Also, when paying with a Credit Card, fees approach $1 per transaction, Cash is preferred.
Announcements
A slate of officers is needed for the 2019-20 year to serve with Bob Cruz. Please let Tom know if you want to volunteer.
Elizabeth announced that Dennis McLeavey was inducted into the Club on Jan. 1, 1986
Tom presented Elizabeth with a 2-sapphire pin as a “double Paul Harris Fellow.” Congratulations, Elizabeth!
Membership Video
By Lawrence Furbish, ARC, Zone 32
Here is this month's
It is "The Ask, Part II, a continuation of this important topic. Please follow the link or cut and paste it to your browser.
https://ga.vyond.com/videos/02azubP84re4
Happy Bucks
Sandy Cutting, happy that the first three reservations have already come in for the Art Festival in June
Betsy Wisehart, fulfilled her bucket list wish of doing the Polar Plunge; grateful that her daughter accepted a position at South County Hospital
Bob Horrocks, in honor of his granddaughter, a nurse in New Haven, who received an award for alertness after she questioned a doctor’s decision to discharge a patient
Bob Cruz, happy that he and Spencer did the Polar Plunge and apologizing for his phone ringing
Harv Whitley, sorry that he missed meetings because his wife was ill but happy that she has recovered
Gene Corl, whose granddaughter was accepted into the Tufts Occupational Therapy program
Glen Zibolis , who arranged for a fireworks company to attend the Jan. 17 meeting to explore the possibility of a fireworks festival
Elizabeth Candas, in honor of her brother and Rotary Pride
Program
Tom initiated a discussion of fundraising within the Rotary family. Each club is expected to raise money for both the District and the Rotary International Foundations, in addition to funding its own projects. The annual benchmark for each club is $50 per member, with further recognition coming at the level of $100 per member. He asked the members to discuss ideas for raising money and for increasing membership. Some of the many points that were raised include:
Rotary International Foundation gets a very high rating by Charity Navigator, the independent evaluator of charities, for its transparency and the percent of the money that goes directly to the charitable effort rather than administration. It ranks as one of the top 10 charitable organizations in the world.
Our local Rotary Foundation is doing very well and has consulted with the Rhode Island Foundation about how to invest about $100,000 that is currently in a bank account.
We are a smaller club than previously and should not use the same goal ($40,000) for a club of 30 that we had when we were 100 strong.
This is a good time to invite new people to join the club, since we have ended the Balloon Festival discussion and the tensions that accompanied it. The spirit is good.
We should think of the kind of people we can attract. All ages and occupations are welcome.
We used to have more faculty and staff from URI. That might be a good place to do outreach.
We could seek out people who are self-employed or who work from home and may want to make social connections through the club.
We could put more effort into publicizing our activities in the local press, as some other nonprofits do.
Lunchtime meetings are a problem for some working people. Should we explore breakfast or dinner meetings? Where would we hold them?
Another format some clubs use is to replace one meeting per month with an evening social event.
