Present: President Neil Zanni, David Roth, Joan Ficarra, Tammy Deveikes, Lisa Cudak, Jim Fusco, Alley Giangrande, Ellen Gale, and Maila Berry
President Neil Zanni Roth called the meeting to order at 7:23 a.m. @ AOCU
Pledge of Allegiance: Sierra Hughes
Inspiration Quote: Ellen Gale
Birthdays/Anniversary Shoutout: None
Card Raffle: Nancy, our guest picked David Roth's name and he pulled a five for $5.00. ($52 total)
Guests: Nancy Beach, Sierra Hughes, & Cassi Gendron
4th week in bulletin - We would like propose Enier Rodrigues Da Silva as a member of Montachusett Area Rotary club. If anyone has any questions or concerns please reach out to President Neil Zanni.
2nd week in bulletin - We would like propose Sierra Hughes as a member of Montachusett Area Rotary club. If anyone has any questions or concerns please reach out to President Neil Zanni.
Speaker: We had Nancy Beach, President of the Lunenburg Food Pantry join our meeting this morning. Nancy is retired but loves what she does by serving the Lunenburg residents; mottoe, Hunger is Family size. The pantry has about 50 regular committed volunteers each week and she oversees the social media, grant writing, coordinates the food picks up form Worcester County food bank, etc. They serve over 400+ households and will not turn anyone away. If someone comes in and they are not from Lunenburg they will provide them with food but then will refer them to other food pantries within their town/city. There is a 7 day waiting period each time you come to the pantry. Since March, Nancy and the BOD have been currently looking for a new location and will be shortly moving to another area where they will have 2 trailers that will house the food for now. The place they are in now is old but do want to stay in the hub of Lunenburg. The Lion's club started this service and then the food pantry acquired their own 501C3. The food pantry does provide with the money they receive the dairy products which they have refrigerators, they receive the bulk of their food from Worcester Food Bank and Hannafords's will provide to them 1-2 past sell dated items. There has been a 26% increase due to cutbacks. They deliver to 24% of people over 65 years old that are house bound and 97% are below government poverty level. Their need right now is condiments such as mayo, flour, sugar, etc. Nancy is putting together a fundraising for Lunenburg celebrating 300 years in 2028 which they auction off painted cows. The pantry is open Tuesday, Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. Q & A followed.
Happy/Sad Dollars:
We had 11 people that contributed for happy/sad dollars, and the collection of food dollars and Foundation. I wanted to send this information out before end of day since I will be on vacation next week.
New Business discuss this morning:
Alley has added Sierra, Enier and Cassi to GroupMe and Maila has added them in club runner as honorary members so they are able to receive our bulletins and club updates.
JAF - Joan/Jim went over tents, tables that Neil will provide, bring your own chairs, we will have 2 scratch ticket, one that will be a tree and the other a skeleton, please donate every week. We want to do one for $100 and the other for $50 and sell tickets for 1 for $5.00 and 3 for $10.00 and it will go towards our charities we serve. Alley showed us new brochure that she is almost done with. Joan will bring dictionaries to hand out, Tammy will bring a lockbox to put money in, and we decided on our rollup banner David will see how much it will cost to remove our location and place our Rotary email address. Signup sheet was going around for 8-12 and 12-5 shifts.
Thanksgiving Pie - Neil will reach out to Francisco with Alley's questions she had. She setup a Zeffy account for this event, added our account numbers and Maila to the account.
We are able to visit Jeanne individually but not as a group as the facilty is going through some health concerns. She is at North Crossing in Leominster.
Zoom - we will add Tammy, Cassi, Jeanne and Leslie to join us on our weekly meetings as we have the setup at AOCU. We will put link in GroupMe.
Old Business to reference:
Cormier Park - David gave update that we raised an American flag (Mayor Dean will replace the interim flag and give back to David because Kelli ordered a new one but wanted to put a flag for now with the Rotary flag. The ). We had a few Rotarians that came out and raked but will need extra help from Leominster to clear some branches. Jim F. stated there are 3 benches with a plaque to remember past Rotarians. We need to get mulch and Neil or Sally donated this, need to confirm? We need to get more cleanup there, get a signup sheet, can we go through Ward councilor to help with this effort (?) and do we have any more Rotary flags as backups?
Spoke about corporate/family memberships through RI that to hold a Rotary position in a club you must be the active primary person. The additional people in a family/coporate membership are honorary therefore cannot hold a position that we report on in club runner.
Steering Committee - meeting on 7/7 @ AOCU, minutes are below:
going forward we discussed that all morning meetings will be at AOCU so we can have speakers join us and it's not so loud. See 2026 upcoming date calendar below. Maila made motion to move all meetings to AOCU, Jim F seconded, all in favor on 7/9 at BOD mtg.
BOD approved Enier as a new member and will post in bulletin for 2 weeks and the club votes. Amie has sent his application into the club.
Tour de France event we should support event and move our meeting to 7/31.
Still in process of reviewing Bylaws
Haunted House - we will support event when needed for nights as volunteer basis only.
Comedy Show - asking Leslie to pull numbers to maybe have event in fall of 2027
Using Canva and Zeffy - line up club members then show others how to use it
LRC Tournamnet - Jim F still needs to look at this and get back to the club.
Brochure update to include the 11 cities/towns we serve and make it current. Need new member packets, one sheet bullet points on what is Rotary, dues, District and RI info, etc.
Budget - need one for 2026-27
District Rotary Signs - John Souza is coordinating for Leominster club and us and will get us 4 signs.
Johnny Appleseed Festival - 9/19 need to raffle off baskets, scratch ticket tree...something to get people at our booth.
Dues - if you didn't pay by 7/1 you are not an active member
2026-27 Grant - Tammy said grant is under review now, made deadline and has been in touch with Ingrid. We will know 30 days from now how much we will get approved for.
The grant will be about the technology at Crystal Clubhouse and the need for smartboards for their daily tasks. They have 1 and it is going so well they are proposing for 1 or 2 more. They are touchscreen, can connect to phones, tracks meetings, etc. Our grant we were asking for $3,000 and Tammy found one for $2998.
Bylaws - At each meeting we will review sections of our current 2023 Bylaws. We reviewed Articles 1-4 together as a club. Jim F. re-handed out the edits made on Articles 1-4 and discussed at this mornings meeting. RI only recognizes the president and can only have 1 cast vote and see email from Jim on edits that were made. Leslie has master sheet of Bylaws and she will make changes once we get through them all and will send out revised Bylaws to all club members.
Maila will review Article 5 for next meeting. We are going to list Co-President in Article 5, section 1, remove attendance meeting, make note Leslie/I share some of these duties. An update will be sent out for review.
Amie will review Article 6. We had a discussion when we do the final review of bylaws that we put in the following: to create a financial assessment committee to conduct an annual review of the budget, banking accounts, financials, deposits, withdrawals, checks, etc. at the end of each presidency.
Joan will review Article 7. We had no changes to this section.
David will review Article 8 and Article 9. We didn't have time for us to review, hold for next meeting.
Article 10 & 11 - Alley, please review
Article 12 & 13 - Jim Fusco, please review
2026 Upcoming Dates:
August 27th - AOCU weekly meeting
September 3rd - AOCU weekly meeting
September 10th - Monthly BOD Meeting @ AOCU
September 15th - Steering Committee meeting @ AOCU
September 17th - AOCU weekly meeting
September 19th - Johnny Appleseed Festival
September 24th - AOCU weekly meeting
October 8th - District Governer Penny Hamel visit - all required to attend @ AOCU
November 12th: Monthly BOD meeting @AOCU
December 10th: Monthly BOD meeting @AOCU
Next meeting meeting scheduled for Thursday, August 27, 2026 at AOCU for 7:15 am..
