Committee Report, February 2, 2010

1. YETE - Building on a very successful first experience, and learning from that experience, plans for a program to begin this spring are now nearly complete. Much (although not all) of the funding is in place. There will be an announcement, selection of participants, orientation session and then the program will begin. This time the program will bring together the Greater Waterville Council for Children and Youth, the Maine Children's Home, The Alfond Center, KVCAP, the Waterville Public Library and the Waterville Rotary Club. Rotarians may be asked to speak at class sessions and will certainly be among those asked to help provide summer work sites for students who successfully complete the first part of the course. Note: Sarah Sugden and Tom Longstaff will be attending a YETE planning session immediately prior to this month's board meeting and may have additional details to report "hot off the press."

2. ROTERACT - Colby students are now back in class for the second semester and representatives of our Committee have been in discussion with them about ways in which we might make this connection more active. The Committee recommends that we invite one or two ROTERACT students to join us at a regular Monday Rotary meeting. We would ask a Rotarian (not necessarily a member of our Committee) to be the host, greeting the student and making him/her comfortable during the meeting. There was some discussion about extending the ROTERACT connection to Thomas College, KVCC and, perhaps, Unity College. The Sunrise Club is very interested in working with us to form closer relations with the ROTERACT club. Finally, Sarah Sugden suggested that we might work with ROTERACT students to present a weekly radio show on WMHB. This could include interviews by ROTERACT students with our speakers, reports on our programs or even the broadcast of a presenter's speech. This is still in an early stage of discussion but was received with enthusiasm by those Committee members present on February 2nd.

3. ROTARY BANNER - Doug Carnrick and Harold Buzzell are making progress on the design process for a new Rotary banner. They have identified several possible designers and are in the process of making a choice among them. They have gathered some good suggestions to pass along to the designer. It is good to see this project moving forward.

After very useful discussions someone thought that they had seen the ground hog raise his head and so we rapidly dispersed.

Submitted by:
Thomas R. W. Longstaff, Chair
Vocational Service Committee