Meeting Notes from July 8 CLUB ASSEMBLY

President Jen Hogan opened our meeting with the Pledge of Allegience and Adam Dow led us in singing God Bless America.  Stu Price gave the invocation before lunch.  Gary Adams was once again a guest while he is here on vacation. 

After three attempts to pick a winner, Paul Lacombe finally won the 50/50!

 

*HAPPY DOLLARS:

Paul Lacombe was certainly happy that the three previous ticket holders did not come forward for their winnings.

Claire Veilleux was happy that her granddaughter was celebrating her 20th birhtday.

While Peter Kowalski was happy that his first granddaughter was born last Saturday!  (Congratulations, Grampa!)

PP John Belisle paid a happy dollar for the privilege of presenting PDG Sylvia Plourde with a token of appreciaton for all her hard work and dedication as District Governor during the past Rotary year.

Adam Dow was happy that as of Monday, he is now an engaged man!  (Congratulations to Adam and his fiance!)

 

*MEETING:

President Jen began the Club Assembly with her President's Message to the club....which can be read on our website.  One of her first orders of business was to do away with the protocol in addressing the President and club.  Jen would like to keep it more informal.  She then invited each board member to the podium for a brief overview of our goals for the upcoming Rotary year.

MEMBERSHIP:  President-Elect Stephanie Gelinas updated us on our current membership (55) and stated our membership goal for the year is a net increase of four new members.   She also told us that we want to keep our dues down to be affordable to all; therefore, the club is not passing on the RI dues increase to our members this year.  The club will absorb the extra costs.  We also want to get not only the Rotary name out in the community but also the names of our members and their businesses out in the community so that potential members are able to see who around them are in Rotary.  We will once again be a "Spotlighter" at an upcoming Chamber of Commerce Breakfast where approximately 200-300 people attend.  Stephanie also asked each member to participate in listing three potential members on a form and passing the names along to her.  Anyone who participates in providing names will be eligible for a very special drawing of a $20 gift certificate to the very tasty Grant's Bakery!

PROGRAMS:   In Vice-President and Program Chair Nancy Richard's abscence, President Jenn told us that we are looking for different and exciting programs to add to our meetings.  We are looking to have more classification talks, entertainment and other programs in addition to the non-profit organizations who usually speak at our meetings.  We will also showcase a different organization every month. (more on this in the Community Service piece below).

CLUB SERVICE:  Mac McPeake and Adam Dow are co-chairing this committee.  In Mac's absence, Adam told us of ideas he has for more fun and fellowship in our meetings.  We would like to have more team building and getting to know each other activities such as Telephone Line and Helium Stick.  The Club Service Committee is always open to new ideas from the membership.

 

VOCATIONAL COMMITTEE:  In Bill Denehy's absence, Jen Hogan told us the Bill will continue our relationship with Lisbon High School to get an Interact Club up and running in that school.  He is also working on implementing Rotary's Four-Way Test into the school system.  Ray Martel came up to the podium to give us a history of the Scholarship Endowment Fund.  The Club started raising funds for the scholarship in the late eighties by holding special fundraising activities.  It wasn't until 1996 that the IRS approved the Endowment Foundation.  The original goal of the first trustees was to build our account to $50,000 but we have sinced increased that goal to $100,000.  The fund today stands at approximately $102,000.  Bill has a Request for Proposal (RFP) at area local banks to quote on this fund so that we can keep the money local and have some control of the risk.

COMMUNITY SERVICE:  Chair Shawn Wright would like to incorporate some of our community service in our meetings.  Once a month we will be showcasing an organization in our local community or our larger Rotary community.  The club members will bring in donations (items or money) as needed by the particular organization.  Shawn handed out a list for the year detailing each monthly focus. This is to raise the level of awareness in our community.  This is an ambitious plan and we need all of us to implement it.  We will culminate the year with a slide show presentation and celebration of our accomplishments for the year.

WAYS & MEANS:  PP John Belisle will be assisting Phil Nadeau this year with this committee.  We have decided not to participate in the Liberty Festival next year as our funds are minimal compared to the amount of work and volunteer time involved.  We lost money in 2009 due to rainy weather and this year we had perfect weather and our net profit was about $479.00  We hope to replace this fundraiser with the Spring Flower fundraiser.  We will continue with the Great Falls Balloon Festival in August and hope to raise $4500.  We will continue to sell holiday Poinsettias with a goal of $1600.  We will increase our hours for the Christmas Tree sales by adding Thursday evening and hope to raise $4000.  We will also have our live auction which should raise about $2000.  We have a budgeted total goal of $13,400 and should be able to meet that with help from every Rotarian.

INTERNATIONAL SERVICE:  PP Jason Laplante has agreed to chair this committee with input from Past Chair Peter Kowalski.  Our focus will be on both short-term and long-term projects.  We can tag on to existing international or district projects.  The ready-made Shelter Box project is another option available to us.  And we can also create our own new projects.  We are looking at partnering with other Rotary clubs to perhaps help build an orphanage in Haiti or do a project in Africa.  We can also apply for grants to help fund these projects.  We are still exploring the options.  And once again we hope to take part in some way in the Group Study Exchange Program (GSE).

FOUNDATION COMMITTEE:       PP Peter Kowalski will once again chair the Foundation Committee.  We have an ambitious goal of $5900 this year for the EREY (Every Rotarian Every Year) Program.  The first expectation is that every Rotarian give $100 each year toward the Foundation.  Knowing that our club has many older members who are fully or partially retired and may not be able to come up with the $100,  our second expectation is that each member participate at some level.   Another part to the Foundation is the Paul Harris Fellow Program where a Rotorian recieves a PHF once his donation reaches $1000.  Many of our members are PHFs and we would encourage those members to work toward being a multiple PHF.  The club will also have some matching funds available again this year to be applied toward a new or existing Paul Harris Fellow.  PDG Sylvia announced that our club will be eligible for credits for matching funds because we donated to the District Project in Equador.

PUBLIC RELATIONS:     Chris Martel continues to be our Webmaster.  In his absence, Pres. Jen told us that he is looking for volunteers to help with the weekly newsletter and press releases to go out in the community to promote our projects.  Please see Chris if interested in helping in this area.