What a vibrant club! Two committees were meeting before the regular meeting got underway. At 10:45, the joint Lebanon/Lebanon-Riverside “PIE on the 4th of July” committee got underway, and at 11:00, the Innovation committee met.
Called to order by: Nearly-past President Garlan
In the absence of Dr. PianoMan, Garlan led us in a capella renditions of R-O-T-A-R-Y and The US National Anthem, reminding us why we usually sing America the Beautiful, or America instead.
Invocation: Westin Greene
Lunch: great tomato soup, rice, chicken a la king, BBQ chicken, spinach, other stuff and the usual salads. One must be fast to escape with a bite of dessert in our club . . .
Song Leader: Mary Detsch Song: This Land is Your Land (A Capella, great job Mary! Altho a child’s song was played to help guide us…)
Visiting Rotarians:
None
Guests:
None
Raffle: Phil Rentz, no joy but lots of sympathy… (yeah, sure)
Announcements:
- Garlan read a letter from Mascoma high school thanking us for $1000 scholarship
- Next Thursday, June 25, no meeting: changeover at Hotel Coolidge. 6 PM, cash bar, 6:45 PM, dinner. Make checks out to Hotel Coolidge otherwise cash at the door. Evans Hale, the new director of Opera North, will be the entertainment.
- Don MacMeekin gave an update on the auction: Jean Wulpern and committee have met 4-5 times and preparations. New this year will be sponsors and vendors: vendors may have booth/space for a fee of $500. It is time to start solicitations! Steve Usle will mentor (not “chair”) the solicitation committee. Beneficiary will be Upper Valley Haven: Healthy Eating program (helps kids understand balanced meals): Chopped (food preparation program which teaches how to prepare and serve to other teams): Backpack program, which is a backpack of food for balanced meals over the weekend.
- Dan Affeldt – Pie sale: posters are available, please take some to post. (Also available as download on the club site) Sign up for assignments: set up serving cleanup etc. Linda Copp will take your $30 to buy pies if you can’t make pies. Deliver pies to Jake’s on July 1-3, or Senior Ctr., Friday night or early Saturday morning. Delivery prior to Saturday morning is much preferred so that plenty of time is available to cut and serve pie slices. Note also that Mascoma Savings Bank has donated $300 to pie sale.
Westin will distribute the current list of pie sign-ups to refresh memories and obtain commitments from those not signed up.
- Lebanon Rotary Board voted to send $150 toward newest-club-in-the-district Randolph Sunrise’s Rotary bell.
Brags:
- Steve Usle bragged that his son is in David Mamet’s Oleanna being presented at the Community Theater of Woodstock, and another location that your scribe missed. Also bragged that he has “walked the walk” and installed a heat pump and solar in his house. Expects a seven year return on investment.
- Rick Dyment bragged that he found a previously unknown cousin in Canada, and found that their great-grandfathers were brothers! As a result he found information about a grandfather and great-grandfather’s burial plot and Prince Edward Island (I think this is what I heard).
- Garlan bragged that his great, great, great grandfather was a bugler at Valley Forge.
- Mike Weins informed us that he has reached a 76, and therefore mentioned a check to the foundation is appropriate. He further bragged that he was at Three Tomatoes with Ron Paul yesterday: that is Ron Michaud and Paul Tierney… Had a couple glasses of wine followed by a pitcher of (something else), but still able to walk home. (I’d brag about that too)
Rotary Minute: Kevin Gould – Rotary Foundation figures: our club has donated $9300 to polio plus this year. The entire district has donated $171,000. Every Rotarian Every Year program has donated $270,000 over the years. We have 30 PHFs in the current membership. Our club also has two members of the Bequest Society: this is earned by a donation of at least $10,000 in a person’s will, and 4 Benefactors (any amount in your will).
This is the end of John’s inaugural year.
The Ledyard Charter School has about 40 students, who dropped out of regular high school. Five graduated this year from LCS: two more may complete the work this summer. The graduates have various plans: one will join the Marines, one is going to River Valley community college, another to nursing at Plymouth State, and another is a $3200 scholarship for the Nashua college auto repair shop. One student hopes to go to the Thompson school at University of New Hampshire: however, he is currently doing and should work, and is the sole support for his family.
Funding for the charter school consists of $5400 per student from the state. There is no city support. By comparison, Lebanon spends $16,000 per student. Lebanon special ed students can cost $23,500. All area schools accept the LCS curriculum.
LCS provides oatmeal and yogurt in the morning for breakfast, and a crockpot meal for lunch. Teachers often participate in the food preparation. There is also a backpack program on Fridays to provide students with weekend food. Staff is like family.
LCS is developing partnerships with other institutions. A very successful program this year partnered a Dartmouth professor’s poetry class (Dr Ivy Schweitzer) with LCS. In the first semester the class was held, including Dartmouth students, at an LCS classroom. Dartmouth students were partnered with LCS students. In the second semester the classes were often held at Dartmouth. LCS students that originally said they were not interested in poetry and would certainly not present, did present at the end of the second semester. In fact, 15 LCS students presented, including four that were videotaped because they could not make the presentation.
Another partnership was with Whaleback ski area, where students volunteered various services at the area, and then in most cases had their first experience with winter sports. Kids that initially fell down frequently were skiing like pros at the end.
Next year, LCS plans to repeat the Dartmouth program, and will back program. There will also be additional work assignments, of foods class, and farm to table classes.
Is it worthwhile? When a parent tells him that their child has attended more classes in the Charter School than in their previous 16 years of schooling, the answer is a profound YES.
John passed around yearbooks, printed by Whitman Communications! Rotary helped support two of the food programs.
Other development efforts: “Standing right in front of one!” (Volunteer). We love volunteers – one comes in 2 days a week to talk about laws and teenagers; how to talk with police.
In closing, John mentioned that given the obvious financial situation of LCS, the schools use any kind of help they can get.
Submitted by: Bruce Pacht, Garlan Hoskin and Ron Carr
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