President Jeff (who hasn't learned how to use the bell yet) called the meeting to order about 12:20 pm and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
John Plate offered a prayer for the hungry of the world.
Gretchen filled in as a waitress today passing out soups and salads to everyone!
That Gretchen is always willing to do what it takes!
Visiting Rotarians and Guests:
There were 15 members in attendance and our guest was visiting Rotarian and former TBM member, Derek Scialdone from the
Club.
Make Ups:
There were no make up cards reported today.
If you missed today's meeting, you have until July 8, 2009 to complete a makeup.
Fines and Happy Dollars:
Fines and Happy dollars were collected by Sergeant at Arms, Brad Swanson.
Brad tapped Harry Martin first. BIG MISTAKE!
Harry deposited a five into Spencer and told us a very short story (Ha) about helping out at the Topsfield Strawberry Festival. His wife Linde will be taking over as president of the New Meadows Garden Club. Harry was there to provide some of the necessary brawn.
You know what they say about idle hands!
By way of looking out for Harry, he was asked to pick the winning tickets in a drawing the club had for 3 nice garden ornaments. The winners lived in Peabody, Georgetown and Beverly.
What made it interesting was that the winners were a mother (first prize) and her two daughters.
Oddly enough Bob Murphy was not one of the winners...Bob never wins anything!
The rest of the members contributed quietly to Spencer. It seems that Harry had used up all their alloted time.
Raffle:
Brad Swanson's number was pulled first then Bob Luscinski's number was pulled.
No Winners Today
Announcements
Bob Was announced that Saturday June 27th a memorial service for Joe Carroll would be held at Trinity Episcopal Church in Newton Center at 2:00 pm. He also sent an email to all members with this information.
Treasurer Bill Shannon announced the annual dues of $60 are due next week.
Harry Martin announced we are yet again a 100% Sustaining Member club.
Starting next week Harry will begin collecting Sustaining Member Contributions for 2009-2010.
Any member who makes his/her contribution in July will receive an equal amount of recognition points.
Update on Father's Day Drawing: The club sold a little over $2000 worth of tickets. The club's cost for the prizes was around $1000. The club made a total of $1170. We had over $3000 in prizes between donations and what was purchased so the results were disappointing.
Upcoming events: The induction dinner for our new president is next Tuesday, June 30th. Please let President Jeff know if you would like to attend. ( Is Jeff paying?)
Program:
Around 1:00 President Jeff began the business portion of the meeting by wishing himself a happy birthday, and making an appropriate contribution to The Foundation.
About 20 minutes later the rest of the club decided to sing him happy birthday along with Angelica's. That was nice of us.
Ok let's get down to business..........
Jeff got up to talk about where the club is going. He believes if we all work together we can re-energize and get the club going again.
He is going to need everyone to step up to the plate and take on different duties for the club to run successfully. Jeff will be reaching out to everyone individually to discuss his or her role in the club. Please don't screen your calls!
He feels we need to do more business at our meetings. One suggestion to make this happen is to change to a breakfast meeting where the meal doesn't take as long and we can get down to business. Jeff is looking for everyone's thoughts on this.....
We need to be concerned about fund raising, as the Father's day raffle did not go so well.
The club needs board members, a program director and a sergeant at arms.
Peter McAllister is happily joining the board. It was announced to Greg Silvano that he would be joining the board. What a nice surprise for him. Actually, Greg was already on the board.
Todd Darling has taken over Janet Larsen's position as past president.
Harry Martin is stepping up temporarily to help fill in Linda Parker's position.
Steve Mooney stepped in today to take attendance and meal choices. He did a fine job, and we hope he continues.
Brad Swanson is stepping down as Sergeant at arms.
Carrie Dick and Jen Kocur are doing the bulletin and PR.
Joe Long has taken over as Membership Chair
Lisa Foley has already been working hard getting ready for the Fall Foliage Classic.
Gretchen Marks continues maintaining the mailing (e and snail) list for the FFC, overseeing the FFC T shirt design and production and handling our donations to The BoxTop Consignment Shop. Remember that this is an ongoing fund raiser that we should all support.
If your name should have been mentioned above, please let the editors know.
If your name is otherwise missing from the list, please step up to the plate.
Getting To Know You:
There was a lot of bonding that went on at our table today. We learned that Brad Swanson lives in Maine and enjoys raising the taxes in Amesbury as a hobby. We also learned that Bob Murphy played football for Salem High. Jen Kocur's cousin also played football at Salem High, forever (at least four years). Jen's cousin graduated in 1997, she was confident he and Bob played together. And Derek wasn't sure what street he lived off of. He had to ask Carrie for directions to his own house in Amesbury. Hmmm.
