November 2, 2022 Breakfast Meeting Notes

Our guest for today was Maureen Polimeno of the Lincoln/Woodstock club. Their club is working on a community chest project to get toys, clothes, and food delivered to needy families on Thanksgiving.

50/50 was won by Ken Evans. Card game draw was won by Lora, who drew the 8 of hearts instead of the ace of spades. The game continues.

First order of business was to induct two new members:

Greg Englund, sponsored by Bill Clark. Greg is a physician both at Speare and in Laconia. He and his family have lived in Plymouth for about 12 years. He coaches ski racing and enjoys riding and developing mountain bike trails.

Russ Nagle, sponsored by Steve Rand, has lived in Plymouth for about 2 years. His family is in the seafood business in the Boston area but he has worked in tech his whole life, recently buying a semiconductor company.

Welcome to both Greg and Russ!

Our speakers for this morning are our own Mike Carrier and Beth Dever, who will be co-presidents of our club for the 2023-24 year. They discussed their ideas for their term and solicited feedback from the membership.

The potential advantage of having a shared presidency is that it will allow more time and energy to pursue governance. With two people, we can spend more time on diversity, equity, and inclusion, making sure that we reflect the makeup of our community. Having two people will allow for two different perspectives on club activities and should result in a more manageable workload for each person, although the hope is that two people working together will accomplish more than one person could.

We are continuing to try to grow our membership and also grow our leadership. For the 2023-24 years, we have openings for president elect, secretary, treasurers of the club and the foundation, 5 board members-at-large, a sergeant-at-arms, and a return to standing committees. The committees suggested by Rotary International ae for Administration, Membership, Public Image, Service Projects, and Rotary Foundations. Each of these entails specific tasks:

Administration: Plans weekly meetings and programs, works with member communication, provides a club bulletin and website, assists the secretary with the membership list, periodically reviews the bylaws, and promotes fellowship and events.
Membership: Identifies potential new members, works on diversity/equity/inclusion, monitors member engagement, and works with onboarding and mentoring new members.
Public Image: Makes use of social media and other means to promote events and activities, develops marketing and advertising, and plans for Rotary gear and signage.
Service Projects: Plans and conducts projects that enhance life in our community and the larger world.
Foundations: Promotes knowledge of the Rotary International Foundation as well as our own Plymouth Rotary Foundation, promotes knowledge and participation in the Paul Harris Society and Fellowships, seeks out district grants, and highlights the work of Polio Plus.

Beth asked all members to consider which committees would be best suited to their interests and talents for the coming year. Steve suggested a retreat where we could trade ideas; Sharon cautioned that if we do this, we need to not simply be energized by the discussion but come up with a plan to continue with the ideas we’ve developed. Having standing committees should help with this.

The upcoming Rotary calendar includes a number of events:

November 12: District Training, including grant writing, in Lyndonville
December 7: Our annual meeting and ideally election of officers for the 2222023-24 year. We have often waited until the spring to do this, but the district holds a number of useful training sessions in the spring and it would be great to have a slate of officers available so that they are already trained when their year starts.
February 1: Our regular Wednesday meeting: Ideally we will use this meeting to identify committee members and break out into committees to discuss our plans for the upcoming year.
March 9: NE PETS (Northeast President-Elect Training Seminar)
April 1¨District Spring Training in Lyndonville
April 28-30: District Celebration at Jay Peak

Our conversation next turned to the Penny Sale.

Bill reminded everyone to give Grand Prize ticket stubs and money to him no later than Saturday evening before the drawing. We are still doing street sales on Friday and Saturday and need someone to work Friday from 10-12 downtown and Saturday at both downtown and Irving locations. If you can fill a slot, please let him know. We will also continue to sell tickets at the Penny Sale until right up to the drawing. Steve requested that we stop selling online after Friday morning so that he can have time to hand-write the online tickets. He would like someone to volunteer to help him with this…just show up on Saturday morning at his office.

The night of the event, we will need change for each person selling tickets on the floor. He will give Alicia a check and she will cash it to provide the change. We will need money counters in back; we will try to see if one of the banks can loan us some tellers and/or a money counting machine to streamline the process. We will be getting help from Interact, the National Honor Society and the tennis club but we will need lots of people to help and they will not arrive until 6 pm. Rotarians should how up at 3 pm on Saturday if at all possible.

Doors open at 6 and the prize drawings begin at 7.

The itemized list of donations is at the printer. Steve passed out our individual sheets so we know where our items will go, including those items that we did not have at the setup night two weeks ago. If you have a new item that was not previously anticipated, please fill out a donation sheet and place the item on the “extra” item so it can be combined with other prizes.

Respectfully submitted,

Lora Miller, secretary