President Gale presided over the meeting and promptly called us to order at 7:30am

The Greeter was Donna Deos (yes, the same Donna as scribe of this missive!), who did the invocation with appreciation and thanks to the club, it’s family like qualities and great deeds that all members do.

 

Bow: 40

Visiting Rotarians: 1 (Lucy Morris of Concord Rotary Club)

Guests: 0

Speaker: 1 (Doug Baker)

Scooters: 2

Total in Attendance: 42

 

President Gale let everyone know that the Annual District Assembly held in Keene, NH will be April 1^st this year – not fooling! She’d like for us to have as high of an attendance at this event as possible including bringing Interact and Early Act.

 

A show of hands had President Gale, President-Elect Judy Goodnow, Mike Griffin, Alan Kanegsberg & Donna Deos going. Later on, after passing the sign-up sheet around we had about doubled that number. Nice job folks! We usually carpool to this event so the more the merrier. Rotary road trips are always fun.

 

The Car Show is on May 20^th this year. If you have any old road signs like the one Gerry Carrier held up as a prop (blue background), please bring them in for updating. He also stated that they are working on sponsors and priority goes to past year donors so you should be receiving a letter about that soon to re-up. The sooner you re-up the sooner you get to choose the trophy you want to sponsor, etc.

 

President Gale handed out flyers for the Bow Public Safety Building Engraved Brick Fundraiser. You can get a 4” x 8” brick for $50 or an 8” x 8” for $100. Deadline is May 1^st. Checks are payable to the Bow Volunteer Fire Association and can be mailed to the Town Managers Office at 10 Grandview Road, Bow, NH 03304.

 

Rick Minard reminded us all of the "Newer Members Gathering" at Litherman’s on Hall Street at 5:30pm tonight. This "informal" event is geared toward gathering feedback from our newer members so that we make sure they are receiving the support they would like and so we can find out where we may need to improve on that. All members are welcome though, who doesn’t like to get together for Rotary fellowship over a nice fresh beer?!

 

Robert Louf started us off. His son has a great internship lined up for this summer, his daughter is working for a company that does Destination Weddings and gets to go check out the destinations, and he and his wife celebrated 28 years of marriage! Nicely done, Robert.

Next up was Dave Stack who celebrated his "double nickel" birthday. He reminisced about his first concert where Sammy Hager was the opener and read us a very interesting rendition of the lyrics to "I Can’t Drive 55!" Good thing he has an in with the local cops! (…or is it?! j/k)

Donna Deos was next up as her/my birthday is today!!! So, the club sang to me for my birthday and it was simply smashing! We usually don’t sound that good – must be because I wasn’t singing! My update was that Eric and I are in year 18, the 3 girls are all doing well as are the 6 grands. Starsea wanted everyone to know that those 6 are not from her, her sisters are bringing in all of those kids so far! It’s been a more challenging year for me, but things are still good, I still love what I’m doing and I’m grateful for the Rotary and my friends and family in the club and the love and support I receive there.

Stepping out of order, because it fits here, we were able to sing a second round of Happy Birthday as our guest speaker also was born on February 24^th! Happy Birthday, Doug Baker!

 

Jon Ruggles, of R&T Electric, paid a logo fine and late fee.

Linda Lorden was fined for her picture being published.

Rob Werner paid a logo fine for his "One Toke Over the Line" pot logo fee!

 

Steve DeStefano paid a Happy 5 for his newest grandson, Theo, coming home from the hospital. He and Mom, Alison, are doing well. His daughter Kimberley came out to visit and meet her new nephew and that was good too.

Mike Griffin was happy for his daughter Caitlyn who passed her second of four tests for her CPA designation. Good job Caitlyn!

 

Raffle: 

Paul Rizzi had the winning ticket, but drew the Ace of Spades so the pot continues to grow. (different Pot, Rob…stop bogarting…;-D)

 

Matt Gatzke introduced our speaker for Noreen Christensen who is somewhere in sunny Florida and not getting fooled into coming back early no matter how many days we have of spring weather in February!

Doug Baker is the President of the NH Audubon Society. He is 50 years old today and has a 5 year old daughter he is clearly very fond of and proud of. He has an impressive background that Matt read to us from his bio. His presentation was on the NH Audubon Society. Here are some of the facts:

Mission: Protecting NH’s natural environment for wildlife and people

They are a non-profit, state based organization, independent from the National Audubon Society (as are most of the New England States, except Vermont). They were incorporated in 1914; have 5,600 members; a $2.2 million annual budget; 35 – 50 staff (variation is due to summer camps); 12 – 20 Trustees on the Board; 4 centers, 39 sanctuaries and 8,000 acres of land; and 8 regional chapters.

Current visioning showed 4 Strategic "Pillars" which are:

Environmental Education (EE)

Conservation Science

Land Management

Environmental Policy and Advocacy

Doug came up with a 4 P plan, which is welcomes feedback on. It is:

Two other nice facts are that they have an 81% membership retention rate and their annual giving has increased by 68% over 2016.

The club members asked good questions to which Doug had nice answers. It was a pleasure to have him visit our club. I think we should pursue having him join!

The meeting was closed promptly at 8:30am with a Toast to Rotary the World Over.

 

Respectfully submitted by today’s Birthday Girl (have I mentioned that yet?!)

~ Donna <3

 

 

Bow resident; sells and installs indoor “wall of plants” systems
 

 

 

 

 

Dave Stack, Program Chair
townmgr@bow-nh.gov