07/08/16 Bits & Pieces

Posted by Jake Bourdeau
 
President Laura Young asked Russ Burleigh to give the invocation. Russ presented a poem about tracking and spending life with the number of heartbeats rather than money, since money cannot buy heartbeats, and spending heartbeats may be a more applicable measurement of a relationship.
 
Richard Burbank played and lead us in 'America the Beautiful' as a fitting song for the Fourth of July week.     
Don Zillman (back in Portland) led us in the 'Pledge of Allegiance.'     
 
Several visiting Rotarians were at the meeting including Lila Day from Washington and Tom Broadway from Florida.

Our meeting was visited by several people, including President Laura’s daughters: Katie and Megan. 

President Laura also thanked those responsible for the meeting, including the Meeting Day Committee, Sergeant-at-Arms, and the Windjammer reporters.
Birthdays in July are being celebrated by a minimum of the following Rotarians: Mark Millar, Al Levenson, Tom Nickerson, Jack Carr, Jennifer Frederick,  Steve Stromsky,  Julie L'Heureux, John Marr, Elizabeth Banwell, Peter Noyes, Mike Reed, David Lee, and John Curran.  Happy Birthday To All!
Rob Chatfield led the raffle draw for a shot at the pot of $441. President Laura’s daughter, Katie, picked Peggy (Queeny) for a try at finding the Queen of Hearts. Peggy picked the 10 of spades, so unfortunately we will have to wait at least another week.
Starting Strong – Janelle LoSciuto indicated that there are volunteering opportunities with the 'Starting Strong Group' which meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:15-12:15. A Portland Rotary fund raiser is helping to feed the kids and provide books and reading.
President Laura read some 'Thank You' notes that have been sent to Rotary including:
Katie Brown for the Locker Project. Katie, on behalf of the Locker Project, provided sincere thanks for choosing them for the proceeds from the inaugural BBQ crawl.
 
A teacher from the Lyseth School thanked us for donating time and energy for helping the school classroom with fluency and decoding unknown words, and with childhood hunger efforts.
 
Glenn Nerbak thanked Rotary on behalf of Portland Public schools, whereby the Youth Services Committee selected them for funding some extracurricular and after school activities.
 
Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA). 10 sophomores were selected and attended the event, as well as the closing ceremony. The kids chanted and cheered, had bonfires, and presented skits. Afterwards you could tell they were very thankful for the opportunity to attend. Over 100 sophomores from the District were there and some who attended said it was life changing.
 
Travis Parker was voted in as the new Sergeant-at-Arms. We appreciate you volunteering, Travis. 
Returning Past President of Portland Rotary, Tom Saturley, is the newest club member, with Peter Goffin as his sponsor. Peter thought back to his first meeting……it was upstairs in the HIBTB ball room. He remembered sitting left of podium; Scott Carlisle was President; and Tom Saturley ran the raffle that day. Tom has a long resume as an Auctioneer throughout the country, works at his company 'Tranzon Auction Properties,' was a club past president, a Paul Harris Fellow, former chair of Opportunity Alliance, and chair of the National Society of Auctioneers. Tom is married to Ellie Baker and has two daughters and grand kids.
According to Past President Bowen Depke, we had twenty-three (23) new members last year and tied our number with the Portsmouth Club. Congratulations! The tie breaker was won by the Portland Rotary Club for having the most potential Rotarians on the docket. Let’s shoot to increase this amount over the coming year.
 
A moment of silence was held in commemoration of the policemen killed in Dallas, TX and in Baton Rouge, LA. this past week.