Charlotte-Shelburne Rotary - Newsletter

As The Rotarian nears its 100^th anniversary, more than 1,000 back issues have found a 21^st century home. Rotary has teamed up with Google to make archived copies of the magazine available FREE online – more than 72,000 pages overall.

Full color, searchable scans of issues from January 1911 through December 2008 are now posted on Google (www.books.google.com). Find a direct link on The Rotarian’s page of the RI Web Site (www.rotarian.org/rotarian). Browse through a gallery of issues organized by decade, or click “Search All Issues” to search the entire catalog for a word or phrase. “Google is doing all of the scanning and indexing to make the information searchable, at no cost to Rotary,” says Stephanie Giordano, archivist for Rotary International.

Announcements

Jan. 20 – Steve Taubman, Magician
Jan. 21 – Board Meeting
Jan. 27 – Annual Meeting

Linda Gilbert and Colleen Haag recorded make-ups, attending a Milton-Colchester Rotary meeting to tell them about Hands to Honduras.

Thank you letters were received from Shelburne Food Shelf, Women Helping Battered Women, Meals on Wheels and COTS.

John Dupee announced that Charlotte Senior Center has asked Rotary to provide the servers, set up and clean-up volunteers for their annual dinner honoring their volunteers. The dinner will be from 5:45 to 9 on a date that is convenient for the Rotary volunteers who can choose from March 19, March 26, April 16 and April 23. Eight people promptly volunteered and the dinner will be held on March 19.

Sergeant at Arms

Happy fines:

Don Condon welcomed the Dates back – Elaine said they had been in Philadelphia for a wedding and Steve admitted that it was a rare occasion when he left his computer at home.
Bill Root – happy to be back – had a vacation in Mexico
Tod Whitaker – his picture was in the paper – had a very good January Winter Farmers Market
Howard Seaver – his birthday
Dave Rice – was notified that he had won the UK Lottery
Alan Hathaway – after years of living north of Shelburne village, now lives south of Shelburne Village.
Terry Kennaugh – attended a wedding
Sharon Beal – missed some meetings – concerned about the situation in Haiti
Linda Schiavone – late fine
George Schiavone – others go to exotic places – he recently traveled to Starksboro
Ric Flood – landmark occasion – he put on a tie without having a heart attack
Jim Spadaccini – had a birthday on Jan. 12 – heard from all his children
Kris Engstrom – a pin fine
John Hammer – a birthday – thee feet of snow here while he was in Southern California where he passed lots of golf courses without playing on any of them.
Michele Lash – a pin fine
Jim Spadaccini – reminder that Peter Lenes was named to the All Star team in California where he plays for the Ontario Reign

Lucky draw: Guest speaker Sarah Tischler drew Denny Bowen’s number. John Dupee drew a card on behalf of their table which had agreed to share the $140 pot – but John chose the wrong card.

Update on the CVU Auditorium

Sarah Tischler of St. George has been a community representative to the Chittenden South Supervisory Union’s Auditorium Renovation Committee. She said that in the years since CVU was built, the auditorium had been the site of many exciting school and community events, but during that time virtually nothing has been done to upgrade the auditorium. A stand-alone auditorium was part of the design for major expansion and renovation for the high school in 2004, but when the bond for the project failed, the board decided to remove the auditorium from the plan when they went back to the voters.

Since then, a community committee and hard work by faculty members and students with connection to the arts programs that were being handicapped by the out-dated, ill-equipped and unsafe auditorium, have worked with the board to plan the necessary renovations, figure out how to fund the project, and successfully completed the project. Within the last year the auditorium was renovated with the project, originally estimated at $2.3 million, completed for $1.4 million. Tischler attributed some of the savings to the current economic situation which prompted contractors to make concessions to get the job.

Now, she said, the auditorium with its catwalk for lighting, a good sound system, more seats, an orchestra pit and new floor for the stage, is what it should be for student performances and presentations, giving opportunities for students to learn valuable skills. The auditorium is a resource for the school as well as serving elementary schools and community groups.

She said that an $8,000 gap exists in completing the funding for the project and that donations are being encouraged. Anyone interested in learning more about the new facility can watch a DVD commercial for the project produced by students, and a DVD of a presentation at Wake Robin explaining what the arts mean to the community and students.

Funding for the project came from the sending communities who voted to support a capital reserve for the auditorium, plus leftover funds from the original 2004-2005 bond vote and $300,000 from public fund raising.

Asked whether there was any plan to keep the auditorium up to date with steadily improving technical equipment, Tischler said that a non-profit had been established to accept gifts to support the arts at CVU.