Perspective: The Ray Jones fund and the Rink Project

(Article by Nancy Notis and Dave Underhill, past presidents and board members)

What is the Ray Jones fund?  Who was Ray, and how does the fund that bears his name relate to our skating rink project at Strawbery Banke?   Let’s begin with some historical context.

Remembering Ray Jones

The late Ray Jones was an amazing man who died way too young at the age of 69 after a valiant battle with cancer.  A member of the Portsmouth Rotary Club, he served as President (1983-84) and was also a Paul Harris Fellow.  He was well known, outspoken, boisterous and a truly beloved member of our club.

 A retired United States Navy Captain, he led a very satisfying 30 year military career which included tours of duty: on a destroyer off Korea; as commanding officer of the Submarine USS Blueback; time at the Pentagon; time at the headquarters of the US European Command in Germany; and finally in 1977 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.   

After his retirement, he went into business at his home in Rye as “The Clock Doctor” doing repair and renovation of antique clocks. He was a member of the Portsmouth Propeller Club and their Lobster Bake Team.  He was a family man who loved music, reading and working on his computer.  He was an avid fisherman who kept the freezer stocked with salmon, halibut, and bluefish, with plenty to share with friends.

He loved his Portsmouth Rotary, and if you ever have wondered who inspired the tradition of selling Christmas ornaments with Rotary Christmas trees, it was Ray Jones.  Then for many years, instead of taking the #1 ornament himself he would have Walter Liff auction off the special decoration.   Of course Ray would always out bid others in support of the club’s coffers and his own ornament collection.  To this day PP Mort Schmidt continues the tradition of bidding on the prized ornament and then presenting it to Ray’s widow Marlene, who lives in Rye.

Shortly after Ray’s untimely death in 1999, the Portsmouth Rotary created an endowment to honor his memory with the establishment of a fund that ironically was not something Ray would have embraced in his lifetime. He didn’t like endowments that prevented use of principal dollars.  Even with this, the Ray Jones Endowment Fund has generously and successfully supported community capital projects at the Seacoast Y and at Crossroads House.

On October 9^th Portsmouth Rotarians will be asked to vote on monies from the Ray Jones Endowment being directed to support the hands on project at Puddle Dock Pond.

Ted Alex briefed our club on the scope of the hands-on project at the September 18 meeting.  He’s already hard at work putting his teams together, and will begin to fabricate and pre-assemble three buildings that are the heart of the project during the month of October.   In November, we will come together and finish the job in time for the skating season.

Why do we need the money, and where will it come from?

Portsmouth Rotary’s board of directors endorsed the project in concept, and has already allocated $10,000 firm dollars toward it.   That money came from last year’s President’s Project as well as a fund-raising surplus at the end of the 2013-2014 fiscal year. 

The total materials to complete the work will cost approximately $30,000.    The board agreed that was a “not to exceed cap” and on September 10 the board endorsed the idea that the remaining $20,000 could come from the Ray Jones fund we maintain with the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, where Rotary’s endowments are invested.

As of September, that specific fund’s balance is $88,634.40.   Of this amount, $30,000 may not be touched: the remaining $58,634.40 is available for projects deemed appropriate by our Club.   The board of directors unanimously approved funding up to $20,000 from this balance, and recommended it to the membership.   This now requires your approval (as indicated by ¾ of the club members present at our October 9 meeting) before it could be disbursed.   As a note, the fund balance increased by over $11,000 last fiscal year due to strong performance of our NHCF portfolio.

The club vote will be Thursday October 9. 

Thank you for your consideration.