August 28, 2024 Breakfast Meeting Notes

 

Tony began with his ever-popular NH Trivia. 

 

The 50/50 was won by Greg.

 

The card game was won by Bill, who drew the jack of hearts. The game continues.

 

We received a thank you note from Whole Village for sure donation and labor to put together 103 backpacks for needy children. The Squam Lakes Natural Science Center also sent thanks for our $500 gift for their tech upgrade. 

 

We have been trying to do a monthly community service project. This month we will participate in the Granite United Way day of Caring on September 20. The Pemi Youth Center and Circle program are still looking for volunteers. Work at the Circle will be from 10-12 and at the Pemi Youth Center from 12-3.

 

Denise reported on her visit as assistant district governor to Lincoln Woodstock. They are doing many, many service projects and their Interact club is very busy. She met the new school superintendent there.

 

Tonight will be the first assistant district governor Zoom meeting with Kelly Drew. 

 

Today’s speaker was Beth with an update on Circle program. Beth has been director there for 3 years. At the time she started, Circle had lost some connections with community members and longtime donors, so her first task was  to reconnect with the community. Many longtime community donors had been pulling back their support, but thanks to her efforts they have been coming back. 

 

When she arrived, the property had been allowed to deteriorate for 4 years and she has been working on making needed repairs. She also determined that a lot of the employees were really terrific but had no experience with children! Last summer the students were challenging but this year they did much better. 

 

Last year they started a TAP program to take the girls on a fun trip. Last year they went to Lake George and this year to Mystic, CT. Students did all of the research for lodging, transportation, and choosing the venue. The TAP program runs during the last week of June so kids are free to work the rest of the summer. 

 

Three summers ago they had a lot of campers with mental health problems and had to rush several to the hospital for suicide attempts. Some of the girls are LGBTQ and the staff has been trained to deal with their specific issues. They brought in a counselor from Lakes Region Mental Health to stay there during the week. Last year they had more problems with staff mental health; the staff were were juniors and seniors of COVID and had difficulty communicating with people,, so the counselors were helpful for them as well. 

 

In addition, Circle has revamped their schedules. The 9-11 year olds were formerly in a 3 week program but this was too long and stressful, as the girls often had to care for siblings, parents, and deal with substance abuse in the home. To compensate for these stresses, they reduced the length of the 9-11 year old program to 2 weeks and added an extra session, which allowed them to double the number of girls they were serving. This also allowed the camp directors to leave at noon on Friday and have the weekend off before they had to start a new session, which reduced their stress.

 

Circle added 32 new girls to the program this summer and they are still looking for mentors. Many of these girls need help with bullying and learning how to solve problems, and they are trying to do small group counseling with the kids. Mentors should be women aged 21-81; the program requires a 1 year commitment with two meetings monthly with their 9-11 year old mentees.  Mentors are given summers off. Mentors for teens meet once a month. The staff tries to determine whether a mentor is comfortable with LGBTQ issues so that they can work effectively with the girls. The kids are also allowed to choose a camp name.. 

 

The Circle program had gone to all-digital annual reporting, but Beth determined that a lot of their donors are older and prefer a printed format. 

 

Their number one issue is transportation. They are looking at purchasing a van and there are only 3 van types in the country that their insurance will cover. If they can buy a van, it would help with TAP and field trips as well as monthly programs. They are also working on a capital campaign to renovate and update the property and even construct a year round cabin in case  a new director needs a place to live.

 

Sharon spoke about the Penny Sale. With Peggy and Moe leaving, we have some big shoes to fill! Setup night will be Thursday, October 17 at 5 pm so be sure to get prizes before then. Sharon passed out a packet including everyone’s solicitation assignments, a letter for business owners, a guide to solicitation, and a blank gift certificate. She will also email of the packet to everyone. Note that the more items a business donates, the more times their name will be mentioned at the event. If you are supposed to solicit with a person with whom you have poor chemistry, call Sharon so we can get another person to take over the solicitation. Sharon will also send the full solicitation list to everyone electronically. Established members should mentor the newer members in the solicitation process. 

 

There is a truck raffle for Lincoln Woodstock. See Denise if you want to buy a ticket. If you win the truck and don’t want it, you can win $40,000.

 

Ken reports that we have only 1 more grand prize to get and then we can get tickets printed. 

 

Mike shared a happy dollar with the group.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Lora Miller, secretary