May 24, 2023 Breakfast Meeting Notes

 

Tony was still away so we had no trivia for this week.

 

The 50/50 was won by Lora, who donated it to Tom’s tip,

The card game draw also went to Lora, who drew the 6 of hearts. The game goes on.

 

Mike provided our inaugural Rotary Minute, devoted to Rotary history:. On February 23, 1905 Paul Harris proposed to form a club of mutual cooperation and informal friendship in Chicago with 3 friends. This club went on to become Rotary.

 

Today was a club forum. Summary of last Friday’s board meeting was as follows: 

 

1. We had two funding requests. One was on behalf of Pemi Baker Hospice and Home health for Sal Ippollito, one of their chaplains, to will allow him to go to DC to attend a seminar on counseling. This request, for $300, was approved. . The other was a request from Plymouth Regional Huskies Football team. They had requested $2500 to replace equipment but the board approved $500 donation.

 

2. Mike got a request from Whole Village to help kids prepare for a summer camp experience They need bug spray, sunscreen, lunchboxes, water bottles, and beach towels. Mike proposed we buy these supplies for 6 kids, at $35 each. Whole Village will accept these donations Monday through Friday and Mike will call to check on how quickly we need to get the supplies to them. Renee can get us the beach towels at a wholesale price. The board members present constituted a quorum and approved $250 for this expense. 

 

3.  Update on RYLA: we have 4 students this year. Mike will try to meet with them in the next         couple of weeks to give them an overview of the program, which starts June 23 in Lyndonville.

 

5.  We have two nominations for citizen of the year. These will be sent out to the Board for an email vote so the award can be made on Wednesday June 23’s changeover ceremony at the Barn. 

 

6.  Facebook page: It is still hidden from public view; only the admins can access it. Braden met with Courtney and she had no fixes for this. Unfortunately this means that we need to make a new Facebook page from scratch. We can export our current likes and follows  but these must be entered manually and we have about 600 followers. Steve noted that email is far more secure than the FB page. He is a big fan of Give Butter for fundraising given its security features. However, Mike noted that email only reaches the people you know; shares on social media reach people who are not (yet) members of Rotary.

 

7.  Magaret Labarge also spoke to the board about web site propositions. Both are Club Runner backed. The first is directly through Club Runner but it is more limited in scope, with a restricted number of templates available for the front page. The second option is to use Word Press for the front end, public-facing pages, while  Club Runner and its handy links to RI still running in the background. This second option would also involve a separate hosting charge. The first option is $1200 and the second is more like $2000. Right now we have three separate websites (Club, Foundation, Ukraine) and we would like to integrate these so that there is only one web site. We need to form a subcommittee to work with Margaret to discuss options. Mike suggested that those of us who signed up to be on an administrative committee during his upcoming term would be a natural fit for this. Alicia requested that she not be tasked with working on the web site as she is getting overloaded. Steve asked to be allowed onto the committee. 

 

8. Steve raised a question regarding the Ukraine project. Our club foundation is the backbone of Common Man for Ukraine. Our money is going directly to Polish Rotary. There have been a couple of occasions when donors wanted to send us money for a particular reason, and Steve is concerned about having outside people direct the use of funds. However, locally we have a donor who wants to go to Poland and run a theater camp for traumatized children this August. Steve feels that this would be a great opportunity, both for the kids and for the publicity it would garner. 

 

The donor (Trish) would be willing to do the fundraising but wants to know if her donors can send the money directly to Common Man for Ukraine fund but segregate it to be used exclusively for this purpose. Steve proposed that the money be sent from us to Polish Rotary and let them disperse it. Ken Evans did not like the precedent this would set, in allowing donors to use us to funnel money for their pet projects. Walter wondered if if would be helpful to have her work directly with the Polish rotary. It was suggested that she just do this on her own (which would mean that donations would not be tax deductible). Sharon suggested that Trish’s fundraising activities should simply direct people to donate to the Common Man for Ukraine. Overall the membership was not comfortable with what Trish has proposed and the precedent that it would set. Steve will discuss this further with Trish.

 

9.  The Fisher Cats ball game for Ukraine will be on Thursday June 1. We have about 10 people to work the game. Buy your tickets in advance in Section 106.

 

10. We also need people to sign up for Clean up the Kane, which will be on Saturday, June 3.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Lora Miller, secretary