January 27, 2011: GBCC

Rotary Log January 27, 2011

Respectfully submitted by Aileen Dugan

Just for a change of pace, more snow!

President Diane Foley called our meeting to order. There were no guests at the meeting, which is a rare occurrence, and overall attendance was low, no doubt because our latest snow storm. Hopefully many of our members are relaxing in warmer locations right now. Happy dollars touched on the theme of the ever falling snow, with Ed Mallon giving two happy bucks for his snow blower working and Sandy giving one happy buck for finding herself already plowed out this morning.

Rotarian Linda Browning gave us a one minute presentation on her vocation, which has been mortgage origination for the past 25 years. Presently at Mortgage Network, Linda wanted to share with members her belief that mortgage interest rates as well as home prices were both at an all time low. With both prices and interest rates converging at record lows, Linda feels it is the ideal time to buy an investment property, a second home or your first home if you don’t already own one!

To reinforce Linda’s professional wisdom, the club was introduced to new member and realtor Leo Gagnon by his sponsor, Ed Mallon. Leo and his wife Lori were long-time Portsmouth residents before he admits he defected to Stratham. He is still very active in Portsmouth, serving on the Steering Committee of Portsmouth Listens and working as a realtor at Keller Williams, among other accomplishments. The new member induction ceremony now includes a detailed laundry list of all that is expected of us as members of the Portsmouth Rotary Club. This is a terrific idea, although I will admit it sounds a little daunting to long-time members standing in the audience!

Diane Foley gave an update on the Club’s Visioning Retreat, held at the Portsmouth Library last Saturday. Working with Rotarian facilitators, 25 members of our Club set goals and strategies for where we see our Rotary Club in the next 5 years. Participants were told to "think big" and the results of the work done will be shared at our Club Assembly, being organized by Neal Ouellett and Lynn Del, which they plan to hold during a regular meeting in the coming weeks.

Nancy Notis shared plans for a Funky Junk Sale, slated for the 2nd weekend in May, and asked members to dig deep into their closets to accumulate only the "finest" of their junky finery in anticipation. It will be held at the Community Campus, and the committee plans to include plants and food as well, if you happen to have enough of your own stuff and aren’t inclined to part with it. George Carlin had a very funny sketch about yard sales and what we think about other people’s "crap" versus our own, much better "stuff"….With that in mind, May will be the perfect time of year, and opportunity to unload the stuff you don’t use or need anymore, to benefit the Club! If you agree, contact Deb Grabowski to sign up!

Also on tap is the Club’s annual Auction. Joanie Dickenson and Cassandra Wolf will be chairing the event this year. They are looking for a downtown location, as well as 10 larger donation items of $1000 value or higher. They’ll also be looking for donations of bottles of wine, value at $10, from the members. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the date for this event, but I’m sure they’ll be keeping us updated.

Our speaker today was the President of Great Bay Community College, Will Arvelo. Founded in 1945 as a vocational and technical training college, they moved to Stratham in 1982, and were formerly known as Stratham Vocational Technical College. In 2007, they filed legislation to become self-governing and to transition from Stratham Voc Tech, under the umbrella of the State of New Hampshire, to Great Bay Community College. They are part of the larger network of Community College statewide that educates 27,000 students annually. In 2009, they spent $15 million to convert the old Air Force Hospital at Pease into their new facility. Arvelo is spreading the word to businesses in the Seacoast that their new facility is an excellent location for training employees and holding trainings and meetings for non-profits as well.

Over the past two years, with the budget crisis facing the State, money from the NH General Fund to the Community College has decreased 20%, making ours the 2nd most expensive Community College system in the country. The cost of courses is currently $195 per credit. Students at Great Bay benefit from reciprocal agreements with all of the State run colleges, including the University of New Hampshire. They offer several programs that are unique to their location, including degrees as a Vet Tech or Surgical Tech. Programs such as biotechnological engineering, systems analyst, pharmacy, financial analyst and computer programming are designed to offer job specific training and degrees which will make graduates highly employable in the future. Everyone at my table agreed that these programs are needed, and their popularity shows a need to address the increasing higher costs of education.