Top takeaways:
Upcoming meeting (Thursday April 24) – bring clothes! A sports coat or the shirt off your back (but not your lingerie, says past-president James Petersen). Clothes for all seasons, knick-knacks & jewelry will be collected by Friends in Action’s executive director Heidi Chase. Benefits their thrift shop and clients with developmental disabilities. https://friendsinactionnh.org
Next Rotary speaker: Megan Keil, Senior Recruiter, US Peace Corps, and member of the Rotary Club of Dover.
EREY (Every Rotarian, Every Year): will you please donate any amount to OUR Rotary Foundation? You can do this “at the iPad” or directly at rotary.org. Last year over half our Club gave to the Foundation; so far this year about thirty members have invested in Rotary’s future with a contribution. Thank you for considering!
Golf Sponsors needed! Contact Nicole Clark (nicole.h.clark18@gmail.com). Special new incentive for major sponsors to attend our scholarship program, see how we partner to invest in future leaders.
Were you paying attention? In-meeting trivia this week sharpened by observational and oratorical skills and our Otto Trivia Team (answers at the end):
1. What Rotarian’s birthday is April 19?
2. Which trivia team member just chaired our Club meeting?
3. Who was the author of the inspirational poem?
Our featured speaker: Tom Irwin is Vice President /NH of the Conservation Law Foundation, a non-profit, member-supported environmental advocacy organization working to protect New England’s environment. In New Hampshire and across the region, CLF is working to protect our air, our water, and the health of our people and communities. He cited their work in these three sectors.
Clean air: Merrimack station coal fired power plant and Schiller plant both sunsetting coal operations, part of the coal-free New England campaign.
Clean water act addresses a main pollutant of concern, nitrogen. Tom presented a graph showing significant reduction in nitrogen output from our Peirce Island wastewater plant following Portsmouth’s substantial reinvestment. Statewide and locally, stormwater runoff remains a significant treatment challenge.
Healthier communities: CLF is working on tree canopies in Manchester and Nashua to offset heat events linked to climate change.
Tom reported on other CLF statewide work:
- Mitigating childhood lead poisoning
- Extending NH landfill capacity with focus on reducing waste at the source
- Eliminating PFAS “forever chemicals” pollution
A fascinating and important program. You can reach tom at tirwin@clf.org
Meeting McNuggets:
Guests this week included Susan Dewhirst, Gi Indoccio, Brett Carmichael and Suzanne Woodland, who won the $31 raffle (no bonus).
Past-President Dan Hoefle channeled his inner Kate Smith to lead us in song with “God Bless America.” Past-President and not-birthday-suited James Petersen (62) led our four-way-test. Log editor John Rice inspired us with “The World is Too Much With Us” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us)
Fines centered around vintage photos of Club members believed to have been daguerreotypes from the 1800s. Also, Rotarians pushing up their sleeves, and yet another Past-President giving his wife a gift card to a shut-down restaurant.
Answers to the trivial pursuits at the top of this log:
(1) Paul Harris, Rotary’s founder born April 19, 1868, Racine Wisconsin
(2) Butch Ricci
(3) William Wordsworth
Bonus question: who scribed this week’s log?
(4) Dave Underhill
 | Guest Suzanne Woodland won the $31 raffle (no bonus). |
Respectfully submitted, Dave Underhill
