February 26, 2025 Breakfast Meeting Notes

 

Guests today were Cari, Jake and Alan.

 

The 50/50 was won by Ken Williamson, who put the money in Tom’s tip jar.

 

Steve got the chance to draw in the card game but selected the 2 of diamonds.

 

Tony opened with some announcements, as well as his famous NH Trivia, “Citizen of the Year”edition.

 

Rabies clinic will be held on March 29 at 1 pm at the police station. We need volunteers to bring folding tables, 6 more folding chairs; we also need people to work there as greeter, cashier, and preparers of paperwork. Flyers have been printed up and are here today; please take as many as you need and post around the local towns. 

 

Tony is preparing documents for our 100th anniversary. Along with the service project, we should have a 100th anniversary book. 

 

Citizen of the Year: Tony has been updating the list of past winners, which will go onto the program at the Changing of the Guard. He has also checked name spellings for the winners. 

 

Changing of the Guard: The consensus is that it needs a new venue, as it has been losing money for several years (see further comments below). Tony passed around a survey sheet to see what type of event members would like and when and where they would like to hold it.

 

Alicia passed out ballots for elections. You can write in names if you like. Checking with someone else before you write in their name is nice but optional. 

 

We need to reschedule next week’s second-round district speech contest, as Bristol is just having their first round on March 5. This means that we will need a speaker for next week, and Phil volunteered. Denise will contact Lincoln-Woodstock to see if they would be ok with the 12th as the date for the second round. Omer will not be able to attend as timer on the 12th so we will need someone to do this as well. Marybeth volunteered to serve as judge.

 

This week is a club forum. At last Friday’s board meeting, Ken reported that we have $2000 in the bank; district and Rotary International dues have been paid. We still owe $300 for the card game. The ClubRunner bill will be coming in shortly and will be a little over $400, and we will also need to renew the Chamber of Commerce membership. Next invoices to club members will go out in June.

 

The board discussed the Changing of Guard dinner. Attendance has been declining and costs have been stable…we lose about $500 per year…so we are thinking of holding a different type of event to see if we could boost attendance. The event could be child and pet friendly if desired. The dinner has always been the 3rd Wednesday of June but last year we had a conflict with the Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting. The Chamber is doing their annual event the Saturday of the 3rd week of June this year so we should be sure that whatever date we choose doesn’t conflict with their program. We passed out a survey at today’s meeting and Alicia will also email this survey to those members who aren’t here today. We should all be sure to encourage other members, particularly those who don’t make weekly meetings, to show up for the ceremony.

 

Steve gave a foundation report. Phil has stepped up to be assistant treasurer; he is starting to get familiar with the books so that he can eventually step into the foundation treasurer role. Steve will continue to manage the Common Man for Ukraine aspect of the foundation.

 

We discussed the ballots that we passed out today.

 

Alicia sent out an organization chart.

 

The board voted to approve Cari’s application. Her application has been sent to the membership and Lora is tabulating responses. 

 

We are going to make a contribution of $300 to the Girl Scouts in the form of cookies. We reached out to Bev Tedeschi,, who will buy the cookies and reach out to the local girl scout troop, who will help us deliver them locally. We will buy Rotary stickers to put on the cookie boxes so that folks know they come from Rotary and try to arrange for a photo op as well. 

 

We had previously discussed the one-man show from TIGER. Trish had asked us for help last year to repair their van and she volunteered to do a show for us to raise money. The show has recently been done with CADY and we decided that we will not move forward with it at this time. Denise suggested that since TIGER owes us an event and we are looking to boost attendance at the Changing of the Guard, we should ask Mike Stoddard of TIGER to provide us with free entertainment there. This could persuade more folks to show up. This suggestion was appreciated and Denise will look into it further. She added that CADY did the TIGER event at the Owl’s Nest and catered it with pizza from their food truck…perhaps that venue would work for us.

 

On March 12, there will be a jazz Concert at Waterville Valley in the Mexican Restaurant to benefit the Common Man for Ukraine. Waterville is handling this themselves. The performer is a Ukrainian living in Boston, and he is very talented. The flyer for this is up on our Facebook page so be sure to like and share. Admission is by donation; bring checks. 

 

At the board meeting we also decided that our anniversary grant would focus on creating a multiuse trail in Plymouth. We want something substantial by 2027. The next committee meeting to discuss this project will be after the weekly meeting on March 12. 

 

On Monday, March 17 we will remove decorations from the Commons with the Holderness School freshmen. We will need ladders. We will store the decorations, probably at Meredith Village but Beth needs to check on this. We could also rent a storage unit (it might be better to have a rental unit if we need to access the decorations on a weekend).

 

Denise mentioned that the Last Chair is having a small event Saturday March 1 from 3 to 6. They have an alternative rock band and are releasing a new beer. There is a $5 cover charge that benefits Plymouth Community Closet.  

 

Phil shared a happy dollar in announcing that there will be a learn to curl event this Sunday at PSU from 3-5. All are welcome.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Lora Miller, secretary