March 29, 2023 Breakfast Meeting Notes

 

Tony Trivia: The pristine waters around Plymouth edition (to celebrate International Water Day, one week late)

 

50/50: Alicia won the draw and donated the money to the club.

Card game: Tony has discovered that the ace of spades is missing, so now we are looking for the 2 of spades. Lora won the chance to draw and drew the queen of clubs. Seventeen cards remain.

 

Today’s meeting was a club forum.

 

The transition grant committee will be meeting with the high school today. Alicia’s presentation will cover why we are Rotarians and our 7 areas of focus. Members of the committee will find out what the students need and how we can help them get there. This year we have $3000 to give out and we are going to see how much the students need so that we can give an appropriate amount to each one. Alicia showed us a quick rundown of their excellent and informative Powerpoint. 

 

Circle Program Cleanup: This will take place on two days, May 20 and 21, from 9-2. Lunch will be provided. 

 

Ken Evans: This is maple syrup season in NH. Ken has now collected about 600 gallons of sap from 150 trees, running a sap line. He has spent 40 hours in the sap house and has generated about 15 gallons of syrup. He boils about 20 gallons per hour so this is a time-consuming hobby. 55 gallons of sap makes about a gallon of syrup, 60% sugar content. In order for the sap to run, the weather must be right: 40 degrees during the day, preferably sunny, and overnight below freezing. He burns close to a cord or a cord and a half of wood in order to boil it down. He brought in pints of his homemade syrup for each Rotarian at this morning’s meeting.

 

Mo talked a little more about First Star Tonight. The organization is totally volunteer, so there are no administrative costs except for $250/year to run the website and $75/year for state fees. 7 volunteer board members do everything and pay expenses out of their own pocket. Recently they have helped 2 infants who have needed open-heart surgery at birth. The surgeries were done in Boston,. They are working with with a company called Compass that gives parents a place to stay while the child is in surgery, but parents have to leave work for weeks  so First Star Tonight has helped them with basic living expenses. Gala will be April 14th and only 28-29 tickets are left. 

 

Mike: He brought more flyers for the styrofoam event on April 22. This Saturday is the training session in Lyndonville. At the end of the month is the District Celebration. 

 

Marybeth is putting together a presentation on Ukraine for the district celebration.

 

Clean up the Kane will be June 3, and clean up Pinkham Notch is July 22.

 

Denise: Please go to your Facebook page and like/friend/share the pages of all our neighboring Rotary clubs so that your friends can be informed of our cleanup efforts. She also requested that we each add the tag line from the CommonmanforUkraine appeals to our signature on our personal email.

 

The club voted on members for the district’s Council on Legislation. We voted to make PDG Eric Denu to be our representative and PDG to be the alternate.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Lora Miller, secretary