Scuttlebutt March 21, 2021
Jacky Belf-Becker will be with us on Tuesday morning. She will present on the town’s response to Covid and other town updates.
The rest of the meeting will be our Club Assembly. Among other issues we will discuss our Paul Harris awards. Karyn will update us on our options. The Allocations committee will be meeting soon to discuss the disbursement of our financial contributions. The Foundation Committee has requested that in the forecasting for Allocations $1.2k be set aside for an additional contribution to the Ghana Maternal Health project. This year’s contribution will be in addition to the previous $1,000 we gave to the effort last year.
The club is contributing $500 to our Food Insecurity project in memorial of Adrian Van Dorpe who was a Charter Member, an Honorary Member, and a Club President.
We continue to support the folks at the Lynn Neighborhood Network. Thanks to Bob we gave 5 food boxes this past weekend. This Tuesday at our Club Assembly I would like to talk about the continuation of this project. There are only a few of us participating in this project. If this is a club project more of our membership may want to be involved. Involvement may include: 1. bringing food to Judy Gates’s home on Pond St, to the Marblehead Museum (thanks to Lauren), to Tricia’s home on Tedesco, or to Linda D’s home on Westminster; 2. Taking food from these locations and from the Charter School to Lis Horowitz’s home on Rockaway or to the Lynn Neighborhood Network location in Lynn; or 3. Donate to the Food Insecurity Project on our website. I realize that many of us may have financial concerns so buying food or providing financial contributions may be out of your comfort level. Transporting the food boxes and bags might be within your abilities.
Some of our members have not be able to join us on our weekly zoom meetings. In addition to the outreach the membership committee has done I would like some volunteers to connect with these folks. We need to keep all our members feeling connected to our club.
I have spent 6 evenings attending NEPETS the last 2 weeks. All the sessions were informative. A few concepts to share: 1. We need a focused PR, public image campaign. The membership committee has updated information that can be shared with prospective members and we have received the OK from the district to spend $200 on PR, PI, materials. The new RI President has charged each of us to bring a new member into the service of Rotary. I realize in our zoom times this may be challenging but soon, in a few months, we will be in person again. This is the perfect time to cultivate contacts and interact with friends, colleagues, and co-workers to encourage membership applications.
Another evening at PETS focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Our service Food Insecurity Project, which focuses on folks who may have great financial challenges, is included within this concept. Another reason for us to work to expand our assistance and service to other.
I will be away from mid May to mid June. John has agreed to run the meetings. Thank you John.
