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Russell Hampton
ClubRunner
Speakers
Dec 01, 2017
Dec 08, 2017
Dec 15, 2017
Dec 22, 2017
Dec 29, 2017
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Executives & Directors
President
 
First Vice President
 
Second Vice President
 
Treasurer
 
Secretary
 
Immediate Past President
 
Sergeant-at-Arms
 
Director Term End 2018
 
Director Term End 2018
 
Director Term End 2019
 
Director Term End 2019
 
Community Service Chair
 
International Service Chair
 
Vocational Service Chair
 
Youth Service Chair
 
Rotary Foundation Chair
 
Club Protection Officer
 
Vision Champion
 
Communications-WJ Bulletin Ed
 
Communications-PR External
 
Constitution/ByLaws Chair
 
Fund Raising Chair
 
Good Cheer Chair
 
Invocation Chair
 
Meeting Day Chair
 
Music Committee Chair
 
Program Chair
 
Membership Chair
 
Web Administrator
 
Administrative Coordinator
 
Welcome to the Rotary Club of Portland, Maine!
Portland Rotary
Service Above Self
We meet Fridays at 12:15 PM
Holiday Inn By-the-Bay
88 Spring Street
Portland, ME  04101
United States
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Portland Rotary Club
NO MEETING 11/24/17
 
11/17/17 Jennifer Hutchins, Exec Dir Maine Assn Non Profits

On Friday, we heard from Portland’s own Jennifer Hutchins, who, for the past year, has been the director of the Maine Association of Nonprofits, a 900-member organization with a statewide mission of promoting, assessing and fostering professional development for Maine’s nonprofit community. The nonprofit sector represents “all those things of value that the private sector and the public sector can’t figure out how to do.”  According to Hutchins, “it’s not just charities,” but a huge range of activities, from Easter Seals to Maine Med, to the United Way and the all-volunteer local historical society. 

To understand the impact of this sector in Maine, consider that it employs 95,000 workers (1 in 6) with a total contribution of over $11 billion to the Maine economy. Maine has around twice the number of nonprofits as the national average, a phenomenon driven at least in part by a home-rule-centric civic approach which values independence. This has resulted in 400 municipal units and lots of micro-organizations that want to do things their own way. Here the nonprofit sector does what in many places of the country, the government does. While the number of people working in nonprofits is greatest in Cumberland and Penobscot counties, the proportional amount of employment by such organizations is actually greatest in rural counties. 

Ms. Hutchins spoke briefly about “the Meds and the Eds” – the large hospitals and colleges that are outsized and which can skew perceptions of the nonprofit sector. Almost 6,000 organizations are registered with the IRS in Maine. Of those, 89% have budgets of less than $500,000 per year and 75% have budgets under $100,000 per year. So many of these tiny organizations are making an impact with few cash resources. The difference is in voluntarism – which is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

Challenges faced by almost all nonprofit organizations include fund-raising, board development, and attracting youth. The traditional nonprofit corporate model of CEO and board of directors is an old one, but it’s not necessarily a structure that is intuitive to young people who volunteer and contribute differently. Board governance structures may need to be modernized to attract the next generation of nonprofit volunteers.

As for board service, she noted that too many organizations actively search for wealth above all other characteristics. While this can have obvious value, she suggested that boards where the members are totally focused and engaged are often significantly more effective than boards that feature people who are wealthy, yet who might not be “all in.”  

Ms Hutchins came to the Association following a successful tenure leading Creative Portland, and before that, working at the Muskie School, from which she received a master’s in public policy and public finance. She lives in Portland, near the USM campus, with her husband and two children.

 

(President Don Zillman, Jennifer Hutchins and Steve Mortimer.)

11/17/17 Bits & Pieces

President Don Zillman opened the meeting by welcoming 60 members, 1 guest and 1 visiting Rotarian. Gracie Johnston offered us our invocation, where she reminded us that friendship is a gift worth giving thanks for and thanked all of us for being her friend. We then pledged our Allegiance to our Flag and offered a sonorous rendition of God Bless America, with Past President Russ Burleigh at the keyboard.


Charlie Frair (at right) and Paul Tully co-chaired a committee composed of about 65 Rotarians to put together a lunch honoring our veterans of the military service on Veterans' Day. The feedback has been consistently favorable and effusive. The committee had five goals and all were satisfied. Through no fault of their own and with a lot of effort extended by our Public Relations people, it was felt that our Rotary Club's recognition by the media could have been better. The entire club showed their appreciation to Charlie and Paul for their outstanding efforts and results.


President Don read off a number of news pieces that were brought to his attention, such as the broad spread given to “Local Man Makes Hands” published in the Portland Papers regarding the 3-D hands being produced and taken to the Dominican Republic by our own International Service Committee.


Janelle LoSciuto led us in a brief song, “We Gather Together,” while Kathy Grammer accompanied us on the keyboard.


Past President Don Lowry (at left) gave us a “Rotary Minute,” where he shared that it is the service and goodwill that Rotary provides to local and international efforts that have inspired him. He said that our club is but a part of a much larger worldwide organization. He lamented that a club as great and giving as ours has not attained a 100% participation in Foundation giving and encouraged everyone to do so. (See separate article this issue.)


For decades our Club has volunteered at Saint Vincent DePaul's soup kitchen on the Wednesday preceding Thanksgiving and provided the food, cooking, serving and cleaning, so that some of the many indigent in Portland could have a Thanksgiving dinner. Gracie Johnson, Community Service chair, has thanked everyone who has volunteered this year and is asking for some of those volunteers to help with the clean up. If you can, please contact Gracie (gracie.johnston@wcsh6.com) or Loretta - her assistant on Nov 22 (lrowe@maine.rr.com). Thank you


Erik “Shoeman” Greven (at right) has been working with the Preble Street Resource Center for years and coordinating a number of Rotary efforts in support of their needs. Once a month we serve dinner at the center, which is great and important. We get to see some of our neighbors who are in need of so much. One of their needs is decent footwear, especially with the cold winter months upon us. Members are asked to bring usable footwear to be passed along to them. We still have time, so dig into your closet and bring in the "hardly-worn" and "in-good-shape" footwear you no longer use. Contact Erik Greven (egrev95@aol.com) and he will deliver them to Preble Street. Your donations will be greatly appreciated.


Janelle Loscuito has been bringing her future-Rotarian son, little Luca, to our meetings since he was an infant (and before). We all seem to think of him as a member, so we get a two-for-one when Janelle’s with us (and we now know Luca is going to have a baby sister in a few short months). Luca is not just a pretty face and to prove he does his share to help the cause, his mom bought a raffle ticket from this week's Raffle guy, Jerry Angier (in photo at left), who showed us a new way to shuffle the cards (dropped the deck). Poor little Luca was deprived of a bundle of bucks for his college fund when he pulled a card closer to his age (the three of clubs), allowing the pot to grow.


Steve Mortimer (at right), in taking over as Champion of our Vision Committee, has taken on the important task of gathering our thoughts (aka herding cats) through a club survey, relative to what direction we'd like to move our club. The response has been low, so he requested that we please take the time to submit the surveys ASAP. The survey has been resent to everyone through email. If you don't share your ideas, you won't have any room to grumble. Contact Steve: stevenhmortimer@gmail.com.


Our Dominican Republic outreach, spearheaded by Doctors Roger (at left) and Liz Fagan, are requesting that if you placed a “Hearts For Hearing” donation box out in the public for hearing aid collections, please pick them up and return them to Roger, so he can do any needed repairs before they prepare them for transit to the Dominican Republic on their upcoming trip. Contact Roger: drrogerfagan@gmail.com.


We are a strong and sizable club, but have not had a District Governor come out of our membership since Past President Bob Patten (deceased 2015). That was corrected when the nomination of Past President Dick Hall (at right) was placed to a vote, with a unanimous in-favor response. It’s up to us to give him our enthusiastic support. Thanks and CONGRATULATIONS, Dick!

The Rotary Foundation

As Rotarians, we have good reason to take pride in our membership. We can be proud of the fine programs presented, the fellowship at our weekly meetings, and the money and volunteer manpower we donate to the many projects in our community.

An important reason for us to be proud of our Rotary membership is that we band together with many thousands of fellow members around the world as a force for improvement in the human condition, as well as for fostering peace and understanding among people in every corner of the world. We do this through our Rotary Foundation.

The programs and accomplishments of the Foundation are much too numerous to list here, but include not only the well-known fight against polio, but programs to alleviate hunger, fight disease by improving sanitary conditions and clean water, promote literacy, provide scholarships for international study, the Rotary Peace Centers, vocational training, and much more, even including support of our own 3-H project for Hearing, Hands and clean water in the Dominican Republic.

You can take great pride in being a part of this wonderful organization. We encourage you to support our Rotary Foundation, so we can continue to help others locally and world-wide. Your donation should be for whatever level you are comfortable with and able to give.

Thank you.

Volunteer Opportunities
Following is a list of our Club's volunteer projects. If you know of other opportunities, please contact Loretta: lrowe@maine.rr.com
 

                          When
Project              Who to Contact


Preble Street        4th Wednesday ea month
Resource Ctr        4-6:30 pm
Soup Kitchen        Gracie Johnston
                           gracie.johnston@wcsh6.com


Game Night         3rd Tuesday ea month
Long Creek          Mike Fortunato
Youth Center        michael.k.fortunato@gmail.com
                           or Jim Willey
                           jimandbarbarawilley@gmail.com


St Vincent           Wednesday, Nov. 22nd
De Paul's              8:00-10:30 am Food Prep
Soup Kitchen/      10:30-1:00 pm Servers
Auditorium            1:00-2:00 pm Clean up

                          307 Congress St., Portland
                          Gracie Johnston
                          gracie.johnston@wcsh6.com
                          939-0315
                     OR Loretta Rowe
                          lrowe@maine.rr.com
                          883-5432
                           

 

Rotary Meeting Locations

If you would like to mark your calendars,
we are scheduled at the following locations
through March 2018:

2017
Nov 24 - NO MEETING - HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Dec 01 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay
Dec 08 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay

Dec 15 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay
Dec 22 - NO MEETING - HAPPY HOLIDAYS
Dec 29 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay

2018
Jan 05 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay
Jan 12 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay

Jan 19 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay
Jan 26 - Clarion Hotel

Feb 02 - Clarion Hotel
Feb 09 - Clarion Hotel

Feb 16 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay
Feb 23 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay

Mar 02 - Clarion Hotel
Mar 09 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay
Mar 16 - tbd
Mar 23 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay
Mar 30 - Holiday Inn By-the-Bay


Blue BOLD dates are scheduled Board meeting days.

Any questions, please contact Loretta at: lrowe@maine.rr.com
 

Item Donations Needed
The following items are needed on an on-going basis. Please feel free to bring them to a meeting where we will collect and distribute them.
 
Crutches4Africa - Crutches, canes, folding walkers and wheelchairs to be shipped to Africa.
 
Toiletries for the Shelters - Collect those tiny bottles of toiletries you are paying for during your next hotel visit and bring them home for members of our society who find themselves staying at a shelter and in need of personal hygiene products.
Prospective Rotarians

As we receive applications for prospective members to join our Portland Rotary Club, the names of the applicants will be included in our Windjammer. Any information and/or comments you would like to share will be handled confidentially. Please contact Loretta Rowe: lrowe@maine.rr.com. Your input will be appreciated.

PROSPECT                 BUSINESS
(Sponsor)                                                                           
Ben Jackson                North Yarmouth Academy
(Transferring Rotarian)

Kim D'Amaro               The Salvation Army
(Jim Willey)

Thank you.