November 17th Club Meeting Recap
Sergeant at Arms
================
Ed Oliver took over as Sergeant of Arms for the month of November.
Greeter
======
Elizabeth Vanderweide greeted today. Kim Lindlof is set for next week.
50/50 Tickets
===========
John Fortier sold $108, $54 to the winner: John Fortier!! Guess who is selling tickets on the 24th, right John Fortier! Thanks John for your efforts. Nikki Desjardins won 10 free tickets (again) to the next 50/50 drawing. Kim Lindlof will be the greeter for the November 24th meeting at the Alfond Youth Center.
Fined for pictures in the Paper
===============================
The fine this week was only a $1.00
Cell Phones
==========
A $10.00 fee for cell phone ringing continues for the 2008-2009.
On Leave
========
Sharon Abrams - leave of absence (August - December)
Sarah Sugden - maternity leave (September - November)
Barbara Woodlee - Leave of absence thru December
World Service Cups
==================
The World Service cups for November will support African Orphans.
Visiting Rotarians and Guests
=============================
Bart Stevens, Habitat for Humanity
Katie Hoskins, Mid-Maine Chamber
Roger Woolsey, Colby College
Holly Towle, Branch Manager for Kennebec Federal Savings Bank
Carol Kaufman, Unity PP (visiting Rotarian)
What can you do?
================
* Find additional resources for Rotary Auction donations
* Sign up for the Salvation Army Bell Ringing
* Sign up to work the Rotary Auction
* Tell board members what you are passionate about for community projects
* Tell the program committee about interesting speakers/topics you would like to listen to
* Be involved, join a committee
* Be active
* Be positive
Happy Dollars
=============
Lisa Simm: happy for "The Full Monty", a great show. She noted that the "Sound of Music" is playing at the Waterville High School this coming weekend.
Karen Heck was happy to hear the World Service Cups donations will go for the African Orphans. She gave kudos to Day's Jewelry Store for their decision to not purchase illegally harvested diamonds. Business people can make a difference, here is a good example.
Diane Bryan handed out happy dollars in honor of the six courageous men who performed in the Full Monty. She said the around 3000 visitors were entertained by the performances.
Sue Giguere thanked Dan Bickford for the work done to give her a full lane country road.
Mert noted that there was not a good Club presence at the Rotary District Foundation seminar held recently. He did learn that the top three Clubs for 2007-2008 donations to the foundation were: Lewiston/Auburn (3rd Place), Rockland (2nd Place) and our own Waterville club came in first place, doubling the donations of the 2nd and 3rd place winners. Way to go Waterville and kudos to Peter Garrett who spearheaded this effort last year.
David Geller thanked the Club for the brand new seats. The sound system is also new but the kinks still need to be worked out.
Ken Vlodek also enjoyed the "Full Monty" and was very impressed by the level of professionalism. Ken also recognized Peter Garrett for his efforts last year with the Rotary Foundation, he raised the average donation from 43$ per Rotarian up to $81. Ken acknowledged the importance of the Rotary Leadership training and encourages Club members to get involved.
Announcements
=============
In an effort to get more donations to the Radio Auction Ken will be supplying a list of current donations to the Club. Please review the list for vendors that could be added. Please let Ken / Tim Beals know of the new names for soliciting them.
Rotary Foundation Month ÃÆ'Ã┼'Ã'Ã'¢?" Mark Ford and Suzanne Uhl-Melanson
==============================================================
To Discuss the EREY (Every Rotarian Every Year) Program OR How you can turn $100 into $350!
The Rotary Foundation enables Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty.
Every amount contributed to the Rotary Foundation is spent in support of humanitarian, educational and cultural programs and their operations.
Clubs and districts apply for and receive Foundation grants to carry out worthy projects worldwide.
The Foundation Supports 4 funds: SHARE (district funding), Permanent Fund (endowment), Polio Plus, and Annual Programs. Today, I would like to focus on the Annual Programs Fund. Annual programs are funded thru EREY (Every Rotarian Every Year) and Paul Harris contributions. The Annual Programs Fund is the primary source of the Foundation Programs and covers more than 160 countries on 7 continents.
The Annual Programs Fund provides for the Matching Grant program used for international programs. When a program is supported by the District, it may also qualify for $1 for $1 matching from the Rotary Foundation. And for each $1 that a club raises for the program, another $.50 is matched. Therefore $100 from the District can gain another $100 from Rotary Foundation and our Club raises $100 to receive another $50 for a total of $350 towards a project!!!
So where does our money go while we are working on developing a project? Good question & this is the selling point for me: Our Clubs contributions go to the Rotary Foundation. It stays with the Foundation for 3 years and they invest it and use the interest to pay for the administration and program costs as well as fund development. After 3 years, all of the principal may be applied to the matching Grant program to fund international projects as I have previously mentioned. What other organization keeps 100% of its contributions at hand to go back to fund worthy projects?
This club's Foundation Committee strongly encourages each of you to consider a contribution of $100 each year. You will be a sustaining member and the contribution can be applied towards a Paul Harris fellow which is a contribution at the $1000 level. If every Rotarian around the world gave $100 we would double the amount in the Foundation and potentially double the number of worldwide projects.
Consider that in 2006-7 Brazil Rotarians averaged $394/Rotarian, Korea $268 and Hong Kong, Macau & Mongolia $264/each. Surely each one of us can contribution $100 annually to become sustaining members.
If you go out to lunch, bag lunch it once a week for 2.5 months and you will have the contribution at hand!
Thank you for the opportunity to speak about Every Rotarian Every Year- as you will hear more about it (payments can be arranged and reminder notices sent out- $25/month won't be missed and in 4 months you are there!)
Dates to Remember
=================
December 3/4th - Radio Auction
December 5th ÃÆ'Ã┼'Ã'Ã'¢?" Radio Auction Pick Up
December 11/12 ÃÆ'Ã┼'Ã'Ã'¢?" Salvation Army Bell Ringing
Upcoming speaker schedule:
=========================
November 24, 2008 - Eric Conrad
December 1, 2008 ÃÆ'Ã┼'Ã'Ã'¢?" Radio Auction Program
December 8, 2008-Richard Pattenaude, Chancellor of UM System
December 15, 2008 ÃÆ'Ã┼'Ã'Ã'¢?" Maine Center for Integrative Rehab (Scott May & Glenn Leavitt)
08-09 Board of Directors:
========================
Ally Karter - President
Sarah Sugden - President Elect
Seth Sherwood - Vice President
Cathy Langlais - Secretary
Steve Kelleher - Assistant Secretary
Allan Rancourt - Charitable Treasurer
Don Borman - Operations Treasurer
Marc Pitman - Club Service
Mark Ford - Rotary Foundation
Eric Haley - Past President
Nancy Gallagher - Public Relations
Debbie Knox - Community Service
Ed Riggs - International Service
Reg Perry - Fundraising
Tom Longstaff - Vocational Service
Next board of director meeting is scheduled for December 4th at 7:30 a.m. at PFBF
Waterville Rotary Club Web Site
===============================
http://www.clubrunner.ca/waterville
Today's Program: Bart Stevens, Habitat for Humanity, Katie Hoskins, RYLA
=============================================================
Habitat for Humanity Presentation
Bart Stevens, Immediate past president Waterville Habitat for Humanity, talked about the organization and its current project. The Waterville organization was founded 2001 and is the newest one in Maine. Currently they are constructing their third home in Waterville. It is on Turner St (just off Ann St.) The work is done by volunteers and only work on Saturdays. There is a major financial dilemma with this construction which they didn't face with the construction of the previous two houses. Even though there have been generous contributions of help and materials and the organization started with $50,000 in bank, current contributions have all but dried up.
For previous houses land was donated; however, in this case, Habitat had to purchase lot for $20,000. There was a connection to the sewer system but none to water lines. So another $10,000 was spent to connect to the water line, and that had to be done by the end of October before frost set in. At this point there isn't money to finish the house. Insulation and sheet rock are needed to finish. With about an additional $10,000, the house can be finished.
The Waterville Rotary Board voted to give Habitat $1,000, and Vice President Seth Sherwood presented the check to Bart Stevens.
RYLA Presentation by Participant Katie Hopkins Doug Carnick described the RYLA program. Katie Hopkins represented the district and our club at Northern Outdoors in Carratunk, ME. To qualify to participate in RYLA, a person must be between the ages of 21 and 35. It is an opportunity for young people in the community to develop leadership skills and takes place over a weekend. Rotary International started the program in May 1960. Rotary got the idea from a program that was developed in 1959 in Queensland, Australia.
Kim Lindlof introduced Katie Hopkins. Katie, program assistant for the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce, participates in all of the fund raising for the Chamber. Katie grew up in Vassalboro and was graduated from Winslow High School and Thomas College. She is presently enrolled at Phoenix U.
Katie's presentation included pictures of the activities in which she participated. Since the district includes French and English speaking folks, sometimes language became a barrier in the cooperative activities. 'Giants and Elves' was a getting to know each other activity followed by 'trust fall' ÃÆ'Ã┼'Ã'Ã'¢?" catching people falling off picnic tables.
In order to prepare places for sleeping, everyone was blindfolded and couldn't talk to each other while they set up the tents. Luckily they were able to remove the blindfolds to correct any problems that were created by the unusual tent construction.
That first evening there was a program about how people became involved in Rotary. The next day was the low ropes course in which they did things like passing through spider web of ropes without touching ropes. The high ropes course was "30' off the ground -- was walking across ladders, boards, jumping to catch a trapeze, sliding down a rope" pretty amazing stuff. That evening there was a program about the Rotary project to eradicate polio. The last day they spent wearing tight wet suits while white water rafting. That was when the variety of languages ecame a problem when people in that boat who didn't understand each other were paddling in all different directions. But ultimately they worked it out so that the team was functioning together. During the weekend there were a number of activities for building trust and to try leadership skills and to encourage others to do the sameÃÆ'Ã┼'Ã'Ã'¢?" picnic table falling, ropes, white water rafting opportunities.
It was a good experience, and Katie thanked the club for its support.