Greetings Rotarians!  We started today’s meeting by honoring Sharon Dettenrieder for attaining Paul Harris Plus One status.  This means that Sharon has donated over $2,000.00 to the Rotary Foundation.  Congratulations to Sharon on reaching this goal!  We then heard a brief report on the Corn Booth.  While we still don’t have final net figures, Kristin Winer did report that our overall gross revenue (the combination of sales, Corn Dollar contributions and charitable donations) is up by roughly $1,400.00 from last year.  We should have a more complete report very soon.  Our first speaker was Democratic candidate for State’s Attorney General, T.J. Donovan.  Mr. Donovan indicated that he vows to improve the working relationship between that office and businesses in this state.  He also expressed the need to address the serious opiate epidemic we are facing and posed offered some possible means of doing that.  We then heard from Democratic candidate for State Auditor, Doug Hoffer.  Mr. Hoffer explained how our state needs to do a better job of streamlining our expenditures and the manner in which our state offices are operated.  By way of example, he found that state employees had over 5 million unused minutes on their state purchased cell phones.  If re-elected, Mr. Hoffer vowed to continue his efforts at uncovering wasteful expenditures at the state level.

 

 

            By now you all should have received an e-mail with a link to the 2016 Essex Rotary Survey.  This is a comprehensive survey that covers a lot of different topics.  Our hope is that ALL of our members will take a few minutes to complete this survey.  Remember, this is your opportunity to weigh in on the direction our Club should take in the future. You may take part in the survey by clicking on the following link:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/R8Z2HW6

 

 

            On Friday, October 7^th from 5:00 to 8:00pm, our Club will be putting on the Essex Eats Out event at the First Congregational Church.  We are looking for volunteers to serve food, assist with set up and clean up and to bring dishes to serve at this dinner.  A sign-up sheet for this event is currently being circulated at our weekly meetings.

 

 

            On Saturday, October 15th from 9 to 11 am our club is planning to volunteer at ADL middle school for the Feed My Starving Children service project. At this event, we help hand-pack meals for malnourished children and the meals are sent around the world where they're used to operate orphanages, schools, clinics and feeding programs. You can sign up for this event on our website at http://rotaryclubofessex.org/volunteer/managevolunteercontacts?VolunteerSignUpId=5e31f183-87f2-4563-8148-49afd137b4ac&Token=iHdTnbYFOoHFxph3X2RPWDSsqfAR736rMXAT1qqKLLt0eimM38vs1pewq-zi772G0  Please contact Amy Jackman for more details about this service project.

 

 

            The next opportunities to volunteer at the Heavenly Food Pantry will be on September 22^nd and October 27^th.  Please contact Sharon Dettenrieder if you would like to sign up for shifts.

 

Upcoming Meeting Schedule:  September 21, 2016 – Our speakers will be gubernatorial candidate, Phil Scott and Randy Brock, candidate for Lieutenant Governor.

 

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