Katie Brown, a Portland Rotary Club member since 2015, has lived in Portland since graduating from college in 1989 — 21 of those years on Munjoy Hill. Except for some dabbling in the for-profit arena, she has worked almost solely for nonprofit organizations, including founding and directing the Locker Project of Cumberland Count, and Youth Full Maine of York County, focusing on childhood hunger in Maine.
One of her for-profit forays was as a dog-walker in Portland, at about the time smartphones with ever-present cameras made their debut. Her lifelong passion for photography was re-ignited as she began obsessively capturing the sights and scenes of Portland on her dog walks. Katie continues to photograph the people and the micro and macro world around us every day, documenting the geography, seasons, and social scenes of our time.
Katie is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College where she majored in writing and liberal arts. She spent her junior year at Konan University in Japan.
New Member Brian Nickerson
Mike Fortunato introduced new member Brian Nickerson to the club on July 30. Brian is an experienced Rotarian transferring from the Worcester-Falmouth Massachusetts club where he has been a member since 1982. He has a background in city planning and worked in Portland with Joe Gray as a member of the city's planning department before moving to Massachusetts. He declared himself a “fan of old cars,” and is the founder of the Cape Cod British Car Club. Brian is a four-time Paul Harris Fellow. In his comments, Brian said he was honored and excited to join Portland Rotary, and especially pleased to join on the day of our visit to the classic car museum.
Bits and Pieces
Tom Talbott provided the invocation for the July 30 meeting of 39 members.
Patty Byers shared a Foundation Moment by recognizing the first contributor of the club's new year, John Marr, who gave $500 to the Rotary Foundation. Patty asked John to comment on why he gives so generously. John said that was hard for “a guy who uses a thousand words when one will do.” John said he became inspired in 1995 by “Queenie” Wescott to contribute to the Foundation as a way to pay back for his good fortune. “I’m happy to be part of the ongoing great deeds of Rotary,” he said. “I get to hang around with great people.” Last year, John made his 10th Paul Harris contribution and became a member of the Paul Harris Society with a commitment to contribute $1,000 each year.
Charlie Frair announced plans for the Flags for Heroes project that will take place September 10 through 23 at Maine Mall. Charlie reported that 100 flags will be displayed in the concourse, each sponsored by someone in honor of a hero in their life. Further details and ways to contribute the $100 per sponsorship will be provided in the coming week.
Katie Brown reported on the Long Creek mentor group gathering last week with ten residents of the Cedar Unit. John Marr, Tom Talbott, Mike Fortunato, Dave Putnam, Jim and Barbara Willey, along with Katie visited Long Creek for the first time since the COVID outbreak began. “It was surreal,” Katie said. “The place was largely empty, except for the Cedar Unit. These young men seemed desperate for human contact.” The team shared food, set up a grill in the courtyard outside of the unit, one of the residents brought out his boom box, some shot hoops, and everyone learned more about each other since no one had met before. After the visit, the young men sent a thank you note, bringing John Marr to comment that “these kids in a tough situation are like us in many ways.”
Ellen Niewoehner will convene the Environment Committee in its first meeting on August 13 at 11:15 am. Use the same Zoom link as for meetings.
The new satellite club led by Megan Peabody and Sarah Riggott received Portland Rotary’s second District Grant this week amounting to $497.48. The unusual second grant round became possible when funds were left over from the initial phase. (Portland Rotary secured a $4,000 grant earlier to support the 3H team’s work installing water filters in batey El Salado in the Dominican Republic.) While smaller than the $4,000 the satellite club team had applied for, the group sees this as seed money to begin their traveling library project in Guatemala. Several other clubs have expressed interest in contributing to this effort to help the group meet its project goal of $8,000.The rules of this second round stipulated that first priority went to clubs that had not received any funding in the first round. Once those applications were reviewed, any remaining funds went to clubs applying for the second time.
Survey & Preference Responses Incomplete
Only 55% of the club's membership has responded to the request to select the committees on which they wish to serve in the coming year. To maximize participation, the letter will be sent again this week to those who have not yet responded. In response, please send Bob Martin an email identifying the two or three committees you’d like to work with in the coming year. This will facilitate the work of committee chairs and make the club roster more accurate.
Thus far, only 45 members have responded to the Board’s request for input on questions related to meeting in-person. If you have not yet responded, please do so in order to have an accurate tabulation of the club’s preferences.
Virtual Classic Car Road Trip
by Jake Bourdeau
Karen Sigler, curator of the Maine Classic Car Museum in Arundel, presented many of the unique characteristics of the Museum at the meeting on Friday. Launched in 2019, the vehicles housed in the collection rotate on display and include both American and European-made cars. Most of the museum’s collection is owned by one person: a snowbird living in Maine half of the year, and down south the other half. The museum prefers to present on the history of cars including their stories, oddities, and how automobiles have developed in society over the years. They rotate out cars both annually and seasonally with their exhibits, so one will see something new almost every visit.
One of the newest themed exhibits, The British Car Invasion, highlights a 1952 Jaguar, and a 1964 Austin model DB2 (James Bond model), which was previously owned by someone at the BBC. The exhibit includes an Austin A90, the Bristol 1953 401 Saloon, 1953 Sunbeam-Talbot Alpine, a pretty 1936 Bentley 4.5 Liter Saloon, and a rare edition mini-luxury Wolseley car. In addition to the British theme, the camping exhibit includes an amphibious car which was known as the car that President Lindon B. Johnson terrified Queen Elizabeth with when he drove her and the car into a lake. This exhibit has some vintage tear-drop campers from the 50’s and 60’s, one of which has traveled to over 49 states including Alaska, which was unheard of for vehicle travel. One cannot think about camping these days without considering a VW Camper Van, which is also on display. A rare “woody” owned by the Chisholm family of the Maine paper mill industry, who were also well-known philanthropists, is on display. Their yacht was used for travel with dignitaries, and became President Harry Truman’s Presidential Yacht.
Models at the museum known for their speed include an all original Ferrari, a 1963 Maserati, a 1971 Porsche 911 Targa, and a 1968 Shelby GT350 signed on the dash by Carroll Shelby. The Museum’s 1940 Ford Marmon-Harrington is considered the first SUV, and the museum has one of the only vehicles of this model year left in existence. This vehicle was recently driven in the Endicott College president’s awards show.
The prize of the museum’s collection includes a 1939 Alpha Romeo 6C sport. The collection also includes a:
Three wheeled 1937 Morgan;
1940 Cadillac owned by a Rockefeller and used in Bar Harbor;
1927 Packard – Original to the Calvin Coolidge Administration and then put in storage when FDR went into office. FDR took it out of storage and greeted the public with it after signing the New Deal. This car still has the original secret service holsters in it.
Yellow Hudson Super 8;
1950 Baby Rolux which was a French car street legal with a 2-stroke motor;
1953 Nash Healey which can be considered to be the 1st American sports car; and an,
1950 Ultramatic.
The Museum’s collection includes American automobilia such as the stamped metal signs many may remember hanging on the filling station walls, and a rare license plate exhibit from countries across the world.
College interns studying in the fields of technology or history create multimedia presentations and videos for the museum. Their projects not only help the museum captivate their audience, but the students earn college credit, advance digital media skills, and learn more about automobile history. When the museum evaluated their initial business model and demographics, they got their target audience wrong: families with kids now provide the most visitors to this unique collection of cars. Like many museums, their modern event space is also used as avenue for corporate meetings, private parties, fundraisers, rehearsal dinners, and private tours. With any luck, hopefully they will host another Portland Rotary meeting.
August 6 | Katie Brown, Reflections on Our Town
August 13 | Reza Jalali, Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center
August 20 | Palaver Strings
August 27 | Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar
September 3 | NO MEETING
September 10 | Hadlock Field: In-person NO ZOOM
September 17 | Blaine Grimes, Chief Venture Officer, GMRI
September 24 | Rita Heimes, Chief Privacy Officer, IAPP
October 1 | Emily Isaacson, conductor
October 8 | TBD
October 15 | Henry Beck, Maine Treasurer
October 22 | TBD
October 29 | Dana Eidsness, Director, North Atlantic Development Organization
November 5 | Leigh Saufley, Dean, Maine Law
graduating from college in 1989 — 21 of those years on Munjoy Hill. Except for some dabbling in the for-profit arena, she has worked almost solely for nonprofit organizations, including founding and directing the Locker Project of Cumberland Count, and Youth Full Maine of York County, focusing on childhood hunger in Maine. 
Rotarian transferring from the Worcester-Falmouth Massachusetts club where he has been a member since 1982. He has a background in city planning and worked in Portland with Joe Gray as a member of the city's planning department before moving to Massachusetts. He declared himself a “fan of old cars,” and is the founder of the Cape Cod British Car Club. Brian is a four-time Paul Harris Fellow. In his comments, Brian said he was honored and excited to join Portland Rotary, and especially pleased to join on the day of our visit to the classic car museum.
presented many of the unique characteristics of the Museum at the meeting on Friday. Launched in 2019, the vehicles housed in the collection rotate on display and include both American and European-made cars. Most of the museum’s collection is owned by one person: a snowbird living in Maine half of the year, and down south the other half. The museum prefers to present on the history of cars including their stories, oddities, and how automobiles have developed in society over the years. They rotate out cars both annually and seasonally with their exhibits, so one will see something new almost every visit. 
