At precisely high noon, President Karen opened the meeting with "Oh Beautiful for spacious skis............., which the Barre Rotary Chorus sung in the slowest tempo possible, followed by a patriotic Pledge of Allegiance, and a heartfelt grace provided by Michael Knight.

Bill Noyes gave a happy dollar that was clipped to his new name  badge.  The grapevine provided Badgemaker Roy with knowledge whereby he could leave a preemptive $ based on Bill's fine of a week ago when he wondered when his  name badge was coming.

President Karen had several announcements:
1. Rotarians can meet Green up team leader Tom Babic at 8:00 a.m. at the Hilltop on May 5 to clean up and greenup Quarry Hill.  Dick Shadroui will be provided a harness and tether to keep him from rolling down the embankment this year.

2. The Changeover Dinner will be on Wednesday, June 27th.

3. The partitions are going to be rented by FW Webb and the State this year and they will be delivered to the BOR, where Webb's folks will unpack them, do set up, get them over to the Aud for the State and they will be boxed up and delivered back to Rock of Ages for storage.

4. Roy has agreed to be the Sergeant of Arms for the reminder of her year.

5. She read the Story that was emailed to all members last week about the excitement of an imaginary little boy and the ability of
Rotarians to create that excitement, as a way to encourage Rotarians to sell the Gold Ball tickets to assure a successful campaign.

6.  Jim Catone and George are planning to go to the District conference in May.

The program today was a club assembly and President Karen asked Roy to lead a review and discussion of what is ahead of us in the next few months.

Roy used the 5 year plan for a point of reference and the 5 Avenues of Service:

Community Service:

We have completed the distribution of the Atlases to the students in Barre Town and Barre City.
We created a Fundraising Committee and the following programs were discussed.
1. We are actively selling tickets for the Helicopter Drop.
2. Ron Parnigoni will be chairing the Breakfast at the end of July.
3. Carol is on the Joint Service Committee for the fall event
4. Kevin reported that he will begin working on the Over the Edge Fundraiser soon to line up permission from Barre Housing Authority and to find experts to set up the rappeling.
5. Joe Preddy gave an update on the Rotary park renovations and what Rotary might be able to do with the $8900 we have. The Rotary Ball field needs a lot of work, the fence has been fixed, and there is a plan being discussed to tear down the dugouts and build new ones.  A boy scout is seeking permission to make this Eagle Scout project.  There is hope to electrify the picnic shelter and upgrade several other areas of the facility.  Ted and Amber are also on the committee with Joe and they will meet to discuss the opportunities we can help with.
6. Chip Castle has wrapped up the Give a Gallon campaign and $2890 was raised this year.  Great job!!
7. One Day Projects - Partnering with non-profits.  This requires a Rotarian taking a leading roll in developing the criteria for this program and communicating with local non-profits to determine how Rotarians can help out on specific projects.
8.  Jack reported on the Maple Syrup idea.  He talked with Bragg Farm (while eating a maple cremee) and the folks there thought it was an interesting idea they might be able to help with.  Jack asked his two committee members to set up a meeting time-  that is Ted and Roy.
9. Rotary After Dark is still be explored by Jim and Amber.  Neither were in attendance so a report will have to wait.  The  members were enthusiastic in their support for this idea.  More on this soon.

Several questions were asked by members, and it was agreed that the club has a lot of activity to keep us busy through the fall.

CLUB SERVICE:

Under the direction of Chairperson, Claire Duke, the scheduling of Programs by Joe Preddy, and Membership Chairman, Jim Catone. the Club's operation continues to move along smoothly.  

More active participation with getting new members was encouraged.

The board of directors would like Joe Preddy to again take the lead with a Nominating committee, and to have a few past presidents join his committee, and any other interested Rotarians to develop a leadership team for elections in December.  A request was made to have the nominees in place by September.

We were reminded that our goal is to have 65 members by 2016.

Getting the newsletter out to a broad base in our community is still an objective to be addressed at some point in time.

International Service:

Bertil had a successful trip this year.  Our plan is to have more Rotarians and more people in our community get involved with this opportunity to serve the needs of Honduras.  This idea needs a Rotarian to take a lead on it.

We would like to see more Friendship Exchanges.  

Billy said that he and others are hosting the African GSE team soon and was wondering if we will participate with the team from France in the fall

VOCATIONAL SERVICE:

It is the Club's goal to have 5 Rotarians mentoring with students.  At this point, no initative is being taken to accomplish this objective.

NEW GENERATIONS:

It is our goal to send 4 students to RYLA.  We believe we will be sending 3 this June.  We agreed that this is a good start.

Roy reported that he is now on the CVHHH's tournament committee and they are looking Silent Auction items for the June 20th event.  All proceeds will support the Hospice program.  If any Rotarians have Quality items to donate such as a nice antique item  they are willing to part with, to let Roy know.  Attached is a copy of the silent auction form with more information.

Claire Duke gave Roy and email and Roy shared it with the Club.  The Vermont Home Builders and Remodeling Association want to have a Home Show in Barre in 2013.  They would like to possibly partner with Rotary and asked Claire if she would have Roy contact them.  We had a general discussion and several positive ideas were explored.  Joe suggested that we could rent the partitions, Roy suggested that we could get a percentage of booth sales form every vendor they get from our Vendor list.  Claire said we should parlay the vendor's list into a revenue stream and that we own the list.   The club asked Roy to contact the Association , explore ideas, and report back, which he agreed to do.

The meeting was adjourned and President Karen asked Roy to pull the winning raffle ticket.  As he did so, he mentioned that he pulled his own ticket a couple of months ago, which he promptly did again today.
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