Posted by Nancy Riedel on May 16, 2018
Bell was rung at 8:00 and the meeting was presided over by President Ben Shelton
Nasser Shaheen offered the prayer and led the pledge to the flag.
 
photo credit Barry Davis
 
A pledge check for $200,000 was presented to People for Parks signifying that they will be the beneficiary of our 2019 Auction.  Accepting the pledge for People for Parks is Frank Soule and Alan Perry.  Our donation will be used to fund the second floor of the gym area of the Island Rec Center renovation.
 
Filling in as Sergeant at Arms,  Past President Tim Ridge welcomed visitors, visiting Rotarians, and collected Happy $$
Visiting Rotarian: Richard Green from Kentucky
 
Announcements:
Next week's meeting will be at the Museum.  We will meet in the Sea Island Room for breakfast then tour the Discovery Lab.  VLR contibuted $100.000 to this facility and it will be wonderful to see what the money went for
 
This Saturday is trash pick up at the high school.  Meet there at 8:30.  If it is raining, it will be rescheduled.
 
State of the Club:
 
Matt Murphy  - the final number for the auction and raffle is we brought in $83,000 to net $63,287.  It will be determined when the distribution will be made to First Tee.
 
Treasurer Roger Burns reported that the club is in a good financial position.  We do not have the final numbers in from the Heritage but we hope to net around the same amount as we did last year, which was $30,286.  Membership invoices will be going out next week.
 
PI Chair, Lynn King reported that we have been using facebook, however have not used Instagram as we wanted to as yet.  Want to expand its use for the auction as well as develop a notebook for the auction which would be a "how to" do it with documented timed line and needed tasks.  Trying to figure out how to reach more people via social media.
 
Membership for this year is down 6% this year to 61.  Will try to make sure all current members are plugged in to the areas that they want to be.  Invite people that you think would be good Rotarians to our meetings.
 
Ivan Bennett, New Generations Chair reported on the five programs in that area.  May 31 will be the last day of school for students so there will be a little break for the summer.  The five areas are:  Dictionary Project - we spent $1800 to distribute dictionaries to students and next Rotary year will be distributing them in October again;  Early Act was a brand new project this year and $600 was spent on start up.  Next year E A will go down to third grade and fourth and fifth will continue to be involved.  T-Shirts are in the plans; Rotary Reader, cost $0, but will continue to need Rotarian Volunteers; Exceeding Expectations is the most challenging program and is hard to measure its success. There were 30 students in middle school that need role models and guidance that participated this past year.  Next year, with the help of Jennifer Stupica and Lynn King, the group will go to Discovery Lab in the fall and the Maritime Center in Spring; Scholarship - a $10,000 scholarship was awarded and next year will be looking for more applicants.
 
Social committee - there will be no socials before the end of the year.
 
Founders' Night is scheduled for Saturday June 23 at the Shipyard Beach House.
 
International Service, Programs, Vocational Service, Sunshine Committee  no reports 
 
President Ben thanked all who chaired committees, members of the committees and all who contributed to the club's success this year.