Greetings fellow Rotarians! We started off today’s meeting by recognizing Dave Johnson as our Club’s first Paul Harris Fellow Plus Three. Dave earned this recognition by donating over $4,000.00 to the Rotary Foundation throughout his tenure as a Rotarian.  Congratulations to Dave on an honor well-earned!  Our speakers today were Jennifer and John Churchman, authors of the children’s book, “Sweet Pea & Friends: A Sheepover”.  Jennifer and John are graphic designers, artists and farm owners.  They originally set out to publish a children’s book featuring stories and photographs of the animals on their farm.  Their initial goal of selling 4,000 books snowballed into a far greater success than they ever imagined. Not only has their book attracted national media attention, but its brisk sales have landed it on the New York Times Bestseller list. Jennifer and John are currently working on a second book and will soon be working on a third in what they are hoping will become a series of many books.  In the meantime, you can follow the exploits of Sweet Pea the lamb and her furry friends on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Sweet-Pea-Friends-1604611683095783/?fref=ts

 

            Our annual Service Above Self Dinner will be held on the evening of February 17^th at The Essex.  The cost of the dinner will be $30.00 per person.  A sign-up sheet for this event will be circulated at future meetings for those who are interested in attending.  This dinner will be held in lieu of our regularly scheduled meeting that day.

 

 

            Our Club’s 50^th anniversary celebration will be held on Wednesday, April 13^th at 5:30pm.  As part of the celebration, the 50th anniversary committee is looking for photographs from Rotary events over the past 50 years.  If you have photographs - hard copies from the early years or digital copies from later years - please get them to Jeff Cabanaw as he is putting together a video for us that will be shown at the 50^th anniversary dinner.  If you would like the hard copies returned to you, please indicate that on the envelope so that Jeff can get them back to the right person. 

 

 

            Our Club is looking for one more volunteer for the Heavenly Pantry Food Shelf on February 25^th and two more volunteers for March 24th.  Please contact Sharon Dettenrieder at sharon.dettenrieder@gmail.com if you would like to volunteer for this date or for future dates.

 

Upcoming Meeting Schedule:  January 27, 2016 – We will be holding our monthly charitable committee meetings.

 

For the complete list of upcoming speakers and information about the Club, please go to our website at www.essexrotary.org   Be sure to also visit us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EssexVermontRotary

 

       Yours in Rotary,

 

Jason Ruwet