January 15, 2025 Breakfast Meeting Notes

 

Guests: Prospective member Kerry, Tom Dearborn, Scott Weden, Brandon Pike

 

Tony opened with his famous NH Trivia, NH Waterways Edition. 

 

The 50/50 was won by Sharon. 

 

Ken announced that we have about $500 in the pot. Sharon won the chance to draw for the ace but was not successful.

 

Speech contest: We are looking for judges. The first round is February 12 for the our club round; on March 5 we will host the regional (Bristol, Lincoln/Woodstock, and Plymouth clubs). If you are interested in being a judge, see Beth. Mike will reach out to Omer about being the timekeeper.

 

Styrofoam: We continue to make the run every week (Toni had COVID a few weeks ago so she couldn’t do it for a couple of weeks). Last week we had to rent a truck because we had a 2 week backlog. The styrofoam team on Saturday mornings will meet after this morning’s meeting to discuss the February schedule.

 

Last night we had the first district membership webinar on Zoom (60 people attended on line). It was a very engaging webinar and Mike, Tony, and Alicia will talk about it more in the future. They asked each club to take a hard look itself and analyze what is good about it and what needs to be improved to make the club more exciting to new members. We have done a few surveys already to get at this. They advised us to look at the community; who’s here, what external organizations are present and how do we work with them? They also asked us to look at events, festivals, school programs, partnering with children’s athletic teams, to see how we can reach out to others and expand our reach. A followup meeting will be held on February 11 at 7 pm.

 

Tony spoke about the rabies clinic. It will be March 1 at 1 pm at the Police Department Garage. Next step is publicity…an ad in the Pennysaver, the Record-Enterprise, and posters around town. We can update Susan at Minuteman and she will get the posters printed. Scott volunteered to post a notice on the town website and in the town’s weekly newsletter. A signup sheet will be sent around in next week or two.

 

In March we will start the Tuesday Trade Talks again. The school would love to see this happen every Tuesday for 8 to 10 weeks. Reach out to anyone you know in the trades to see if they would be willing to speak to the students. They average 20-30 students per session.

 

This Friday is the board meeting at 7 am. A couple of requests will be sent around prior to the meeting for the board to consider.

Sharon gave an update on the scholarship committee. Applications should arrive in the first week of April; we will have 3 weeks to read them, assess and decide who our scholars will be. Typically we get about 40 applicants. If you are interested, see her.

 

Denise asked if we are going to support Whole Village with their Valentine drive. They are collecting items for seniors in Ashland. They need playing cards, large print puzzles, hats, scarves, flossers, tissues, stamps and greeting cards, and hand and foot warmers. Donated items can be dropped off at Whole Village. Donations must be in by February 3; members can make donations on their own and on Friday the board will decide if we should make a cash donation from the club. 

 

Town Manager Scott speaks to the club

 

Mike introduced our speaker, Town Manager Scott Weden.  He is also our emergency management person. Scott will talk to us about what’s going on in Plymouth!

 

Updates on the town: There will be a Hilton Garden Inn down at the floodplain. They have been moving the wetlands. The other plan is to put a restaurant at the hotel. Finally, at the temporary driveway, there will be a Starbucks. The restaurant and Starbucks have not yet been removed. 

 

This is budget season for 25-26 budget. The town started the process back in July. That is the most important policy document that Scott handles each year. Before Scott came along, the town just added 3-5% each year to the previous year’s budget, but this resulted in an inaccurate estimate of needs. Scott started to build the budget from the ground up each year; as a result, he has cut the tax rate by about 25-30% since he arrived here 2 years ago.  In addition, when he started we had a $300,000 unassigned fund balance for emergencies and to offset the tax rate. The Dept of Revenue Administration wants towns to have 5-7% of the operating budgets in reserve, which would be $22 million! This is the first year in 15 years that we have this amount in reserve (we have $28 million). The first budget hearing will be Jan 27 at 5:15, then Feb 6 at 5:15.  March 11 will be town elections and March 12, the town meeting.

 

The downtown drainage project is done! This was a huge project; we finished 6 months early and $500,000 under budget. Kudos to Granese Construction for their hard work. 

 

Upcoming projects: There will be road work from Pleasant and Russell Streets down to Highland Street. The Blue Lake Road culvert will be reconstructed off of Fairgrounds Road. Highland Street from Russell St to Old Ward Bridge Road will be worked on this summer. There will be a roundabout at the HIghland/Reservoir/Old Ward Bridge intersection. We also got a state grant for improved lighting downtown around the Enterprise Center, the crosswalk at Town Hall, and the crosswalk at Peek-a-Bowl.

 

Economic development: the town has put this aside for many years and we need to look at this for the entire community. On Monday night we had a consultant in and another will come in on February 10 and at that time the board will make a decision on what direction they want to take. We need to look at retention of young folks, recruiting businesses, and possibly zoning issues Tomorrow night at 6:30 at Town Hall will be a zoning overlay meeting. 

 

The planning board received a grant for $25,000 to create a downtown village master commercial plan. 

 

We have a new fire chief, Kevin Pierce, who was promoted form deputy chief and today they are interviewing for a new deputy chief. Tommy Morrison, the outgoing fire chief, should be recognized for his efforts. We have a new highway superintendent, Steve St Pierre. We have recruited new workers with heavy equipment skills and heavy equipment licenses.

 

Scott encouraged us all to stop in to town hall and talk to him about our concerns. 

 

Beth announced that next Wednesday our breakfast meeting will be at Tenney Mountain at 7 am. Pay for your own breakfast. If you want to ski afterwards, they will be open for that.  

 

We are looking for someone to run Superbowl Squares (which means constructing the grid). Each member buys 3 squares at $20 each. 

 

Happy dollars were shared by Mike and Denise. 

 

Respectfully submitted 

 

Lora Miller, secretary