Granite Chips

After the rituals, we sat down to a lunch of salad, flatbread and cookies. Karl, sans facial hirsuteness, was first to add to the coffers. He gave five Happy Dollars for skiing 50,000 vertical feet last week in Colorado and another five for skiing 75 miles, all in three days. Bertil also added five dollars to the basket as follows: four Sad Dollars (his wife Gladys had a stroke, he cancelled his trip to Honduras, his sister in Sweden broke her leg, and another relative fell off a biker and broke a collar bone); one Happy Dollar because he is returning the Club’s donation to his trip. Caroline offered a Happy Dollar in celebration of Liane’s birthday. Tom read a thank you note from Sara and the trustees of the Aldrich Public Library for our recent donation (over $16,000). They also provided us with a box of chocolates to enjoy at today’s meeting.

 

Tom introduced Caroline who provided some particulars about today’s program, the Speech Contest.  She first recognized the Brenda Waterhouse who was instrumental in recruiting students to participate in today’s contest. This year’s Speech Contest theme was a choice: either “How Rotary’s Four Way Test serves humanity” or “How do community service efforts grow and continue?” The contestants were asked to incorporate one of these themes into their speeches, using peer examples as well as Rotary principles and values. Today is Round 1 of four rounds with monetary prizes increasing in value for each of the rounds and the winner will receive $100 from our Club. Each student is allotted five minutes to speak and there is an interval of 60 seconds between each speaker. Students participating today are: Whitney Renaud, Tyler Chafee, Lia Rubel, Colleen Couture and Victor Maldanado. Liane, Karen Lane, Sarah, and I served as judges. All five speakers chose the community service option as their theme and it was evident from their speeches that they all had participated in community service projects and in many cases were leaders as well. They were warmly greeted with applause at both the beginning and at the end of their speeches. After the speeches, the judges and Caroline met in the adjacent room to tabulate the results. While they were meeting, President Tom interviewed each of the students. A little after one o’clock, Caroline and the judges returned and presented certificates of participation to the contestants. Caroline announced the Runner-Up and Winner and presented them with their certificates. The Runner-Up was Whitney Renuad and the Winner was Lia Rubel. A well deserved round of applause followed as well as words of appreciation for participating and for their service to Spaulding High School and the Barre community. Several Rotarians greeted the students after the meeting with warm words of congratulation and appreciation. It was a very satisfying activity and I have a feeling that it will become a yearly event. Kudos to Caroline for providing her time, dedication and leadership for this effort.