Charlotte-Shelburne Rotary - Newsletter

What’s Rotary? Rotary is a volunteer organization of 1.2 million business and professional leaders united worldwide to provide humanitarian service and help build goodwill and peace. About 32,000 Rotary clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas conduct projects to address today’s challenges – including illiteracy, disease, hunger, poverty, lack of clean water, and environmental concerns – while encouraging high ethical standards in all vocations.

As the world’s largest private provider of international scholarships, The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International helps more than 1,000 students annually to study abroad and serve as cultural ambassadors. Rotary also partners with seven prestigious universities around the world, providing opportunities to earn a master’s degree in peace and conflict resolution.

PolioPlus is Rotary’s flagship program. By the time polio is eradicated, Rotary club members will have contributed US$850 million and countless volunteer hours to immunize more than two billion children in 122 countries. Rotary is a spearheading partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, along with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Founded in Chicago in 1905 as the world’s first volunteer service organization, Rotary quickly expanded around the globe. Today, club members meet weekly to plan service projects, discuss community and international issues, and enjoy fellowship. Clubs are nonpolitical and open to every race, culture, and creed.

Welcome

President John Beal introduced guests Wendy Farrell from South Burlington Rotary and Tim McNeill, president of the Rotary Club in Suffolk, England.

Announcements

10/21 – Speaker Howard Seaver on the City to City program
10/22 – Board meeting – 7:30
10/24 – District Rotary Meeting in Randolph
10/25 – Halloween Parade

District Governor Guy Babb requested that John ask for a show of hands to indicate how many club members would be interested in special bus transportation to the Montreal Rotary International Convention in June next year. There could also be special prices for one-day attendance. It looked as if about seven members from Charlotte Shelburne would attend.

Car Raffle

People soliciting local businesses for door prizes for the Car Raffle on Oct. 30, are reminded to give receipts to the donors.

There are still four tickets to be won by buyers of the pumpkin raffles tickets. Ric Flood conducted a draw and John Beal was the winner.

Nightmare Vermont

Wendy Farrell encouraged Charlotte Shelburne Rotary members to help to promote an event being sponsored by South Burlington Rotary in cooperation with students of South Burlington High School. Nightmare Vermont is a giant Haunted House being staged in the old Olympiad building behind Shaw’s. Wendy described it as “a play you walk through” – feared to adults and young adults (but not little children) with lots of creative creepiness. The event is Fridays and Saturdays, Oct. 23, 24, 30 and 31 from 8 to 11 for the first three nights and till midnight on Halloween night. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Tickets are available at www.NightmareVermont.org or call toll free 1-888-830-0888. They are also looking for volunteers who would like to help with the event.

Sergeant at Arms

Kris Engstrom said she would catch up on fines for anniversaries and birthdays – so she fined Adam Bartsch for an anniversary, Gary Bergeron for an anniversary, Susan McLellan for her anniversary, Dennis Delaney, Adam Bartsch and Linda Gilbert for birthdays. There were also some pin fines.

Happy fines:

Linda Gilbert – the Tractor Parade on Spear Street in Charlotte – and should Rotary have a presence?
Jim Spadaccini – there were 157 tractors and 1,400 people.
Ric Flood – a trip to Boston to visit his daughter and a plan to be in Las Vegas next week.
Kris Engstrom – her daughter Erica has passed the bar – her sister has finished her chemo treatments
Wendy Farrell – Farrell became her name this summer – her daughter is in Guys and Dolls at South Burlington High School this weekend
Tim McNeill – impressed with the careful and gentle drivers of Vermont
Denny Bowen – missed some meetings – his brother has moved to Vermont from Jackson Heights.

Lucky draw: Joan Lenes’ number was drawn but she chose the wrong card and missed the $575.50 pot.

Guest Speaker

Adam Knudson of Dynapower introduced us to their niche in the energy industry during a time of transitioning from fossil fuels to non-fossil fuels. Dynapower of South Burlington is active in the production of power conservation equipment. Currently the US electrical grid is the most complicated in the world, and upgrading its inadequate system to become the smart grid that will serve the country better will rival the nation’s highway building programs of the 1950s and 1960s.

The goal of the non-fossil fuel industries is to provide abundant, clean, affordable, efficient and reliable electric power.

“We want to change how businesses use their electricity,” Knudson said. “A new approach will tell you the impact of every large appliance you use – and give you a choice of whether to use it.”

Storage (the piece of the new energy picture that Dynapower is focused on) will be key to the success – wind and solar power may not be produced in the right place or the right time to match the need of the end user – storing the energy when it is being produced so it can be used later will be important. “It makes a non-dispatchable energy supply into dispatchable power,” he said. The success of the industry could mean hundreds of jobs in Vermont.