Greetings fellow Rotarians!  We started today’s meeting by recognizing Dave Barra as our Club’s second Paul Harris Fellow + 3.  This means that Dave has generously donated $4,000.00 to the Rotary Foundation during his tenure as a Rotarian. Thanks to the support of people like Dave, the Rotary Foundation continues to help finance the good work that Rotary does worldwide.  Congratulations to Dave on this achievement!  Our speaker today was District 7850 Governor, Louisa Tripp.  This marked Governor Tripp’s second visit to our Club and she discussed a variety of topics ranging from the Rotary Foundation to the function of the District itself.  She concluded her talk by asking for feedback on what we as Rotarians would like to see from our District leaders.

 

            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. 

 

            Be sure to mark your calendars for Saturday, March 19^th for the Essex Rotary All-Star Hockey Classic!  For our newer members, our Club puts on the annual high school all-star hockey games that feature the best men and women senior players in the state.  This is also typically our Club’s second largest fundraiser, so we will need all hands on deck in order to pull this off.  Sign-up sheets for volunteer slots will be circulated in the very near future, so stay tuned.  Please contact committee chair, Jeff Cabanaw for more details about this event.

 

 

            We are still looking for a few people to volunteer for shifts at the Heavenly Pantry Food Shelf on Thursday, February 25^th.  Please contact Sharon Dettenrieder if you would like to volunteer.

 

Upcoming Meeting Schedule:  February 17, 2016 – We will be holding our annual Service Above Self Dinner at The Essex at 5:30pm. Zachariah Fike, founder of  “Purple Hearts Reunited” will be honored as the recipient of this year’s “Service Above Self” Award.  We will also recognize selected members of the Essex Rescue, Essex Police Department and both the Essex Junction and Town Fire Departments for their exemplary service to the community.  This event will be held in lieu of our regularly scheduled meeting.

 

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