want the back of the shirts to say “Rotarian at Work” or “Service above Self.” Possibly we could do both on the same shirt; Mike will check and see what options work with Brand Central for Rotary. He will send out the mockups by email and we can vote on them.
Admin committee needs to schedule a meeting.
Service Projects: Plymouth Pride Day is October 4. Denise will bring 2 chairs and a folding table. Next week after our meeting she will collect the feather flag. She has a trash can, a football cooler, and she will buy the lemonade. She will take our information sheet listing what Rotary is and what we do.
We need to have a meeting to determine what our presence will be at the Hometown Holiday Parade; the float committee will need to keep Denise apprised of what they are doing. We will need to decide what we are doing for food and for Santa (the Senior Center will need a signed contract for Santa). Bill is the new chairman of the Hometown Holiday Celebration and he will have all the details. He and Alicia are meeting on Monday with police, fire department and other officials to get the details worked out. Denise also needs to get a group together to discuss decorating the Common.
Mike and Denise brought back meals from North Conway’s service project last week. Most of the meals have been distributed already.
Membership: Mike Sun will be inducted soon.
Sharon gave us her annual presentation on Penny Sale 101. This is our biggest annual fundraiser and it is all hands on deck. The event comes in 2 parts: the actual night (November ), starting at 6 pm), and the advance ticket sales. We get 400-500 people in the gym that night and they do a giant raffle for approximately 350 prizes. There will be a DJ and activities for children. Sharon sent out emails with information in August to all members. She asked how may off our newer members have been to the Penny Sale; several have been there in the past.
Sharon’s process for soliciting is to go into the businesses in person and hand out the solicitation letter. Lists emailed to members also include phone numbers and sometimes email addresses, so you have multiple ways of contacting donors. Each prize that the business donates get mentioned during the event, and if they donate multiple prizes, they get multiple mentions. Minimum value of donations should be around $25; if a restaurant wants to give a smaller gift certificate, see if they will add a T-shirt or other swag. If you bring a gift worth $75 or more, it will go into the “white” sheet (the last category that we raffle off). The tickets for the white sheet are $1, not $.50. Try to discourage businesses from giving large numbers of low-value prizes, as we will have to combine smaller gifts so that each prize is worth at least $50. Also remind donors that a $25 gift certificate will usually result in a customer spending some actual money in addition to just giving things away.
The night of the sale, things are arrayed in 5 different color categories. Each ticket is $.50 and people buy armloads of them. Each ticket for a given color category can be reused for every drawing in that color category.
Prizes must be in by October 15, which is setup night. Bring your prizes to the high school at 5 pm on that day with the perforated sheet filled out with all of the information. Be sure to fill out both top and bottom parts of the form. Indicate any changes to donor or their contact information. DO NOT separate the two parts of the perforated sheets! We also take cash donations, which can be made through the Foundation website, plymouthrotaryfoundation.org. Sponsorship levels are explained on the web site.
If you have large cardboard boxes, bring them to setup night…we will need to put the prizes in storage until the night of the actual event. If you have multiple prizes from a single donor, spread them out amongst the different color categories.
Grand prizes are the second part of the Penny Sale. These are raffled separately. We have 9 prizes this year and tickets are $5 each. You do not have to be at the Penny Sale to win. Every club member is responsible for buying $100 dollars’ worth of tickets. Please do not fill out YOUR name on the tickets, or the name of close family members; instead, write in other names. You can go to the homeless shelter and ask for list of names. Ken Evans gives tickets to 5 Circle girls. In addition, you will be asked to sell tickets to the general public from tables on the sidewalks. Prizes for this year are a one week stay at Cold Spring Resort, $500 cash, 1 day pontoon boat rental, round of golf for 4 at Owl’s Nest, another pontoon boat rental, a $1000 certificate for travel or $600 to spend at the Common Man, a load of fuel oil, a wood product from Mt Prospect Academy, and a quilt. Be sure to WRITE LEGIBLY and have customers verify their information. Sharon noted that it helps to bring candy to the tables! Lora and Ken brought their dog last year, which is another good way to get people to stop.
Sales locations: we typically sell at Chase Street and the Common Man Roadside. Mad River Coffee House may be worth investigating. Steve’s old office is no longer available for storing supplies, so Biederman’s will have a spot for the tackle boxes this year. Marybeth suggested that we could try to sell tickets at every home football game. She will reach out to the school to see if we could do this.
Happy dollars were shared by Tony, Denise, Mike, Ken, Steve and Alex.
Respectfully submitted,
Lora Miller, secretary