Ah!, another week and another Rotary meeting.  For the second week in a row attendance was pretty skinny.  I'm guessing that the weather has contributed to the downturn in attendance.  For us healthy folk who park in the lower parking, we can attest to the fact that the parking lot is shrinking very quickly.  

​Despite the small attendance, we are certainly capable of making a lot of noise.  In fact, Lucie was half way through the pledge of allegiance before anyone noticed that she was "leading us" in the pledge.  Most effective leaders look around to make sure that people are following.  I actually have no recollection who led us in the four-way test, but it's the same four-way test every week so I'm sure you could live without that information.

Clynk, Clynk, Clynk.

​Julie Villemaire put new Clynk bags (they are a different color now) on the tables.  We have been shirking our drinking responsibilities for the last few months and I believe the Clynk numbers are down.  So drink up Rotarians so we can help support those young girls in Africa as they continue their education.  Our livers be dammed.  

That Was One Hell Of A Prayer.

​Joe Moreshead occasionally provides our invocations and usually takes about 10 seconds to thank God for doing so much and asking so little, but this week he decided that it was time for a democratic filibuster.  In fact, Joe read a letter from a Civil War soldier which letter was apparently read at the Inauguration by Chuck Schumer.  You may know that Chuck Schumer is now the leading Democratic Senator in the United States Senate.  I am guessing that Senator Schumer figured that if he read this letter it would delay Trump's swearing in by at least a year since the letter was quite long.  Of course, Joe prefaced the letter by saying it was only a couple of paragraphs, but I do believe that at least two Rotarians passed out while he was reading it.  The letter was an eloquent dissertation from the soldier to his wife and children professing his love for them but also confessing that he was torn between his love of country and his love of family and felt that he had no choice but to fight for his country.  Perhaps this was Schumer's way of identifying that President Trump may have a conflict between his love of country and his love of his other businesses.  In any event, I am always astounded by the poetic nature of these old letters from men and women, many of whom had little education and I try to compare them to today when a soldier's communications to his wife and children might be a hashtag followed by one hundred and forty characters.  I can see it now “#I might die today love you.”  After Joe's filibuster, he then gave his patented brief prayer and the meeting continued with more than a few members scratching their heads.

Essay Contest.

​Lucie reminded everyone that the Essay Contest meeting will be held on April 12 at Peoples Choice Credit Union on the Industrial Park Road in Saco.  We might want to consider carpooling, because there is somewhat limited parking there, but I can assure you that the room itself is more than large enough for the Club and all of our guests on that day.  After all it was built by a credit union which does not have to worry about paying real estate taxes, income taxes, you name it.  However, I do think the indoor lap pool is a little over the top.

Secondary Office for Blue Elephant Catering.

​Apparently, our Rotary meetings are also the second office for Fausto who received a couple of phone calls during the meeting until he practically broke his phone trying to shut it off.

Auction.

​SOLICIT! SOLICIT! SOLICIT!  Bernice announced that with nine days left to go before our solicitation deadline, we only have 72 items turned in.  That is horrible.  If any members of the Club are sitting around thinking that they do not need to solicit items because other people will do it, please think again.  Our Club is responsible for a minimum of half of the items which means that we need to bring in 205 items.  While the lion's share of the 72 items may have come from our Club, we desperately need everyone to step up and solicit some local businesses to get the items in by February 24th.  I know people joke about that deadline not being the real deadline, but it is the real deadline.  After all the items come in, Julie Villemaire has to enter them all into the system and then they all need to be placed on individual quickie and big boards.  Procrastinating on soliciting items results in all of the back office activities being delayed which means that there is a logistical crisis as we approach the auction itself.  If you do not know who to solicit, please ask.  Bernice shared a list of Chamber businesses some of which are on our existing list but many of which are not.  They are great potential donors.  Please make the effort to go out and solicit a few items.  Again, if everyone in our Club solicits three to four items, we have all that we need with the hope that Saco Bay will do the same.  

​Bernice also announced that there are still 10 quickie board sponsorships left.  These are $175.00 sponsorships which is a great way for a business to support the auction when that business does not have a product or service to donate.

​Julie Villemaire also made a push for making sure that people fill out their solicitation slips completely.  Keep in mind that you may be very familiar with the donating business but our prospective bidders may not be.  Take the time to be a little descriptive.  That will help the auctioneers when they are describing each one of the items.  This is a huge fundraiser for us so we need all hands on deck to make this work.

Red Ribbon Committee.

​Jim Godbout announced that our Red Ribbon Week will again be held at the end of April during the week of April 24.  The Red Ribbon Committee will be meeting on February 21st at 5:30 at the Community Bicycle Center to discuss Red Ribbon Week and to discuss the T-shirts that we were going to supply to each student from Biddeford High School, Old Orchard Beach High School and Thornton Academy.  We will be trying to reach out to businesses in the community to get sponsorships for those T-shirts.  

Rotary House Project.

​Jim Godbout also announced that the students are currently hanging interior trim in the 471 Main Street, Biddeford Rotary House.  Diane Tremblay is in the process of building the custom cabinets for the house which is a fantastic donation.  Jim also mentioned that someone had donated the garage door for the garage which is another significant contribution to our project.  Both Jim and Jeremy Raye mentioned that discussions are now ongoing related to possibly acquiring a new house for the students to work on located at 518 Main Street in Biddeford which is directly across from the Center of Technology.  This is a much larger house.  It could be a great project for the students and our Club.  Jeremy mentioned that there will be an upcoming meeting with the City Council to discuss the prospect of providing another house toour Club, so if any Biddeford residents could email their councilors in support of the project, it would be greatly appreciated.  

Sergeants-at-Arms

​Fausto, Sarah and Matt then got up to do their Sergeants-at-Arms' thing.  There were a number of happy dollars including Matt Simmons heading to Florida.  He also mentioned there would be no adult education classes due to the snow.  It is my hope that Matt doesn't miss too many of those classes because he is in line to get his GED this spring at which time he will be able to spell his name properly.  Carl Goodwin was happy because he won $750.00 in the Doc's Tavern Super Bowl pool. No one was surprised. Dr. Joe Boyle was happy because he was able to make the meeting because he could not catch his cat to get him one last shot before going in to have his cat's blood sugar test.  Oh, the things we do for our pets!  Sue Gajewski arrived at the meeting in time to get one of Jim Audiffred's cookies.  Lucie paid Karen Chasse to announce that the York County Federal Credit Union was able to cut Karen's interest rate in half on her car loan.  One should certainly marvel at the things that a non-profit organization can provide to its members.  Roland Gagne left his jacket on for the entire meeting because he was forced to sit with Lucie.  Steve Morin celebrated 17 years in the Club and Randy Forcier was celebrating 10 years in the Club.  Nicole Carroll bemoaned celebrating Valentine's Day alone and in response to that Fausto indicating that Valentine's is overrated.  Finally, I should note that I won the 50/50 this week and donated the money to the Sergeants-at-Arms so they would leave me alone for at least one week.  

Final Appeal.

​I will end with one final appeal that every Club member make a concerted effort to get their auction items in as soon as possible.  If you cannot get them to Joe Moreshead's place of business, please call Bernice and she can pick them up.  It does no good to keep them at your office or in your car.  We need to get them in as soon as possible so that we can have another successful TV auction.  Thanks for all of your help and have a great week.

Respectfully and sometimes disrespectfully submitted by Bill Kany

​Our guest speaker this week was Scott McDonald (a/k/a Mark McDonald if you ask Joe Moreshead or Fausto) from the fraternal organization known as "Modern Woodmen".  Modern Woodmen has been around since 1883 and is really a financial advising firm though it also has insurance components and apparently is also a bank.  It is a non-profit organization which was originally established to support widows and orphans, in other words the same membership as credit unions.  All of its customers are its owners similar to a mutual savings bank or a credit union, but Modern Woodmen is a very large multi-billion dollar nationwide organization which is one of largest financial service organizations in the country.  

​The interesting thing about its business model is that because it is a non-profit, it pays no taxes and with the funds that are saved from not paying taxes it donates that money back to the communities that it serves.  Scott McDonald indicated that last year Modern Woodman contributed $636,000.00 to different causes in the State of Maine.  Modern Woodmen's primary benevolent effort includes a matching fund program in which they will match different fundraising efforts up to $2,500.00. 

​Modern Woodmen sells the same investment products and provides the same services that most banks and other financial advising firms may provide but their emphasis is on promoting community.  They sponsor speech contests for third to sixth graders and they provide educational materials for a whole host of subjects from ecology awareness to financial literacy.  They also provide every day hero awards to individuals in the community who go above and beyond the call of duty and those individuals receive a plaque and $100 to donate to their favorite charity.  Modern Woodmen, like our Rotary Club, sponsors a number of college scholarships, and, like our Club, they also enjoy getting involved in hands-on projects.  

​The reason we invited Scott McDonald of Modern Woodmen to come and speak, is because his organization matched the funds raised at the Chamber of Commerce auction this year resulting in a significant contribution to our Red Ribbon Committee.  No one really knew what Modern Woodmen was about so this gave us a chance to learn about Modern Woodmen while also giving Scott an opportunity to let us know about all of the good things that his company is involved in.  It would certainly seem that our Club might be able to collaborate with Modern Woodmen in the future on other projects and, if you are involved in any other non-profits, you may want to reach out to Scott (who has fantastic chocolate business cards).