April 22, 2026 Breakfast Meeting Notes
Cari won the 50/50.
Mike Bellerose had the chance to select the ace of spades but chose the, 2 of diamonds.
Rotary weekly highlights: We got a group application for membership from the Congregational church.
Denise, Mike, and Ben went up to Lyndonville, this past weeked meeting with the District governor and others. They learned a lot from the facilitators and the other clubs There were 9 participants in round 3 of the speech contest. Our local winner wasn’t available, so the runner up from Lincoln Woodstock participated and won 3rd place, so he is runner up for our area for the final round. Mike and Ben agreed that the sessions were very informative, ideas were exchanged and there was a lot of energy. Denise also noted that if you are doing something important with Rotary, send pictures to the district.
Next we had the Rotary 3 minutes from Tony. First: Rotary International membership is changing. North America, particularly the USA and Canada, is seeing 20% declines. Asian countries have increased membership by 26%, while Europe has seen a 3% decline. Africa is showing robust growth especially among young and female members. Oceana’s membership is decreasing, while South America’s is growing. Second: the oldest Rotary club president in the world is 101. Billy Geary, the president of the Belfast Ireland club, raises a lot of money for Alzheimer’s research. Third: the world’s largest Rotary club is in India. It was founded in 1985 with 33 members and now has over 750 members! Oklahoma City has 650 members. These larger clubs work by having sub-clubs, focused on common areas of interest.
Tony recommended reading the Herbert Taylor story (he is the man who wrote the 4 way test).
This week is a club forum.
We have again been asked by the town to provide food and raffles for Cruise night. Denise felt that this is a good opportunity for us for outreach, but we need to advertise ourselves as the town doesn’t really promote the event much. She suggested that we provide minimal food (snacks, lemonade) for this rather than sell a lot of food.
Denise is not going to do a formal signup sheet for Circle Cleanup, but we do need to do this as our Epic Day of Service. It will be 2 days, May 16-17 (Saturday and Sunday), from 10-2. Let Beth know that you are coming. Bring your own shovel or rake and bug spray. Lunch provided.
Steve asked that we thank Denise for all of her hard work on behalf of the club.
Changing of the Guard: Ben will be sending details via email around the first of May. The event will be held on June 17 at the Last Chair.
Citizen of the Year: Ken has a few applications for the award. Please get your nominations to him in the next week.
Transport Central: Ken asked that we be allowed to paint our logo on the hood of the bus. Bus service will be up and running by July 1. At the board meeting, we voted to make a pledge of $10,000 to Transport Central to help cover the first year of operating expenses. This will be one of our 100th year anniversary projects.
Standing committee reports: Phil reports that the admin committee met this month, discussing Transport Central. We are continuing to discuss several other projects, a trail, a dog park, and bike trails. We will be meeting at Yamas on the 29th at 6 pm (no morning meeting that day). If you didn’t respond to Phil’s email yet, be sure to let him know if you plan on attending.
Public Image: Alicia informed Mike that they have 7 people for the companion club; they are hoping to have an 8th member by the Changing of the Guard. At some point we will need to change our by laws to reflect the existence of companion clubs. At Circle Program cleanup, please be sure to take pictures for Mike (he will not be able to attend but he will put the pics up on the website). If you wold like to order some club branded swag, see Mike in the next week as he finalizes the order.
We have 4 RYLA candidates for this year. We are offering $1450 to pay for these students to go.
Membership: Russ reports that we have Ariana Roy in the pipeline for a fireside chat. We will do that on May 6. We will meet with Deb at some time in the near future. We could do inductions at the changeover. In addition, Michael Bellerose has submitted his application today.
Scholarships: we have Lora, Ken, Cari, Marybeth and Sharon doing scholarships. We have 2 returning recipients plus 44 high school seniors applying. Typically we do 2 returning scholarships and 10 students from the group. We also need to get out applications for the technical training grants; we will need to check with Alicia to be sure that she is still doing this.
Club financials: Ken wrote a bunch of checks yesterday, including $600 to Tana’s Tees, so when your clothes arrive, please pay Ken as soon as possible. He paid Chamber dues, an ad for the district conference, and we still have $1800 in the checkbook, which should be enough until dues invoices go out in June.
Foundation financials: Phil reports that we’re in good shape.
Announcements: May 28-29 Hubbard Brook there will be a community moth night. They will put out sheets at the fields to catch the moths. In addition, they will have a hiking group, an entomologists’ talk, and Raisa will be holding an art project based on moth wing patterns.
Steve, Alex, and Lisa were in DC this weekend at the Ukraine action summit. Participants from all 50 states attended and got feedback on how to talk to their elected representatives about Ukraine.
Happy dollars were shared by Sharon, Mike Bellerose, Tony, Walter, and Mike.
Sharon is giving away a glass-topped table from her office. See her if interested.
Respectfully submitted,
Lora Miller, secretary
