Club Assembly

Jim announced the upcoming programs as follows: Mike from the Vermont Natural History Museum will be coming next week; in two weeks Chris Chapman will speak or bring someone to speak about the walk-in clinic; and in three weeks, there will be someone from the Brattleboro Music Center.

There was no speaker this week and we had a club assembly. Theresa spoke about the club’s Facebook page, which has many regular postings. She gave the numbers of the people following the page. The numbers reflect many people having looked at the page who are not club members. There was further discussion about our website, which needs updating and scaling back. Stan mentioned that there is a Brattleboro Area Hospice fundraiser coming up at the Latchis. For other community service projects, our club will help at the hospice fundraiser, at the garden across from the library and Brattleboro Savings and Loan, at the Groundworks regular meals, at a clean up project with the Connecticut River Conservancy, and perhaps other garden clean up projects. Mara bragged for our past painting projects which were many. Sheri spoke of senior gifts that we do annually. Nina noted that the gifts received at Pine Heights are very much appreciated. Cindy gave an update on our gift giving and listed a variety of local community groups that we fund. Mara spoke about fundraising programs including the dollar and dreams fall fundraiser and the ski jump event spearheaded by Betsy. These two events helped us replace the money from Christmas tree sales. Discussion was had about how to improve these events going forward to increase receipts. For student Rotarians, Betsy gave an update. We have good participation at Hinsdale and Leland and Gray, and need to beef up our efforts at BUHS. John M. spoke about the scholarship program underway this Spring, and noted our club/Gateway has committed to giving $21,500 this year. Bill spoke about Gateway and some of its history, and the community outreach that is very important for us to maintain. He further noted that individual donations are always welcome. Carla spoke about the Rotary Foundation, our international affiliate. She noted 19% of our club members have given over the past year. The club will match a portion of individual donations. We usually end up with approximately 50-60% of club members donating to the Rotary Foundation. Kathy spoke briefly about the upcoming golf tournament, noting it will be our 50th year. There is a committee meeting tonight to plan. The golf event will be Thursday, June 5th, and there will be no lunch that day.
The meeting was adjourned by President Rob at approximately 1:10pm