October 12, 2022 Breakfast Meeting Notes

Our meeting began with Tony’s NH trivia.

50/50 was won by Mike, who donated it to the club.

The card game draw fell to Bill, who did not pull the ace of spades and so the game continues.

Our speaker today was our own Bill Clark, talking about fishing. Bill has been fishing since a trip to Echo Lake, NJ when he was 5 years old. He continued to do freshwater fishing, learning to tie flies out of feathers, bits of blanket, and thread. Different fish prefer different types of flies, so he had to be creative. Eventually he went to saltwater fishing, as the fish are larger and offer more of a challenge.

He makes about 10 fishing trips a year. In previous years he has fished for halibut and giant tuna, but this year he was trying to hook tarpon. Tarpon are large fish, typically weighing 60 to 120 lbs. and 4 to 6 ½ feet long. They live for about 50 years but even by 15 years old they already weigh 100 lb. Tarpon spawn in the Keys but in May they migrate away.

Bill showed photos of his trip to Florida in May. He and his friends flew in to Fort Lauderdale, driving through Pine Island and Sanibel on their way to Marathon Key. The wildlife included the rare and small Key deer, as well as numerous alligators. They hired a guide to take them to good tarpon areas and were rewarded by catching a number of them; they had planned on catch and release so they did not bring the fish home.

After Bill was done with his talk, the topic turned to the Penny Sale:

Ken Evans will set up banners around town this Sunday the 16^th. Volunteers should meet him downtown at 9 am. Volunteers will be divided into two teams and each team will hang 5 to 6 banners.

Printed promotional materials, including tickets, posters, business cards, and flyers are now available. Tickets, posters, tackle boxes and tables will be stored at Rand’s in Steve’s office and should be picked up just before the first shift and returned at the end of the last shift The posters were passed out to be distributed around town by members. The business cards can be used to hand to potential donors who aren’t ready to give at that moment; the QR code on that card will take them to the website. The flyers have the poster on one side and some information about Rotary on the other. This can help to market Rotary to persons who may be more interested in learning what we do and perhaps joining us.

Each Rotarian was given a packet of at least 60 tickets worth $100 and will be responsible for selling or buying them. In addition, Bill passed around a signup sheet for on-street ticket sales. We will be selling downtown and Chase Street Market on Fridays and at both Chase Street and the Common Man Roadside on Tenney Mountain Highway on Saturdays and Sundays. Sales shifts will be 10-12 and 12-2 on Fridays and from 9-11 and 11-1 on Saturdays and Sundays. Each shift at each location will require 2 people. Each member is asked to sign up for at least 2 shifts; if you did not sign up or were not at the meeting, your shifts will be assigned to you.

Steve spoke about the process of recording tickets. For those people who pay by credit card, do NOT fill out their ticket stubs at the point of sale. We will capture their credit card information and the appropriate tickets will be written out later. Steve also recommended that persons selling tickets go to the website plymouthrotaryfundation.org on their phones and look at the menu bars at the upper left side of the page. Select “grand prizes” and go to that page. If you keep this page up on your phone, you can use it to show prospective buyers what the grand prizes look like. In addition, at the bottom of that page is a QR code that will take donors directly to the donation option.

The NH Fund for Ukraine has successfully raised $2.2 million, including Alex’s $1 million match. We will continue to raise funds through the end of the year. So far $900,000 has been sent to Ukraine and Steve will be going back to Ukraine in a few weeks to investigate other projects that we may wish to support. Great job!

Next Tuesday we will have a booth at PSU from 11-1 in front of the bookstore. Volunteers who wish to staff the booth should speak to Bill.

Respectfully submitted,

Lora Miller, secretary