Rotary Log: August 29, 2013 (Survey says...)

Always a good day when the meeting starts with an invocation by the Reverend Gordon Allen!

 

Greenland Police Chief Tara Laurent presented the club with a very nice plaque acknowledging our renovation of the PD’s patrol room. The new lights, new countertops, new floor “made a huge difference top to bottom”. After the Maloney tragedy, the officers needed something new and different and this gift from our club was just what the force needed and inspired the Chief to come up with the force’s vision statement: Commitment to Community.

After some announcements which are detailed on our website, Mort gave $35 happy dollars for his time in Rotary and for his anniversary to his “first wife”.  Aileen gave $25 happy dollars for her daughter Katrina’s  (who had joined her for the meeting) 25^th birthday.

Justin Finn was the successful bidder for 2 red sox tickets auctioned off in honor of all Maureen Sullivan does at the Child Advocacy Center.

The Challenger’s Cub Regatta still needs volunteers for their September 8^th sail. Please see our web for more information.

 
Our exchange student from Japan said “Hello” and we will hear more from her later.

Andy Smith, an Associate Professor at UNH and Director of the UNH Survey Center (and consultant to numerous media organizations), was our speaker on the subject of polls. He took a poll of the club to see if anyone knew when the first poll was done in this country. Right: 1824 in Harrisburg, PA, done by a newspaper. Turns out that polls sell newspapers and from that day on, polling became big business.

Andy pointed out that methodology makes all the difference in the accuracy of the poll. For example, whatever you ask last is what the target will agree with. In one poll they asked “do you agree with A or B”? Everyone agreed with B. Then they did the poll again and said “do you agree with B or A”? Everyone agreed with A.  As an example of how misinformed our fellow citizens can be, years ago they ran a poll asking if you agreed that the Public Affairs Act of 1977 should be repealed. 38% strongly agreed that it should be repealed. Problem: the Public Affairs Act never existed.

If you exclude cells phone numbers from the survey, you will get more republican responses because they are older and have less cell phones. Email surveys are the least accurate because you cannot get random populations. Computer generated voices on phone surveys get only a .05% response. Surveys want to ask questions from actual voters, not registered voters because there is a 30% shift on election day between actual and registered voters. 

 
Your editor took an exit poll: Very interesting program.