Rotary Log for Thursday June 17th, 2021 in person and via Zoom!
What a perfect day, sunny with low 70’s and no humidity. A fun meeting was led by our Pandemic President for 196 hours more. Yours truly sang “This Land is Your Land” which fed into John Rice’s blessing about celebrating Juneteenth quite perfectly. Later in the day, President Biden declared Juneteenth as a new National Federal Holiday. It feels special to be part of history.
Dennis Moulton presented Pandemic President with a commemorative plaque from our “Zoom Command Center.”
The command post consists of a web camera named Owl Harris, sound board, laptop, and some cables. We are looking for more volunteers beyond only Don Chick who can help run the zoom portion of the meeting. Thank you, Dave Underhill, and Dennis Moulton, for putting the command center together for our club!
Guests.
Kaitlin Burke brought Peter Muccia, owner of Paul Mitchell School in Portsmouth.
James Petersen brought Kiersten Field, “Kieeeeeeerstan” – make sure you pronounce it well, she might be becoming a Rotarian! James wanted me to quote him in this Log as saying that I have a lovely voice. Thanks James, just wait until next week! The Rotations will be making a special appearance (with a guest star) for the Changing of the Guard ceremony!
Thank you’s.
Pandemic President started thanking quite a few Rotarians for helping him make this year such a success! Dennis Moulton, John Rice, Nancy Notis, Catlin Burke, Al Lantinen and Judy Ringer were all mentioned. We were promised more Thank you’ s next week J
The program.
This week our guests are Courtney Ritchings and Nicole Bellabona. Courtney is the Director of Career and Technical Education at Portsmouth High School. She holds an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership and a B.S. in Adult & Occupational Education—both from UNH. With 20+ years in Career and Technical Education (CTE) teaching and leadership, Courtney left the classroom in 2014. She became the Education Consultant for the Bureau of Career Development at the N.H. Department of Education.
Courtney’s career goal is to support the growth and development of the state’s youth so that they can become happy and successful future adults. She has a passion for connecting student’s interests and aptitudes to career pathways that support local industry.
Nicole Bellabona, M.Ed., GCDF, has a long history of work in the field of Career Services for Higher Education institutions in New Hampshire. Nicole also received her M.Ed. from UNH and Graduate Certification in Training and Development/Human Resources from Southern New Hampshire University.
Nicole’s background includes positions as the Director of Career Placement for the Whittemore School of Business and Director of Center Operations for Granite State College seacoast campuses. She was also Associate Director of Career at SNHU and Career Director for the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at UNH.
Most recently, Nicole provided leadership at the Academy of Applied Science to the Northern New England Regional K-12 Invention Convention program. This was done in collaboration with the international STEMIE Coalition. She was also the driving force for instituting EPIC (Elementary Program Introducing Computing,) UNH’s first ever coding camp for K-12 youth.
Also, among Nicole’s accolades is being named FIRST’s 2015 Volunteer of the Year. The recognition came after she spearheaded the effort to bring FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) to UNH for the first time. Currently, Nicole hopes to contribute her extensive experience to her newest role as Career and College Readiness Coordinator at Portsmouth High School Career Technical Center. Through this work she aims to inspire high school students to develop a career focus earlier-on in their development.
Both Nicole and Courtney are very passionate about what they do. If you would like their students to come visit your workplace, please reach out to them in the fall.
Raffle.
John Pappas won the raffle, sorry – no match.
We closed with the Four Way Test.
Respectfully submitted, Yvonne Legge. This will be my last log for a while as I am taking on the role of Vice President. Wish me luck! (Yvonne will be sorely missed on our writing staff-Ed.)
Photos by Sara Treacy
