This Week's Program: Marion Cheney, District Governor
This Friday we proudly welcome District Governor Marion Cheney. Marion's Rotary career started in 1990 with the Indialantic, FL Club. She has been a member of the Dover, NH Club for 18 years and served as President 2009/2010 followed by 3 years as an AG. She is also a Rotary Leadership Institute graduate. Her talk today will focus on her personal journey in Rotary, the mental health initiative Rotary Action Group, and District events for the remainder of the year.
On a district level, Marion is the 23-24 District Governor, is on the Board for the Rotary Action Group/ Mental Health Initiative, serves on the District DEI Committee, and has chaired 4 district conferences.
Professionally, Marion is a licensed Broker in Maine and New Hampshire. She currently chairs the NH Professional Standards committee, serves as NH delegate for the National Assn Realtors Professional Standards Committee, serves on the grievance committee and is a trustee for the NH REALTOR'S Disaster Relief Foundation.
Marion and her Rotarian husband Harry are major donors, Paul Harris Society members, Polio Plus Society members, and Bequest Society. They live in Dover, with their Brittany rescue Roxy. Marion serves as a commissioner for the City of Dover Ethic's Commission.
Prior to Marion's 40-year real estate career she worked for the LA Dodgers at their spring training facility in Vero Beach, FL and the Hilton Family as a Regional Director. Her hobbies include fly fishing, volunteering and travel.
Fundraising Question
Tom Talbott will be polling the club this Friday on whether or not to have another "Mud Sale Online Auction" this spring. (The name comes from the Pennsylvania Dutch, where every spring, aka "Mud Season", towns across the region have hundreds of open-air auctions, yard sales, and flea markets.)
The past two years, club members have donated personal "yard sale" items, or provided personal experiences such as fishing trips, golf outings, etc. Last year was down, so we want to ask the club for input as to whether we should go for it again, or let it go. It all hinges on the items that are donated, which are then featured on a website for online bidding. We look forward to your comments!
Last Week's Event: Rotary Visioning Meeting / Long Range Planning | By Tom Talbott
The year is 2027. By that time, the Rotary Club of Portland has grown its membership to over 200 members, expanded its presence and recognition in the community, and has launched new or grown our community service, youth service, and international service projects. These, as well as other healthy and ambitious developments are the aspirational projections for our club by 22 participating “Visionary” members, who sat down together at the Italian Heritage Center/Cantina Room last Thursday evening.
The meeting started with an introduction by Patty Byers, before turning over the proceedings to five Rotarians from the Portsmouth and Brunswick clubs. They facilitated the distribution of a questionnaire, covering all topics of club programs asking, “How will these programs look for Portland Rotary in the year 2027. No such thing as a bad idea. Think big.” After each participant had 30 minutes to write their thoughts out, they shared their ideas, with the goal of expressing it in 8 words or less. Not always the case! The distilled thoughts were recorded on large easel paper. To conclude, the participants “voted” for the ideas that resonated the most for them, with colored stickers placed next to the responses.
The entire process took just over 3 hours, and the ideas are now in the hands of our club’s Vision Committee, essentially the incoming officers: Patty Byers, John Thompson, Justin Lamontage, plus Maggie McGauley, Nannette Ranger-Duncanson, David Patterson, Dick Hall, and Laura Young. They will discuss and debate the merits and feasibility of the ideas, and present their Vision Plan to the club at the March 15th meeting. Thank you to all who participated!
Bottom photo, "The Visioning Team", organizing and facilitating the event, from L-R, Portland Rotarians Patty Byers and Laura Young, along with members from other area clubs - Julie Forbes, Aileen Dugan, Tony Wagner, Cleo Villaflores, and Michele Bois-Gilbody.
Bits and Pieces |by Tom Talbott
Liz Fagan shared a note of international interest. We received a message from Granit Haliti, the director of the Ordinanca Logopedike Elokuence, located in Pristine, Kosovo. "Eloquency" is a speech therapy clinic that offers counseling, assessment, diagnosis and treatment services for all people who need a speech therapist, and our Rotary 3H (Hearing, Hands, H20) team visited their facility in 2018. Granit expressed in a post their appreciation of being a beneficiary of having 15 speech therapists like Liz, join together to provide the clinic with a one-year subscription to online Certified Trainings at speechpathologu.com. Granit would add in his personal note to Liz that "You are part of people who help Kosovos people to have peace, and better life with your donations since 2018.”
NEW MEMBER NOTIFICATIONS:
If any Portland Rotarian would like to offer a comment on a proposal, please send it to our Club President, dickhall7780@gmail.com. It will be shared with the Board of Directors prior to a vote on the application.
Speaker Schedule
March 1 - Club Assembly
March 8 - Barrett Takesian, Portland Community Squash
March 15 - Club Visioning Presentation
March 22- Club Social - Site TBD
March 29 - TBD
April 5 - Ivan Most, Engineers' Role in Climate Change
April 12 - Rebecca Williams and Julia Preston, Best Buddies Maine
Club Executives President Dick Hall President Elect Patty Byers Vice President John Thompson TreasurerDick Hall Secretary Tom Nickerson Board of Directors Bruce Jones,
Ben Millick, Quinn Slayton, Zachary Newell,
David Ertz, Maggie McGauley Sergeant-At-ArmsJake Bourdeau
The Windjammer is published online by
The Rotary Club of Portland, Maine.
Contributing Editors Jake Bourdeau, Larry Gross,
Erik Jorgensen, Julie L’Heureux,
Ben Lowry, Zach Newell, Bruce Moore,
Tom Nickerson, Dave Patterson,
Tom Talbott, Laura Young
Program Chair Doreen Rockstrom
3rd Quarter Chair Justin Lamontagne Managing Editor Tom Talbott
This Friday we proudly welcome District Governor Marion Cheney. Marion's Rotary career started in 1990 with the Indialantic, FL Club. She has been a member of the Dover, NH Club for 18 years and served as President 2009/2010 followed by 3 years as an AG. She is also a Rotary Leadership Institute graduate. Her talk today will focus on her personal journey in Rotary, the mental health initiative Rotary Action Group, and District events for the remainder of the year.
Tom Talbott will be polling the club this Friday on whether or not to have another "Mud Sale Online Auction" this spring. (The name comes from the Pennsylvania Dutch, where every spring, aka "Mud Season", towns across the region have hundreds of open-air auctions, yard sales, and flea markets.)
Liz Fagan shared a note of international interest. We received a message from Granit Haliti, the director of the Ordinanca Logopedike Elokuence, located in Pristine, Kosovo. "Eloquency" is a speech therapy clinic that offers counseling, assessment, diagnosis and treatment services for all people who need a speech therapist, and our Rotary 3H (Hearing, Hands, H20) team visited their facility in 2018. Granit expressed in a post their appreciation of being a beneficiary of having 15 speech therapists like Liz, join together to provide the clinic with a one-year subscription to online Certified Trainings at 
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