Greetings fellow Rotarians! We kicked things off by inducting Elaine Haney into our Club as our 56th member. If you haven’t done so already, please introduce yourselves to Elaine and make her feel welcome.  Our speaker today was Emily Gould.  Emily is a fellow Rotarian from Montpelier who also serves as the Co-Director of African Peace Partners.  This non-profit organization is committed to supporting the Ihumure Peace Association in Rwanda.  Emily discussed the culture of Rwanda and filled us in on its recent, violent history. Through a partnership with a local Rwandan NGO, African Peace Partners helps operate a peace center in Rwanda. The peace center offers an integrated approach to peacebuilding by weaving together programing in trauma recovery, conflict transformation and cooperative economic activity. For more information about Emily’s organization, please visit its website at: http://www.africanpeacepartners.org/african-peace-partners/

Our Club is not the only that features great speaker. On Friday, September 18 at 7:45 am U.S. Representative Peter Welch will be addressing the Burlington Sunrise Club at its weekly Zoom meeting. Rear Admiral Douglas Perry will also be speaking to that Club on Friday, September 25 at 11:45am. These meetings can be accessed as follows: https://uvmcom.zoom.us/j/408861896  Meeting ID: 408 861 896

As more of us are utilizing the services of Amazon, Members are encouraged to take part in the AmazonSmile program. Through this program, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to our charities account. To take advantage of this opportunity, please visit https://smile.amazon.com/ch/03-0348126 and sign up!

Upcoming Meeting Schedule: Wednesday, September 23, 2020 – Our speaker will be Chris Kesler, founder of Black Flannel Brewery and Distillery.  Weekly meetings may be accessed by clicking https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84976905896  After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. For future meetings, you will need log in at www.zoom.us  click Join a Meeting, fill in the Meeting ID of  849 7690 5896 and then the Password of 925477. If you wish to attend by phone, you will just need to dial (646) 558-8656 and then enter the ID and Password noted above.

For the complete list of upcoming speakers and information about the Club, please go to our website at rotaryclubofessex.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