MEETING/EVENT SCHEDULE:
PRESIDING: John Barstow
MINUTES OF April 12th, 2023
The meeting started with club members reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and Rotary 4-Way Test. Someone then asked the group to sing the Rotary Song, but a consensus to not scare away Maureen's guest prevailed.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- John announced that the Club is going to support the HOPE Food Shelf's summer outreach efforts in the communities of Shoreham, Granville, and Orwell. A district grant proposal will be submitted this month for a $2,500 match to the Club's own $2,500 to be used in these efforts. Club volunteers will be needed periodically during the summer to help with the distribution of food in these three locations. A show of hands by present members indicated unanimous support for this project.
- The Charlotte/Hinesburg/Shelburne Rotary Club is conducting their own Window Dressers service project this fall. They asked our club for volunteers to help obtain window measurements for a number of insert requests originating from our local area.
- $500 has been donated by the Club to the Middlebury Area Little League for new shirts that include the Rotary logo.
- Maureen announced that the CACO allocation meeting will be held at Addison County Home Health & Hospice on Friday, April 14 at 3 pm. Maureen emailed more applications for participants to review ahead of the meeting, and also said that paper copies of each application are available upon request.
- The 2023 District Conference at Jay Peak is quickly approaching. It starts on Friday, April 28 and concludes on Sunday, April 30. John asked for volunteers to help set up promotional materials for our Club's table that will be displayed throughout the conference. Eric offered to help, as no one else at breakfast appeared to be going. To register, please visit: https://rotary7850.org/sitepage/2023-district-celebration/
Fines and Happy Dollars:
Fines:
- Kevin was fined for a missing nametag infraction.
- Jason was (happily) fined for his Tampa Bay Rays starting the regular season 11-0.
- Ben fined himself after incorrectly asserting that Bill Cunningham had been late to breakfast.
Happy Dollars:
- Jack: The Middlebury Fire Department will be hosting a ham dinner at the Waybury Inn on Tuesday evening, May 2nd. Takeout will be available.
- Mike: for having good weather during a recent Michigan visit.
- Maureen: happy to bring Amy Carlin from Middlebury College as her guest.
- Bill Vitek: Happy for being the guest speaker.
- Max: Happy to be back, but even more happy to have worked with Lois on a one-room schoolhouse project where Jack Brown once attended as a youth.
- "T": Congratulated Alex Wolff for joining Middlebury Rotary. Also grateful for Geoff Conrad's service in producing helpful and concise financial statements at the district level.
- Jason: His son will be attending Clarkson University next fall!
Guest Speaker:
John then welcomed Bill Vitek from New Perennials as this week's guest speaker. Bill is a former Philosophy professor at Clarkson University.
Bill works with the New Perennials project that he recently brought to Middlebury College. This project started in 2018 with roots to the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. Bill spoke of the importance of bringing agriculture and education together as well as the general act of thinking perennially regarding everything we do for the community.
Bill expanded on the history of modern agricultural practices and the need for reforms. He reported that 70% of all tilled acreage and caloric content is tied to the production of annual cereal grains (wheat, corn, and rice). New Perennials and its partners are focusing on the introduction of a new cereal grain called kernza, a perennial crop with a significantly more extensive root system than annual cereal grains. It could potentially reduce the plowing of farm soil to once every five years instead of every year as is the current practice in modern farming.
To learn more, please visit:
https://www.newperennials.org/
Bill also takes part in the Thursday night Jazz music hosted by the Middlebury Inn inside Morgan's Tavern from 6 to 9 pm.
No one won the cow tag raffle this week.
MINUTES RECORDED AND SUBMITTED BY STEVE WILLIAMS ON BEHALF OF SYLVIE CHOINIERE
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