Announcements: 

• HOPE (Geoff) -  Volunteer
  • HOPE needs help moving shelves and putting stuff in boxes in their resale store. Geoff sent out an email
• Flags (Nancy) -  Flag Day
  • Thursday-Saturday (Flags should have gone up and been picked up) 
• District Grant (Geoff & Eric) - Window Dressers
  • We were approved by the District for $1,100 (which is less than expected) and we will hear RI for the final approval in July. Due to the lower funds expected, this may need to be added in the 2025 budget. 
• Auction (Mike) - September 25th - October 5th
  • The auction will be for 2 full weeks and a sign up sheet will be going out soon to solicit donations. You can start gathering items now, but Mike will not be able to take them until mid-August. 
• Speakers (Paul) - Please send suggestions 
  • Paul is looking for speakers in the Fall 
• Changeover Dinner (Eric) - June 26th at 5:30 
  • Thank you Eric and Janice for hosting the BBQ - please see email from Eric for address and details. 

Fines: 

• John - rang the bell late
• Maureen - no name tag 

Happy: 

• T was happy to announce that Maureen will be leading the Porter Auxiliary 
• Rebecca thanked Fran, Bill, Jason L, Ben who helped with the Project Graduation BBQ (sorry if I missed others)
• Maureen will miss seeing Sylvie at meetings and thanked Jason L for coming out to help with a project at Home Health and Hospice
• Sylvie gave a sad dollar as this was her last meeting as she will be going on maternity leave and taking a leave from Rotary
• Fran thanked Rebecca for organizing the easiest/smoothest service project 
• Eric was happy for 1) Ben and Jason who were out fishing and caught a big fish 2) Project Graduation led by Rebecca 3) brought Sem to NH and went to the NH Changeover Dinner and 4) Sem left for his trip out West and will be back for the BBQ
• David was happy about there being another successful Opera Season 

Guest Speaker: Matt Dickinson, Middlebury College

T-tall introduced Matt Dickinson who graduated with his Ph. D from Harvard, has been an author for the NY times, featured on WCAX, and has been at Middlebury College for 25 years discussing the presidential power and abuse. 

Matt started off by explaining a few possibilities for 2024. The senate currently has a lot of instability. It is probable that the Senate will be majority Republican, the House will be majority Democratic, but the President is questionable. This is the closest electoral climate we have seen! Matt explains that there is a 2 seat majority for the Dems and the Reps only need a net gain of 1 seat to flip the majority to Rep. (Reps will likely regain majority as there are 3 seats open). As for the House, there are 218 Reps and 213 Dem and Matt would not be surprised if the Dems regain the majority. There are 25 seats open (22 are a toss up).

As for the presidency votes, Trump is taking a lead in popular votes and Joe Biden is not very popular (55% disapproval votes). There is an interesting shift in voting blocks. For example, the racial/working class is leaving the Dems and going Rep. The higher educated class is leaving the Rep and going to Dem. There is a huge education gap between those who have higher education/post graduation and those with no education/lower class. There is a correlation with who they are voting for or not voting, in general. Matt explains that those with higher education backgrounds are more likely to vote and those with less education are less likely to vote.  

Next Matt noted a few issues the Dems are facing: included they are losing working class votes because "they are too far left (trans issues, abortion, etc)" and there is not enough focus on the working class. Also, although inflation is trending down, prices are not coming down and those on fixed incomes are feeling this pressure. Biden is going to struggle with this issue because that (finances) is what people will be thinking about at the polls. 

On another note, Trump’s guilty verdict does not seem to have an impact on the election and trends. For both Rep and Dems (mostly Reps), - people are more likely to vote for Trump because of this verdict. 

A question was asked about Robert F Kennedy Jr and third party candidates. Matt explains they will likely be drawing from both Dem/Rep parties. 

Thank you, Matt! 

Cow Tag: No Winner