Where Are My Rotattlers?
Your club secretary has a stack of notes from club meetings and yet hasn't published a Rotattler since early May! Blame it on the grandchildren or the kids visiting from Virginia for 3.5 weeks or the farm activities or old age and laziness and the heat.
Anyway, this will summarize what was keeping us all busy at Rotary these past several weeks.
1. We planned our electronics fundraiser, to be held on May 29th, rain or shine. Well, it was mostly rain and wind but we were strong and brave and had a successful one. Jeremy reports that we collected over $4000 in cash for that day's work, and we will know soon what we netted towards our scholarship fund after the recycling company comes up with the final tally. Miraculously, we filled the truck! Next year we will have to ask for 2 trucks, right?
2. Lena Ugren proposed a design for a mural for the food pantry. It is still being fine-tuned. So generous of Lena to offer her talents in this way.
3. We had a couple of lovely board meetings at Robin Wheeler's beautiful patio and yard. Good fellowship amid peaceful surroundings.
4. We voted to donate $100 to the District Conference auction in June to be used to purchase a gift card. We also discussed making donations to the ACEs program as requested by Dave from the Portsmouth club and $250 to the MHS senior class project to create a tranquil area on the campus once we get a better idea of their plans.
5. Jeremy Fogg gave us the ability to collect payments using credit cards and Venmo. We continue to make progress keeping up with the technology, although deep down we know that only Jeremy and Brandon Elsemore and Lena understand how to do all that. The rest of us are faking it. Thanks goodness for our young techies.
6. The committee selected this year's scholarship recipient: Ned Whitesell.
7. We keep discussing where and when we will have live meetings. We have talked about the Stagecoach Inn, the Community Center, Spring Hill, the South Berwick Baptist Church, Berwick Academy. We have a caterer (Marcia from The Catered Event) who is willing to prepare food for us to bring to whatever venue we choose, but we will need to do the hauling and setting up, etc. It's coming soon, though.
8. We voted to have our changeover event at the Wheelers' house on July 15th from about 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. It will be a pot luck and each person should report to Brenda Gagne what he/she plans to bring. After the changeover we hope to start our live meetings on Thursday mornings at the original 7:15 a.m. start time.
9. Richard Donhauser, Paige Johnson and Mike Lassel are working on the Raspberry Festival Road Rally (unofficial name, since it happens when Strawberry Festival would've happened on the last Saturday in June). They will report on the details, but it involves following a list of instructions and taking photos of your team fulfilling each instruction, with pictures eventually being posted to our Facebook page. Each car will pay an entry fee. That's the fundraising part. The actual road rally/scavenger hunt part is the fun part. There will be prizes, too.
10. Speaking of that, at one of the board meetings we introduced the Harmon/Donhauser challenge. They were to ride over 5 miles on a tandem bicycle. Some of us made pledges if they succeeded. Evidently, they have evidence that they did it, so be prepared to pay up if you committed to that fundraiser. Future personal challenges will also help raise funds for the club.
11. We will be at Eliot Festival Day selling lemonade and doing a 50/50 on the last Saturday in September, unless we find out that others are selling lemonade. If so, we have other possibilities up our sleeves.
12. There is also a fall fundraiser in the works. We just need to make sure it does not conflict with other community fundraisers, especially the Marshwood Education Foundation.
13. Jeremy Fogg will be our speaker this coming Thursday. Did you know he is nationally renowned for his art conservation work, having been cited in the NY Times and the Portsmouth papers, among others? He will give us his Powerpoint presentation and in the future we will have an after-hours to actually see the place where all the magic happens.
14. Speaking of art, we had a most informative talk by Ruth Green McNally (sp?) of the Ogunquit Art Museum. This gem of a museum opened in 1953. Henry Strater (sp?) was an artist and writer in the 1920s in Paris and a modernist who did paintings, sculptures, drawings and the like, and his collection contained thousands of pieces set in small gardens with sculptures. That was the start of the museum. Ruth has been the curator of the museum since 2016 and makes sure it is current and excellent. Jeremy has helped her immensely. COVID caused the museum to be shut down but it reopened on July 1, 2020 to limited visitors (up to 15 at a time) who must follow the protocols for safety. The museum was like an oasis during the pandemic with folks coming from places like Brooklyn, Manhattan, Boston, who needed a respite from the pandemic. Coming soon is an exhibit called "Remember the Ladies" featuring women artists from 1900-1950 who worked in Ogunquit. Ruth mentioned so many American artists whose work has or is on exhibition there. There is always something new coming in. The permanent gallery has exhibits that celebrate Ogunquit artists. Coming soon is Alberto Rey, a Cuban American artist who depicts the immigration experiences and will have a new painting to show. They have an arts ball, a founders gallery, and so much more to inspire you. The museum is located on 543 Shore Road in Ogunquit (take a right at Bessie's, she said).
So that's it in a nutshell. Now I can throw away all those scraps of paper.
Hope you join the zoom meeting Thursday to enjoy Jeremy's talk.