Greetings fellow Rotarians! Today’s meeting featured the first leg of the annual Rotary District Speech Contest.  Local high school students Zachary Parker, Eva Joly and Shirsta Rai eloquently delivered speeches on the manners in which the applications of the Rotary Four Way Test have impacted and shaped their everyday lives.  All three students did an excellent job and the results were probably the closest we have ever seen, but Shirsta Rai was declared the winner of this round.  For her efforts, Shirsta received a check for $100.00 and will move on to the next leg of the competition as she competes against other students for the right to ultimately participate in the District 7850 finals.  Congratulations to all three students on a job well done and thank you to Amy Jackman for her hard work in organizing this event. We concluded our meeting with our monthly charitable committee meetings.

 

 

            Don’t forget to put the annual Service Above Self Dinner on your calendars.  This year’s event will be held on the evening of Wednesday, February 21^st at The Essex. In addition to recognizing several first-responders who have gone above and beyond the call of duty this year, we will be recognizing our very own Dave Johnson as this year’s recipient of the “Service Above Self” award.  The cost for this dinner is $35.00 per person and a sign-up sheet will be available at our meetings.  Rotarians are encouraged to bring family members and friends to what should be a very memorable evening!

 

 

            Things are progressing nicely for this event.  Thank you to all who have volunteered to work at this event or provide food or supplies to the concession stand.  We could still use a few more volunteers for the clean up crew and there are plenty of opportunities to donate baked goods and supplies to the concession stand.  Please check with committee chair, Jeff Cabanaw to see how you can help.

 

 

            Thank you to all who have volunteered to cover shifts at the Food Shelf in January.  Presently, we have enough volunteers for the month of February.  We are, however, looking for volunteers for March (Monday, March 12^th and Thursday, March 22^nd).  Please let Sharon Dettenreider know if you are able to fill any of these slots.

 

Upcoming Meeting Schedule:  Wednesday, February 7th – Our speaker will be Donald Benton from Selective Service.  This will be a joint meeting with the Burlington and Colchester-Milton Clubs that will be held in the atrium of The Essex.  If you haven’t done so already, please let the Club know if you will be attending and whether you will be bringing any guests so we can get an accurate head count to the staff at The Essex.

 

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 follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EssexVermontRotary , on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/essexvermontrotary/ and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/essex_rotary

 

 

       Yours in Rotary,

 

Jason Ruwet