April 23, 2025 Breakfast Meeting Notes
Tony opened with his famous NH Trivia, Rotary Promotes Scholarship Excellence edition.
Guests today were Dan Abbey and Raisa.
The 50/50 was won by Phil.
George got the chance to drew for the ace of spades but drew the ace of diamonds instead. Better luck next time.
Today’s meeting was a club forum.
Mike shared a bulletin from a district in Massachusets: Don’t forget to make your annual contribution to the Rotary Foundation before June so we can keep our club status as “every Rotarian, every year.” Please try to contribute at least $25 per year. Go online through your “my Rotary” account and it will take you to the donation site. We suggest that you make your contribution to the annual fund share program, as this money will come back to our district in 3 years. Note that the Common Man for Ukraine has applied for a $160,000 grant through the global grant program.
Greg asked if the grant application has to come from a Rotary club. He has a grant writer for his hiking trail club, but federal money seems to be drying up in the current political climate. Mike said that he could ask our club to sponsor the project to. rebuild the Plymouth Mountain Hiking trails. Grant applications are due by April 25, though, so this may have to wait until next year. Bill also noted that for Rotary grants, the recipient has to match the grant dollar for dollar for any amount above $1000.
At last week’s board meeting, we also discussed the citizen of the year process. Tony wrote up the procedure and handed it out to the newer members. Steve noted that we have one nomination so far for this year’s award. Rotarians must talk to candidate’s friends, family etc. and this can be time consuming. If you have someone to nominate, even if you don’t have all of their information, get the name in. The committee will narrow down the nominees to a few, and then work from there.
Financials were reviewed. The Foundation has a net profit of $8000 this year and we had budgeted -$4000. People have not been asking us for money as much as they used to. We have not yet had any students apply for our technical training grants and we have $4000 reserved for that. Putt Putt for Polio will incur some expense. The remaining reserves are for our 100th year anniversary project, plus $20,000 for the 100th year celebration. We have $3000 in the bank for the club but we will have some large bills coming up.
We discussed the changing of the guard and the changeover dinner. We considered a number of places, hoping to change up the location. Right now Alicia is working with the Covered Bridge restaurant and hoping to keep the costs low enough that the $45 per person that we had last year covers the entire expenses without having to have the club cover the rest..
We decided to increase the fees for breakfast to $10 and $5 for coffee. This will result in a $3 donation to the club for each breakfast, up from $1 now.
Raisa will be having her fireside chat next week after the meeting.
Styrofoam committee: Gilford has asked for help with the processing of foam on Wednesdays for 2 hour shifts. See Mike to sign up. Denise will take the information to the students at Mt Prospect.
The scholarship committee is busy reviewing the applications.
Projects: Denise is still collecting things for summer camp. Sunscreen, water bottles, bug spray, beach towels and other summery items for campers are appreciated. The deadline is mid-May. Steve noted that there were a number of water bottles left over from the 250th anniversary in storage at Meredith Village and we can donate those.
The car show will be on July 30, with a rain date of the 31st. Denise noted that the sales were a lot higher at the Hometown Holiday Celebration, when we did burgers and hot dogs, than they were at last year’s car show, where we only had pizza. She is going to put in a request to Newbury’s to prepare burgers, dogs, and sodas and we can do the hot carts down at the car show.
The board decided that we are not ready to host an exchange student this year. We will consider it for next year.
The trail walk will be today; there will be an additional trip on Saturday, weather permitting. Secretary’s note: We did complete the walk this morning and identified several possible options for a route. More information to follow!
The board voted remove Kelly Beebe from our bank account and added Phil.
The Linwood club has invited us to play pickleball on Tuesday May 6; they will do a potluck along with it. Denise had previously sent an email about this. You must sign a waiver (available on line) and pay our club for White Mountain Pickleball. Our club will then pay White Mountain Pickleball for all attendees.
Putt Putt for Polio will be held in May along with the district conference. There are several members who have signed up for this already. If you would like to set up a team, sign up at the district website. .
Kyle Reed from PRHS, who runs the CTE program, is looking for a Rotarian to attend a meeting for the Plymouth Area Advisory Committee on May 22 at 6 pm. This group meets twice a year to see how their students can help in the community. If you would like to attend, see Alicia.
Jess Dutile and Diana Cagle of Plymouth State University selected us as their community partner of the year. They have an awards ceremony this coming Monday from 4:30-6. Alicia will attend and anyone else is also welcome to go. The location is the Heritage Commons. They are asking anyone who wishes to attend to RSVP at plymouth.presence.io; look for the Office of Student Life Leadership awards. Appetizers will be served.
Road cleanup plans: In lieu of cleaning the Kanc this year, Lora will set up a date in June to clean a local road or roads. More information to follow.
Happy dollars were shared with the club.
Next week’s speaker will the the director of the Idea Center at PSU.
Chamber of Commerce is hosting a free event tonight at Whole Village.
Erica noted that Waterville Valley will be hosting their 20th season of Theatre under the Stars/Shakespeare in the Valley this summer. Lora will send out a copy of the announcement and registration form by email; watch for it!
Respectfully submitted,
Lora Miller, secretary
