May 13, 2026 Breakfast Meeting Notes
The 50/50 was won by Lora, who gave it to Tom.
Ruth Martz of the Congregational Church had the chance to draw the ace spades but was unsuccessful.
Our guests today were Sally Jensen, Mike Bellerose, and our speaker Jake Duggan, as well as Deb and Ruth from the Congregational church.
Announcements: Kyle Reed is still looking for folks for the CTE advisory committee.
This Saturday District Foundation Committee will be meeting in Montpelier. They will decide which grants to fund. They will also interview candidates for the teacher scholarship.
Sunday is Lincoln Woodstock’s 75th anniversary celebration, and Mike will be going.
Our new Rotary T shirts and are here; see Mike to pick up yours. Payment should be made to Ken Evans either by check or Venmo.
Denise reminded us that this weekend Circle Camp will. Be holding its annual cleanup from 10-2 both days
ON May 19 the Chamber will be holding their after hours meeting from 5 to 7 pm at Ashland Women’s Club, 37 Main Street in Ashland.
This Saturday at 4 pm the town of Plymouth will be exhuming the time capsule that was buried at the Bicentennial celebrations in 1976. All are welcome.
Last week Steve and Susan went to Poland to meet with the Rotary Cadre who are familiar with the global grant process. They came to review our program in Ukraine to be sure that we are following all of the rules and that the books are in order. They got to see some of the mother’s retreat and the children’s retreat. The program got good marks and Steve and Susan were encouraged to apply for another global grant to fund the mothers’ retreats. The Rotary International president also met with them in Poland; he is interested in going into Ukraine on one of our trips once his term as president has ended.
Ben sent out the changeover announcement last week. Please let him know if you will be going. Payment should be sent to Ken Evans.
Jake Duggan of Yamas is our speaker today. He operates Yamas, the Codfather, 61 Main and other properties in the family. He is using AI to solve a lot of problems at the restaurants and he will share with us how this is working.
AI is like a calculator, in that it spits out an answer to a problem based on the words you’ve put in. It is not always accurate. You can ask it anything. Common brands are Chat GPT, Claude, and Gemini, as well as others. The initial screens will give you a text box in which to type your questions. If the response is not complete or you don’t understand the answer, you can ask followup questions for clarification.
Jake uses it at the restaurants to draft menus and social media posts, translate training manuals into Portuguese, and sort the email in the morning. It doesn’t replace a person, but it handles the tedious parts faster. For example, he has used it to create a sign for Yamas in their colors that fits their brand. He could have done it himself, but it would have taken 20 minutes or so, and the AI created it inside of a few seconds.
There are some legal issues. AI models use information drawn from books and the internet. Use of information from books or music written by a specific artist can violate copyright laws (the Supreme Court is working on what is and is not legal even as we speak). There are contracts that specify that if you put proprietary information into your AI account, it will not spread it around or use it for learning.
Jake has used AI at Yamas to create a training manual, to calculate costs for each menu item, to figure out ways to reduce costs (for example by using a different distributor), to keep track of inventory, and to determine how to be more productive in some areas. AI is replacing some jobs, while also allowing some people to tremendously increase their productivity. Every major technological advance in history has reshaped the work force and we still don’t know what the impact of AI will be on employment. The best advice he can give young people is to master AI.
In private life Jake also uses AI. For example, Jake recently had a fender bender (his first) and he asked AI how to handle it. He uses AI to help draft emails, plan trips, plan menus based on contents of his fridge, and other things.
You should always double check information provided by AI, as it will confidently mess things up! Never give it any sensitive information like social security numbers or other data. Remember that Ai is a tool, NOT a friend.
There are free versions of all of the AI chatbots, but they are starting to get ads. Paid versions are usually $20 a month for unlimited amounts. For Claude (the AI that he uses ), it costs $200 per month due to the heavy use that it gets. Chat GPT is not as powerful as Claude for business use but is fine for image generation and fast answers to simpler questions.
Happy dollars were shared by Denise, Mike, and Mike Bellerose,
Respectfully submitted,
Lora Miller, secretary
