January 22, 2025 Breakfast Meeting Notes

 

Today’s meeting was held at the lovely Tenney Mountain Lodge. 

 

Tony opened with his famous NH Trivia, NH Lakes and Ponds edition. 

 

Cari has officially applied for membership. She will have her fireside chat next week after the morning meeting. Mike van Eyke, new general manager at Tenney, was introduced as a guest, along with Rich. 

 

The 50/50 was won by Mike, who donated the proceeds to the club.

 

Mike also won the draw for the card game but drew the ace of clubs rather than the ace of spades.

 

Today’s meeting was a club forum.

 

At last week’s board meeting, we reviewed finances. We have $2400 in the bank, with 2 unpaid sets of dues. Super Bowl squares is coming up; we will draw them at the first Wednesday in February. We will need members to sell extra tickets, which will sell for $20 each. Tickets must be sold before that February meeting; give a check to Alicia or send her money by Venmo. She will send out an email with her Venmo address.

 

Foundation financials: So far we have had reduced fundraising expenses compared to last year. e are halfway through the year and we have almost reached the entire year’s fundraising goal. So far we have had reduced fundraising expenses compared to last year. We have one more fundraiser coming up (the TIGER show) in the spring. TIGER is offering 3 programs now, 2 of which are for younger children. The other opportunity is Mike Stoddard’s one-man show, Trigger, which might bring in more money…but CADY did his presentation 6-8 weeks ago. This show might also be a good way to kick off an annual fund drive. Given the proximity to the CADY show and the fact that we are doing well on fundraising so far, we may wish to postpone this show until later.

 

We are still working on our anniversary grant. We are looking into3 options: develop bus routes, expand and improve the walking and biking trails in town, and build a community center. Once our teams have investigated each of these alternatives, we will be able to make a decision on which one to do.

 

Tony is working on thank-you ads for everyone who helped us with donations last year. 

 

The styrofoam project is still going strong. Thanks to all who work on this.

 

The scholarship committee is set up and is waiting until the applications arrive in early April.

 

Tuesday trade talks are going to start up. Alicia will put up a Google drive doc about the schedule. If you know of any tradespeople in the community who would be willing to speak, particularly women, let Alicia know. 

 

Speech contest: The first round is March 12. We have an application from Lincoln-Woodstock, and at least two from Plymouth. Omer would love to be the timekeeper but he is unable to drive. Denise would be able to pick him up but he would need someone to drive him home. Tony volunteered to take Omer home…thanks, Tony and Omer!

 

The board voted to donate $250 to Whole Village for their Valentine’s Day baskets for seniors in Ashland. We also decided to help with Putt-putt for Polio in Lincoln; we will donate $10 for every participant at this event, which will be held on the weekend of May 30-31.

 

We received information from the Brattleboro club about a project they are working on with the Peace Corps to support women in Guatemala who are victims of domestic violence. The project will help train the women how to make chocolate so that they can sell make and sell it, thereby achieving economic independence. Anyone who would like to donate to this project as individuals are welcome to do so. Steve suggested that we should donate some money to Honduras Hope and we will discuss this at the next board meeting. Alicia pointed out that we have exceeded our goal for international donations this fiscal year and it would be good to spend some of our money close to home where it was raised, 

 

Tony, Mike, and Alicia attended the Light the Fire Zoom meting on membership and we will be hearing more about out this in the weeks ahead. .

 

Rabies clinic will be March 31 this year (note the date change).

 

Erica has agreed to serve as Vice President for next year. Thanks to Erica for volunteering! Steve has asked to step down as Foundation treasurer and the club is deeply grateful for his many years of service.  He will continue to run the Common Man for Ukraine end of things but will need someone to handle the local foundation. 

 

Steve has received a letter from some PSU grads who are doing commercial Christmas lighting. They would like to talk to us about possibly doing the decorating downtown. If anyone is interested in joining a meeting with Steve and these folks, talk to Steve. 

 

ETC (the Educational Theatre Cooperative) opens tonight, with 24 shows over 6 nights at the Flying Monkey. Trish has done it for 29 years and now Mike Stoddard will be taking over.

 

The Chamber of Commerce is doing coffee here at Tenney Mountain on Friday morning.

 

Happy dollars were shared by Tony, Denise, Alex, Alicia, and Mike.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Lora Miller, secretary