Back in May when I originally presented my goals to the Club I shared that Al Feather had challenged us at PETS to concentrate on 2 specific areas in our goal setting process; those 2 areas being Membership and Foundation. Here is where we currently stand:
Membership:
My #1 goal for membership was to increase membership by gaining 5 new members and 3 Associate Members. As of today we have gained 4 with another in the paperwork process. New members are Ryan Willette, Sharon Linscott, Julie Clark and Amy Roebuck. Currently we have 70 Active Members and 12 Associate Members, none of the Associate Members are new Members.
I challenged each of you in May to bring one guest to a meeting over the course of the year….have you met that challenge. As I stated back in May, it will take ALL of us to grow our membership. We are currently without a Membership Chair, the position is being managed by Carrie Jones and Steve Boucher until we can identify a new Chair. If you are interested in serving in that capacity I would love to speak with you.
My other Membership Goal was to enhance the member experience. One of the ways I hoped to do so was to have a minimum of 3 Fellowship events over the course of the year. To date we have had 2 events: In July about 20 of us gathered at Scott & Deb’s new home. We chatted, ate and drank and just enjoyed each other’s company. In September Annette arranged a VERY fun evening out for the Club. We gathered at Mainly Meat for a DELICIOUS BBQ dinner, so much food that several folks took home leftovers. We then waddled across the street to Pirate’s Cove to play a VERY competitive round of mini golf. The evening was a ton of fun! #3 is in the works as we met before this meeting to brain storm the next fun adventure.
Several of us had discussed putting together a New Member Manual. With the loss of the Membership Committee Chair this quite frankly just has not happened. I believe many of the pieces had started to be put into place for this project to launch and will be waiting for the next Membership Chair to pull it all together.
We have had some GREAT education programs presented by Joe Losqaudro and as of Monday’s Board meeting we are in line for more of these education programs.
I also mentioned in my goals that I hoped to begin “reclassification talks” as a way of introducing some of our older members to our newer members. Although they didn’t fall under the “reclassification” umbrella, it has been great to hear both Dean Read and Jim Mroch tell their stories.
Foundation:
My goal for Foundation was and is very simple…….. I would like to see 100% participation. A few months ago Amanda gave a very well thought out and FUN presentation about Foundation. If I am reading the report correctly I can say that as of February 23 all but 9 members of our Club have contributed to the Foundation. We are well on our way to 100% contribution!! WELL DONE!!!
My Personal Goals for the Club:
1. I strongly support the Park Street Playground Project. In the past few months the project has gained some momentum because of The Service Committee, led by Shaun, taking the project under their wing with a renewed vigor. Carrie has helped fuel the fire with her fantastic PR skills and their seems to be a strong renewed interest in this project within the Bar Harbor Community. I hope that we will all support Shaun and the Service Committee in FINALLY seeing this project take flight.
2. I asked for your support of the Belize Wheelchair Project and you have met my challenge. Last week Dave Wells from the Ellsworth Evening Club shared that the chairs have been delivered to Belize and that 11 members from the Ellsworth Club and 6 from our Club will be leaving for Belize in a week. The folks going on this trip from our Club are Scott & Deb, Annette, Shaun, Carrie and Galyn. Thank you for ALL your work on this project and safe travels to you all.
3. I asked for your support of our AMAZING Interact Club and again you have done so. Thank you Maryanne for ALL that you do to keep these young men and women motivated and focused on the many projects they have been involved with. I know that the trip to NYC for Rotary/UN Day was a HUGE undertaking in VERY many ways so again I say WELL DONE!!!
4. My “BORING” goal was to “Tidy Up” some of the Administrative structure of the Club. I am happy to report that with the hard work of the Past President’s Committee and our Board we now have a Club Constitution and updated Bylaws in place. Currently there is some ongoing work on the Club structure with regard to committee duties.
5. My last goal was to Introduce Trick or Treat for UNICEF. I did not get there last October but hope to this year.
It has been a term with a rising tide of turnover in the Board, yet we still weather the storm. We have painted our pinkies purple, roasted weanies and made smores, played mini golf, stuffed back packs, delivered wheel chairs, painted walls, flipped pancakes, cracked lobsters, laughed, cried and payed our fines. Let’s keep the ball rolling!
Yours in Service,
Sue
