February 4, 2026 Breakfast Meeting Notes
Bill won the 50/50.
Russ got the chance to draw for the ace of spades but was unsuccessful.
Weekly Highlights: Denise spoke to the elementary school. They have several literacy initiatives already so they may not be interested in another one.
Tony presented his famous NH Trivia, NH Oddities and Unique Delights Edition, part 2.
Club business: Next week is round 1 of the speech contest. Mike Son’s daughter will be returning; we are still waiting to see how many other students from Interact will be showing up. We will need 4 people to serve as judges plus one to serve as timer. Denise has score sheets and the basic rules. The winner will not receive a check until after round 2 with Lincoln/Woodstock on the 18th. Sharon volunteered to be a judge. Round 3 will be at the district meeting in Lyndonville and the final round will be in Sherbrooke.
Super Bowl squares: Ben has prepared the grid and names are randomly assigned to the squares. We assigned the numbers this morning. He will email the list to members so we can distribute it to non-members who bought tickets..
We are still looking for a board member and a couple of officers. Ben will be President, but we lack a president-elect and vice president. Ken Evans will stay on as treasurer, Steve will continue to be in charge of the foundation, Lora will serve as secretary, and Phil, Denise, Sharon and Tony will stay on as board members.
NE PELS is coming up in less than a month. The District Foundation Brunch will be held in April in Lebanon, and the district conference in June at a nice resort in Quebec. Make sure your passport is good NOW so you will be able to cross the border.
District grant workshop will be on February 12 and Tony will attend by Zoom.
Bill had asked Tim Desrosiers of KTM Auto to speak to us today. Tim won the Monster Truck race in the south this year but unfortunately he had to cancel at the last minute. Apparently he took his chassis down to Florida last week and got stuck in the big snowstorm in North Carolina on the way back. Bill will try to get him back at a future date.
Bill has been talking to Mike and others about membership. We have 38 clubs in the district we need 50 more members in the next year in order to avoid having to merge with another district. Bill questioned what our club will look like in 10 years if we don’t add any new members. He suggested providing first year Rotary scholarships, so that new members wouldn’t have to pay club or Rotary dues. We could challenge other clubs to get members. We all need to look out for people we believe would be good members, that would participate and do things, as opposed to just getting numbers. Prior to COVID we were averaging 4 to 5 new members a year, but not in recent years.
Tony suggested asking ourselves why we ourselves joined Rotary. We could also think about companion clubs that would have a different meeting time and/or a different agenda, to attract more people. Such a club could perhaps do a project once a month and have Zoom meetings. Denise also suggested that we should look harder at corporate membership: the churches, the banks, etc. Ben suggested that perhaps we could have a signature issue to focus on. It would be easier to get folks think of us as standing for a particular issue; we could be the club focused on hunger, for example..
Mike Son asked what happens to us with redistricting. Our club would remain the same, but there would be more money to share in a district with more members. However, this also means there would be more competition for grants. Ideally we should have 2500 members in our district.
Lora asked if we have data on why people aren’t joining service organizations and address those specific issues. There have been changes in American culture which has altered people’s interests and abilities to join service clubs. Mike Son suggested we try open houses or other public events to draw in new members.
Happy dollars were shared by Denise, Tony, Mike.
Respectfully submitted,
Lora Miller, secretary
