Our presenter at Rotary this week will be Mary Allen Lindemann, co-owner/Community Builder of Coffee By Design (CBD); a Maine owned and operated specialty coffee roastery/retailer, which she co-founded with her partner, Alan Spear, in Portland, Maine in 1994. Committed to changing the world, one cup of coffee at a time, CBD has five coffeehouses and a micro roastery, which provides customers with craft-roasted coffee. In addition to serving some of the world’s finest coffee, Coffee By Design is committed to running a sustainable business dedicated to the arts, the environment, and the community – both here in Maine, as well as around the world at origins where they buy their coffee.
CBD has received numerous awards for community work, business practices and quality coffee. The international restaurant review site, Zagat.com, recognized CBD as one of the top ten coolest coffee shops in the U.S. and the company was noted as one of the reasons Travel and Leisure selected Portland, Maine as #8 on their recent "Best Coffee Cities in America" list.
Ms. Lindemann’s title of "community builder" illustrates the many hats she wears at the company. She is dedicated to ensuring that Coffee By Design stays true to its Maine roots and maintains its commitment to giving back to the local and international communities from which Coffee By Design is intimately connected. Part of her job is to make sure the company continues to be a “good corporate citizen” while making social change happen in a unique and meaningful way.
Her involvement in the community includes being a founding member of Portland Buy Local, the Maine Women’s Fund’s Women Standing Together and Portland’s First Friday Artwalk. Most recently, Mary Allen’s focus is on asylum seekers and immigration rights for those new to the United States and settled in Maine. With regards to coffee, Mary Allen believes “it's an honor to represent the many farmers we buy from by serving you a great cup of coffee.” She is actively involved with the International Women’s Coffee Alliance and hopes that the work she does on a daily basis at Coffee By Design and in the community makes a difference now and in the years to come. For her work, she has received the Maine Centers for Women, Work and Community’s “Women Making a Difference" Award, the Southern Region Champion, Maine Women’s Fund’s Tribute to Women in Industry Award and Portland Buy Local’s Essential Founders Award. Last year, she and Alan were selected as the SBA’s Small Business Persons of the Year for the State of Maine and Mary Allen was honored by the State of Maine with a Legislative Sentiment for public service in April 2015.
Mary Allen is proud to work with her partner and husband, Alan, and loves being Mom to Alina.
On Friday, we heard from Yellow Light Breen, the man with the most unusual name in Maine. Formerly an Angus King administration official and then an executive at Bangor Savings, he recently took a pay cut and added two hours to his commute to take the helm of the Maine Development Foundation (MDF) in Augusta.
MDF is a privately-funded extra-governmental entity created by the legislature to focus on public-private partnerships – creating bridges through judicious use of both its public and private aspects to provide objective analysis and develop broad consensus around issues of significance to the economic health of Maine.
No issue is more central to Maine’s future than an effective education and training system, and bolstering that has been a longstanding focus area for MDF. Maine’s per capita income is low, in part because of lower educational attainment in our state then elsewhere in New England. He emphasized the criticality of finding and developing workers with qualifications to staff emerging businesses like Putney, Molyneke, and KepWare, among others.
MDF’s work is around “investing in people and creating a climate of investment in Maine.” It does this through several key programs, such as Next Step Maine, which works to get adults with partial degrees back to school, and Opportunity Maine, which provides tax credits for businesses willing to help reduce student loan debt among their employees. Live Work Maine is a program that promotes jobs in the state holistically, working to get people to move here “from away,” and MDF’s Main StreetDevelopment program builds on the fact that Maine’s unique and historic downtowns have been identified as significant assets.
Other MDF Programs include the acclaimed “Leadership Maine” course, which is on track to train 1000 citizen leaders throughout the state, bringing people from various sectors together for intensive leadership training over the course of a year. Additional leadership programming takes place though efforts to educate elected leaders in Augusta about Maine’s economy through seminars and a biennial bus tour.
Finally, the MDF’s other signature program is “Measures of Growth” the annual tracking report on the Maine economy that is published annually, providing a high level “dashboard” view of economic indicators of all types, from citizen educational levels, to manufacturing trends, to investments in research and development.
Our meeting of March 18, 2016 started with President Bowen welcoming 46 members and 8 guests. Tom Nickerson gave us an invocation; we pledged to the American Flag; sang our patriotic song and were encouraged to enjoy our lunch and fellowship.
As the meeting was reconvened, Bob Traill presented us with a 'Moment in History' from the year 1964-65. The highlights were:
• Beatles arrive from England
• Vietnam war heating up
• 5000 US “military advisers” to Vietnam making total of 21,000
• Two US destroyers attacked in Gulf of Tonkin
• Martin Luther King leads successful march from Selma, Alabama to state capitol – Montgomery.
• Astronaut Ed White makes first American space walk outside Gemini IV spacecraft.
Our club, under the personified leadership of Dave Moody, concentrated on a variety of excellent programs that included its 50th anniversary, musicals (many members were accomplished musicians and singers), the accomplishments of members and their families, Portland’s youth, world understanding, community service, reminiscing and fun. It was a good year!
The raffle was conducted by Tom Nickerson with Dave Putnam’s name being drawn for a chance to find the elusive Queen of Hearts to win the pot of over $1200….but she still continues to hide in the remaining cards.
PP Kris Rosado made a plea for encouraging more sign-ups for the teams of 5 to participate in the Maine Outdoor Challenge to be held on June 6-8, 2016.
(Photo: Bob Clark, Mike Reed, Amy Chipman and Cyrus Hagge.)
Mike Reed presented member Bob Clark with a Paul Harris Fellow and Mike, in turn, received one, as well. Cyrus Hagge received a PHF, making him a 7-time multiple Paul Harris Fellow. Very impressive! Congratulations to all!
President Bowen reminded us of an upcoming District Training Assembly on April 2nd that is open to all members to attend, especially incoming officers and chairpersons. It’s to be held at the USM Abromson Center, 88 Bedford Street from 8:30-2:00 p.m. (lunch is included). The club is picking up the cost for all members who would like to attend this great training session. If you are interested about wanting to learn more on specific responsibilities of your club, please contact Loretta by Friday March 25th: lrowe@maine.rr.com To get the program schedule and more information, click HERE.
Our new members who joined our club 6 months or more were asked to remove the red dots from their name badges: Maxwell Chikuta, Megan Devlin, and David Lee. Lest we forget, but apparently did, after fourteen months, Nan Heald removed her red dot.
(Photo: Rusty Atwood, Nick Lotfey, Richard Burbank and Peter Goffin.)
Speaking of new members, we brought in two more, which is always a highlight of our club: Nick Lotfey (grandson of our deceased member, Naj Lotfey) a partner at Lotfey-Dennett Insurance Brokers, was sponsored by Rusty Atwood and Richard Burbank, who owns Evergreen Home Performance LLC, was sponsored by Peter Goffin. Welcome to our new members!
There is an upcoming District Training Assembly on April 2nd that we encourage all members to attend, especially incoming officers and chairpersons. It’s to be held at the USM Hannaford Hall in the Abromson Education Center, 88 Bedford Street from 8:30-2:00 p.m. (lunch is included). The club is picking up the cost for all members who would like to attend this great training session.
If you are interested about wanting to learn more on specific responsibilities of your club, please contact Loretta by Friday March 25th: lrowe@maine.rr.com
To get the schedule and more information, click HERE.
Portland Rotary is hosting a "Taste, Tour and Celebrate With a Paul Harris Fellow" event at the Allagash Brewing Company.
Tuesday - March 29, 2016
Tickets: $15 in advance; $20 at the door
Bring your favorite friends, relatives and neighbors! Space is limited to 80 people in their tasting room, so get your tickets NOW at Portland Rotary's home page: portlandrotary.org....on the right side under "Club Events," click on "Allagash Brewery Event" or simply click HERE.
In recognition of Portland Rotary’s 100th Anniversary Year, the club is organizing a return home visit to its Parent...Club, The Rotary Club of Boston. Formed in 1909, the Rotary Club of Boston was founded only four years after Rotary's first club in Chicago, IL. It was the 7th Rotary Club!
The Boston club meets from 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM at Fisher College, 118 Beacon Street. We will go there on April 6th for an exceptional program about one of Boston's treasures, the Old North Church, presented by Rev. Stephen Ayres. If you are interested please contact Bowen.
Invocation:Julie L'Heureux Program Reporter: Alan Nye Bits & Pieces Reporter: Bill Blount Registration/Greeter: Adam Shepherd Sell Meal Tickets: Loretta Rowe Raffle: Alex St. Hilaire Badge Box: Matt Tassey Collect Meal Tickets: Linda Varrell Rotary Moment in History: Amy Chipman Song Leader: Alan Nye Pianist: Russ Burleigh Sgt-at-Arms (Early): Dave Putnam Sgt-at-Arms (Late): Glenn Nerbak
As we receive applications for prospective members to join our Portland Rotary Club, the names of the applicants will be included in our Windjammer. Any information and/or comments you would like to share will be handled confidentially. Please contact Loretta Rowe: lrowe@maine.rr.com. Your input will be appreciated.
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ROTARY DOUBLES TENNIS LEAGUE Winter/Spring Session 2016
As of Week 12 with 2/3 of the season over, our hearts go out to team 6, in the lead, but one of their stars Laura might be out for a bit. Can she find worthy substitutes?
It’s time to start thinking about our annual celebratory post-season event. We had a great time at Kathy Grammer’s last year. Would any of you consider hosting the event this year? Please let me know.....thanks, Bill.
Our presenter at Rotary this week will be Mary Allen Lindemann, co-owner/Community Builder of Coffee By Design (CBD); a Maine owned and operated specialty coffee roastery/retailer, which she co-founded with her partner, Alan Spear, in Portland, Maine in 1994. Committed to changing the world, one cup of coffee at a time, CBD has five coffeehouses and a micro roastery, which provides customers with craft-roasted coffee. In addition to serving some of the world’s finest coffee, Coffee By Design is committed to running a sustainable business dedicated to the arts, the environment, and the community – both here in Maine, as well as around the world at origins where they buy their coffee.
As the meeting was reconvened, 
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