Good Morning and Happy Mother's (and Grandmother's 😉) day to all! I am including grandmother's today as I know of at least 3 of us who are recent grandmas in our club. 😄 Exciting and joyous times!
I am also thrilled to see a few smiling faces returning to our meetings - members Judy Bowen and John Reynolds are back from their winter locales. I suspect a few more others will be returning soon.
As you can see by the above photo, farmer's market time is here - opening next Saturday, May 18. Woo hoo! That means that our breakfast meetings will begin outside under the tent at Toast and Eggs soon. We hope to begin with this shift the first meeting in June. Stay tuned for confirmation on this.
A great big thank you, once again, to Dave Koepele for the annual herding of the cats to Camp Te-Kum-Ta for hockey rink take down. The Camp management is quite grateful for our help with this and it was wonderful to hear more about this fabulous organization at this week's recent meeting. See photo below.
A big thank you also to Ed McDonough who has once again completed his annual dictionary giveaway to local third graders for the 6th time. And congratulations to Mike Leichliter who will resume this responsibility next year. We are all looking forward to seeing some photos soon of this annual event. 😄
Mike Curtin is busily preparing for his term as President of our Club to begin in July and has done so by initiating a Club Health Check and Visioning survey and workshop. You should have received an email with information on completing the Survey. The Visioning Workshop will be held on Wednesday June 5 from 4 - 7:30 p.m. Dinner will be provided and your input and collaboration is vital to charting a course for the entire club.
As a reminder, annual Club Dues are due June 1. You should have received an email from our Treasurer, Pete Colgan, regarding this. And thanks to Pete, MRV Rotary has entered the 21st century with regards to paying dues this year. Venmo is even offered! The Club's Venmo user name is @MRVRotaryTreasurer.
Tom Emory reports that our sponsorship fundraising effort is about half way to our goal. Thanks to Tom and Bonnie Barnes, Carl Cundiff, Howard Levin and Jeff Bruckner for your hard work on this effort.
Volunteer opportunities.
At Wednesday's morning meeting, Ed McDonough shared an update on the progress for opening of the Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity Re-Store in Waterbury that MRV Rotary voted to support. A manager is in place, management is in the process of hiring 2 more part time positions, a box truck has been purchased, the store is cleaned and small interior construction completed and the website is updated. How can you help? As you might have read in an email from Sean Sullivan, some volunteers are needed for interior painting on Monday and Tuesday, May 20,21. Please reach out to him at 802-578-6000 if you can offer a hand. Also pick ups of materials and donations will be available soon. The Store is scheduled to open June 7.
Thank you to Jane Macan for helping to coordinate the Open Garden Days once again this year with Sally and Toby von Trapp. This annual joint fundraiser will begin weekends on July 5 and 6 for a total of 10 garden days in July and August. Stay tuned for sign up genius chart in early June so that you may volunteer to sit at the reception desk in the beauty of the garden.
We are in need of a Projects leader, someone who can keep track of the various projects we are engaged in. This is primarily a job of communicating with the leaders of the various projects and following up on status. If you are interested, please reach out to Mike Curtin.
Or if you would like to be a Greeter at an upcoming meeting, use the same link.
Upcoming Rotary meetings:
Next week is our annual Person of the Year Dinner to be held at the Pitcher Inn on May 15, at 5:30 p.m. as we honor Joshua Schwartz, Exec. Director of the Planning District. Please register for this important celebration if you are in town.
On May 22 our breakfast meeting at the Waitsfield UCC Meeting House will be at 7 a.m. Speaker is TBA.
Many thanks to Karen Winchell for her hard work scheduling speakers. If you have an idea for a speaker or a connection that can help Karen, please reach out to her.
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