Zoom Meeting of April 15th
Thanks to COVID-19 our tax returns were not due on April 15th so we could enjoy a presentation from Megan Clawson of Berwick Academy about outdoor learning, especially for younger students. Outdoor learning, besides being perfect during the pandemic, develops a love of nature as well as an appreciation of it so that these young people will take better care of it in the future, meeting the goal of sustainability. The child-centered challenges organized for these kids are just right. They work together, explore, and stay fit while learning science, math, art, music, world languages and gaining literacy. Nature is always changing so there is always something new to see or do. The teachers have found that children gain confidence and learn appropriate risk-taking, and then their pride grows and they develop their fine and gross motor skills as well as their cognitive skills. They practice collaboration and teamwork which leads to better peer interactions when they are outdoors. Their sensory experiences force them to slow down and really look at their environment. In short, the outdoor learning provided to very young students (pre-k and kindergarten) consists of cross-curricular experiences and also social emotional learning. All so good for children! Certainly the grandparents and parents in our club were imagining how wonderful this would be for the little ones in their lives.
Next Meetings
We expect that someone from the Waldorf School in Eliot will be speaking to us on April 22nd. On April 29th, Dave Underhill and Larry McCullough from the Pine Tree Institute will be talking about next steps in the ACEs program we learned about a few weeks back.
Other News and Board Meeting
Brenda Gagne has been diligently attending the PET training in preparation for becoming our next club president. She is currently working on setting goals for her year.
At Monday's board meeting, which took place in Robin Wheeler's beautiful back yard around the fire pit (thank you, Robin), Jeremy Fogg announced that our electronics fundraiser is definitely on! So be ready to bring your stuff (he will provide the guidelines) to the Eliot Commons parking lot on May 29th. We will be working with the company collecting the items from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Some items will require a payment, but otherwise folks are expected to make a donation of some kind for this service we are providing. Proceeds will be going to our scholarship fund so we can continue to support students at the same level we have been. We may also throw in a 50/50 raffle to enrich the fundraising.
Coming soon is something we call "Robin's FunDrive" where individuals get pledges from people they know for something they will be doing. For example, during the board meeting Tom Harmon and Richard Donhauser proposed riding a tandem bike together for 5 miles and gathered monetary pledges from various people at the meeting. Think about what you might like to propose to your friends and family to support. Robin's experience is that this is an easy but very lucrative fundraiser.
The Road Rally committee (AKA Our Very Own Amazing Race) is honing in on the details and it looks like we've set a date of the last Saturday in June (June 26th) from 4 to 6 p.m. Details to follow.
Marshwood High School's senior class asked us to donate to their class project which would be a sort of serenity garden on the MHS campus. Grace Hanson, who happens to be the president of our Interact Club made the solicitation on behalf of the senior class (she is the treasurer), but after some discussion we decided to ask her to join us at our next Zoom meeting to provide us with more specifics. We have reached out to her, but haven't heard for sure that she will be at the meeting to tell us about this project.
FYI, Lena Ugren has been doing some brilliant work creating murals all over the place and she is working on a design for the ugly wall of the South Berwick Food Pantry. Can't wait to see what she has in mind!
We also discussed briefly the possibility of offering a scholarship to a Berwick Academy student, as BA has been such a strong member of our club. We considered perhaps an award for extraordinary service by a graduating senior and/or a scholarship for a pre-K student.
Stay healthy and happy!