President Ken promptly started the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and then led everyone in a rousing rendition of God Bless America. One of our newer Rotarians, Sarah Curley, was thrown into the fire and did a great job leading the pack in the 4 Way Test. George Wandell provided the invocation.
There were no visiting Rotarians or guests for PE Bill to introduce.
The 50/50 pot of $33 was won and then graciously donated back to the club by Ray Demers.
Past President Steve Morin was the scheduled SAA but he went MIA. President Farley didn’t want to lose an opportunity to help boost the budget before he left office so he took the easy & most efficient way out and collected a dollar from everyone in attendance.
Spring Cleaning Time: President Ken said that he has accumulated a bunch of Rotary stuff and wanted to start “clearing out”. Today’s treasures consisted of the old “round” name badges. Anyone in attendance today who had a round badge got to take it home. I’m not sure but some of them may be considered antiques.
President Ken: I would like to ask each and every one of you to make a special effort to make this week's meeting (06/10). This is our annual tribute to our Past President's where we recognize them for the service they have given to our club. Although some are regular attendees of our meetings, others are not and this is a great opportunity to meet them. The weather looks great and it looks perfect for us to be out on the patio for this wonderful event.
The final board meeting of Ken’s presidential term will be held on Wednesday morning, 06/10/15.(at P & C Insurance)
Bill Kany announced that there would be a meeting with the new board and a few others on Thursday, June 11, 2015, at 4:00 p.m. in the new community room at Saco & Biddeford Savings Institution on Main St., Saco. He was going to send an e-mail to board members.
Karen Chasse received a new pin for bringing new members into the club. Congrats Karen!
RYLA: Rotary Youth Leadership Awards
Our club usually sponsors some students to attend RYLA each year. This is a 4 day event where the students go through team building exercises and also work on leadership skills. They always come back stating that it was an amazing experience. This year’s RYLA camp will be held at Camp Hinds in Raymond from 06/21 through 06/24. Ken had an opportunity to go to Camp Hinds to help get it ready for this year’s session. He said that they have really done a great job with improvements. He said the changes were phenomenal.
James Audiffred wanted to inform everyone that he was putting together a canoe trip on the Allagash River the week of July 5-10. Anyone interested should get in touch with James. His e-mail is attorney.JLA374@gmail.com.
CLYNK: We have raised $938.30 as of 06/03. That’s only $61.70 shy of $1,000.00! In bottle terms, only 1,234 bottles/cans at 5 cents each-even less if you have the bottles with a 15cent return! Drink up everyone- let’s see if we can reach $1,000 by the end of Ken’s term!!
Ken congratulated Paul Deschambault for all of his hard work on helping to put a grant together for a water project in the Dominican Republic. Paul asked everyone to pray that the grant request gets approved! He mentioned that a Global Grant request was going to be put together down the road. Paul explained that a portion of the money donated to the Foundation 3 years ago was going back into the District ($40K). We are applying for $4k which will hopefully be matched by the grant. We will be asking RI Foundation to do a 1 ½ x match. There is a Rotary club in Florida that will be doing something with us. We are hoping to end up with $25k for Phase I which consists of drilling the well. The full cost of the project is $117k. More information to come. If you need/want more clarification on this project or grant process, please contact Paul Deschambault.
PE Bill Kany mentioned that our club had put in a grant application along with Saco Bay to build a ramp at the Ball Park in OOB. We had to pull out of the grant application because we can only have one grant submitted at a time. We still plan on working with Saco Bay with this ramp project – it just won’t be through the grant process. Stay tuned for more information.
District #7780 and the Saco Bay Rotary Club will be hosting a cocktail party tomorrow night at 7pm at Joseph's by the Sea in Old Orchard Beach. There will be some light snacks and a cash bar.
The Group Study Exchange is a Rotary program where two countries exchange time in each others country to further international understanding and promote peace while learning the customs and culture of other countries.
If you are interested in attending please let me know so that I can give the District & Saco Bay Club an idea of who is going.
I would like to ask each and every one of you to make a special effort to make this week's meeting. This is our annual tribute to our Past President's where we recognize them for the service they have given to our club. Although some are regular attendees of our meetings, others are not and this is a great opportunity to meet them.
The weather looks great and it looks perfect for us to be out on the patio for this wonderful event.
As a reminder, please leave parking spots in front of the restaurant for those with mobility challenges. For those of you that have mobility challenges, the next best option is to go down to the lower level and park all the way at the end near the exit ramp. This allows for a shorter walk with just a couple of stairs at the front door.
Thanks a lot and I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday.
Ken Farley
President 2014-15
Biddeford Saco Rotary Club
Fill up those green bags. If you need more bags and/or labels, just let Julie Villemaire know and she can hook you up…no charge!
Simple fill with returnables and drop off at any Hannaford.
Alternately, if you already have a CLYNK account of your own, you can designate you funds as a donation. Hit the Donate button and search for Rotary and you'll find our account.
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