Charlotte-Shelburne Rotary - Newsletter

President John Beal lead the Pledge and read the devotional. He welcomed guest Paul Morrow, and our much-appreciated-in-spite-of-the-distance Rotary member Jay Pompar who is visiting from Florida.

Announcements

7/8 – Dave Jonah will tell us about his year-long family trip across the U.S.A., as far north as Alaska and as far south as Central America.
7/15 – Club Assembly
7/16 – Board meeting
7/18 – an opportunity to hear the new RI President John Kenny speaking at Boston Rotary. Call John Beal for information.
7/22 – District Governor Guy Babb will visit

Volunteers Needed

On Saturday, July 18, we will have an opportunity to tell the community about Rotary and Hands to Honduras Tela with a table at the Shelburne Farmers Market. We will be handing out our flyers, encouraging people to consider membership, selling Honduran coffee as a fund raiser for the H2H project, and telling them about the accomplishments of H2H.

Volunteers are needed for set up and take down, and staffing the information table. We also need a tent, table, coffee maker, flyers, and maybe a truck to transport everything.

Thank You

A big vote of appreciation to Ric Flood for hosting the very successful Changing of the Guard party on June 23. John reported that the event came in close to budget and expressed appreciation to everyone for supporting the 50/50 raffle.

Rotary Foundation Thought

This week's Rotary Foundation Thought is about a matching grant that has helped turn waste into profit for Philippine coconut farmers.

With the aid of a Foundation matching grant, the Livelihood Project gives local farmers the supplies and labor to turn wasted coconut husks into "coconets", which have environmental and economic benefits for the community. The project increased employment levels for women and out of school youth while reviving the local coconut industry. Coconut husks, which are a huge source of agricultural waste, are now used to make coconets which help provide an environmentally friendly solution to land erosion and degradation. Another husk byproduct, coconut dust is used as a soil enhancer and organic fertilizer. This is an example of how The Rotary Foundation is helping smaller communities throughout the world and is ensuring that economic growth reaches the poorer communities.

Sergeant at Arms

Don Condon took on the task of Sergeant at Arms with a pledge to refrain from religious jokes, and political jokes, but quickly realized that this would be impossible as he admitted to being “an irreverent SOB” and promised that everyone could expect to be harassed.

He got off to a good start by making Michele Lash an example of a club member who has not posted her picture and biographical information on the club website, and warned her to rectify the situation promptly.

Don also instituted the “Where’s Waldo” approach to building attendance at meetings. He said that only 35 of the club’s 65 members were at the meeting and missing members would be subject to a concerted campaign to get them to the meetings. The first “Waldo” that needs finding is Margo Callaghan. Club members are encouraged to “find” her and bring her to the meeting.

Birthday fine – Joyce Errecart

Happy fines:

Michael Lash – happy that Don chose Michele for his “add your face to the website” campaign.
Paul Bohne – late fine
Eric Hanley – for spending five hours with the Charlotte Shelburne Rotary Golf Team – and winning the Essex Rotary Golf Tournament
Russ Blodgett – happy to be at the meeting
Linda Schiavone – a birthday fine
Dennis Webster – it’s Canada Day!
John Hammer – thanks for the great COG party and happy to report the success of his grandson’s recent surgery
Rosalyn Graham – Yeah, Canada Day, and for having a chance to tell Jay Pompar in person how much his great work getting the weekly report to the club members so promptly – and apologies for the missing material in the last two reports.
Joan Lenes – for the COG party – and for getting to the interesting and successful public meeting at Shelburne Town Center that she attended after the COG
Debby Hanley – bike riding early Wednesday morning with Eric
Steve Dates – happy that we aren’t a singing club – even though people were celebrating their birthdays
Elaine Dates – notoriety fine – presenting an award to Stefan Jost at Shelburne Museum
Susan McLellan – for being in Lyndonville for the wrap-up of the RYLA weekend – and for spending time in the Finger Lakes
Jim Spadaccini – for having his whole family, three children, their spouses and six grandchildren, for a weekend visit
Terrell Titus – for a birthday dinner
Denny Bowen – his grandchildren are visiting
Howard Seaver – he’s a grandfather for the first time
Dave Rice – his father is recovering nicely
Alan Hathaway – a great birthday dinner – and good to see Jay
Jay Pompar – happy to be here for a month visit
Terry Kennaugh – Swiss visitors and lots of sailing
Robert Maynes – if it’s Canada Day and he works for a Canadian Bank, how come he wasn’t having a holiday?

Lucky draw: John Dupee’s number was drawn but he chose the wrong card and did not get the $335 pot.

Guest Speaker

Emily Morrow gave us an ‘American in Oz’ capsule of her observations made during three years living in Australia and six months in New Zealand. She and her husband Paul lived ‘down under’ for two periods while Paul worked there as a medical examiner (a position he had held in Vermont for many years). The length of their time there, and Emily’s work as an Executive Coach gave her a good opportunity to recognize implicit and explicit differences between the cultural baseline assumptions of the three countries.

She likened her growing awareness of the differences to the experiences of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz – first the change from Black and White to Color in the movie, a difference that comes on you gradually, and then the conscious awareness that “we’re not in Kansas anymore,” a dramatic recognition.

While in Australia and New Zealand, Emily worked as an Executive Coach, helping business owners and executives who are technically competent but face subtle challenges in delegating, communications, inability to inspire confidence and an inability to network. Typically clients are referred by their bosses or come as a result of their own self-awareness.

Among the differences she observe were a lack of women in the highest positions in the business community, no women bank board presidents or leaders of law corporation sections. Their history, as a country originally settled by convicts, created a hierarchy that gave women little power and that has continued to today with women fearing to stand out in the crowd, or not wanting to mentor other women to rise up in corporate situations.

In New Zealand she found a different baseline: a tendency to a very reserved approach, combined with an unjaded, open willingness to hear new ideas.

She said she had found that in her role as a coach, anywhere, it is important to arrive as “a blank slate,” ask probing questions, reserve judgment, follow your intuition, check for accuracy and acknowledge that you may not understand the context.

Now that she is back in Vermont, she is exploring the possibilities of advising on succession planning, a business that fits well with her background as a lawyer specializing in succession with Dinse, Knapp & McAndrew, and her experience as an executive coach. “Better business succession planning is critical in Vermont to counter the adverse impact of the loss of local ownership with the related loss of local capital.”