Pledge, prayer and 4-Way Test: President Gary McCauley
Guest: Assistant District Governor Laima Nori
Happy Bucks: PZ: having a nice Thanksgiving with family; PattyD: Christmas tree is up and decorated; PD: quiet but nice Thanksgiving celebration, feeling good; AS: lots of traveling for Thanksgiving with family; MA: Thanksgiving with family; JA: 18 family members together for Thanksgiving; NM: happy to receive about 100 thank you cards from grateful 3rd graders for their dictionaries; JG: thankful for the meeting and Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends; Guest Laima: celebrated Thanksgiving at Sanctuary Kitchen in New Haven - an organization that helps settle immigrants. She was treated to Syrian and Afghan food which was excellent.
Our annual Thanksgiving Dinner Drive resulted in a check from Liberty Bank to the Shoreline Soup Kitchens in the amount of $2,238 - well done. Liberty Bank did a 25% match for money collected from Happy Bucks at Rotary meetings. On another note, The Westbrook Foundation supported Rotary with a check for $1,600 to purchase 58 meals from Edd's Place in Westbrook. The club contributed another $311 for a total of $1,911.
The Old Saybrook High School Interact Club is sponsoring the Frosty K run this Saturday. There will be a walk, followed by a shorter run at 8:45 followed by a 5K run at 9:45. Come out and support this fundraiser.
Student of the Month revised schedule:
Due to a change in hours at Saybrook Point Resort & Marina for the month of January, SOM will be moved to Thursday, Jan 27. There will be no SOM meeting in February and for March, we will double up February and March students of the month on Thursday the 24th.
Torchlight Parade: Marty updated everyone on preparations for our part which is stocking the tent with refreshments and hot chocolate for the marchers. This will be our 33rd hosting the tent. There are many area businesses who donate baked items. Chris Reid has taken over for his grandfather supplying the tent, hot chocolate and disposables needed. Brent and John G. will prepare the hot chocolate at the Estuary (thank you to them!) and club members will pick up the baked goods and serve them to the marchers. A poster (by Marty's wife Elizabeth) of donors will be displayed inside the tent. Click here for the town's website information.
Wine & Beer Tasting and Silent Auction: Marty updated the club on the latest development. Pat Settembrino has arranged for Scot Haney, weather forecaster on Channel 3 News, to be our Master of Ceremonies for the evening. Scot brings some star power to the event which will help us in our efforts to sell tickets, get auction item donations and attract sponsors. We should all be hard at work doing this now - the WT will be here before we know it! Marty still has member kits to be distributed so please arrange to get yours if you haven't received it yet. Ideally, the meetings are the best place to receive it, otherwise other arrangements will have to be made. This is a team effort! Thanks to Patty and Pat Devito and Mark Patterson for coordinating the sponsorship effort! Please touch base with them if you have a potential sponsor with the contact information. Patty and Pat have been contacting past sponsors. Mike Osnato volunteered to try to get high ticket items such as a fishing charter and vacation trip through a couple of his contacts. Getting sponsors is a job that requires persistence especially during these times. Pat Settembrino would like to see a more structured approach which might capture some of the less obvious businesses in locations beyond Main St and Boston Post Rd. ADG Laima said the Branford club has a yearly sponsorship program for area businesses. By committing, the donor will get recognition for all events the club does - a more efficient process for getting support for all the projects and events we do in the course of a year.
Jan talked about the Foundation and plans to have it audited.
Next meeting is Student of the Month in Social Studies. Click here for details.
