Newsletter for Meeting of February 26, 2014
February 26, 2014 Newsletter
By John Hammer
Charlotte Shelburne Rotary
Wednesday, February 26, 2014, 7:15 a.m.
Trinity Episcopal Church Community Room
Welcome
President Dave opened the meeting with the Pledge and Kris Engstrom gave the invocation.* President Dave thanked Kris Engstrom and Adam Bartsch for taking over for him during his four weeks in Honduras.
Guests:
Doris Sage – Returning Member
Ross Saxton – Director of Conservation and Education for Lake Champlain International – Speaker
Guy Lopez – Club President of the White Mountain Rotary Club of Berlin, NH
Upcoming:
March 5 – Dr. Pamela Blair; Author, Life Coach, Therapist and Couples Counselor.
March 12 – Club Assembly
March 13 – Board Meeting
March 22-23 – Shelburne Farms Maple Fest – Club will be providing parking
April 11 – Shelburne Business and Professional Association (SBPA) mixer at Palmers’ Sugarhouse at 5PM
April – Volunteer projects at Shelburne Nature Path, Charlotte Demeter Park and Hinesburg (TBD)
April 25-27 – 7850 District Conference, Hilton Hotel, Burlington
District 7850 Calendar: Hot Link http://www.clubrunner.ca/Portal/Events/EventsCalendar.aspx?accountid=50051
Quote of the Day - “Bad policies flow downhill.” Said by the speaker relative to the problems facing the clean up of Lake Champlain.
Announcements
District Convention Status Report
Elaine Dates reported that they had just received a $500 check and that fund-raising is doing well. She has received a list of requirements from the Rotary International Presidential Representative and is working on recruiting persons to handle the parade of flags at the Flag Ceremony. Steve Dates reported that Club Runner has a wonderful new package called “My Event Runner” that will take registrations and allow for a number of options. Club Runner fills in all the particulars if the registrant is a Rotary Member.
Linda Gilbert – Gave a short resume about what Hands to Honduras – Tela (H2H-T) had done over the past weeks. First, she presented a Mad River Rotary Club banner as there had been three members from that club in Honduras. One was talented in electrics, one in plumbing and one was associated with an orthopedic surgeon. She and the surgeon teamed up in a project to restore 46 school desks.
The H2H-T team arrived in Tela the day after the presidential inaugural and on the day the new mayor of Tela was sworn in. The regime change resulted in a full change in programming and serious budgetary problems. The new mayor, whose brother spent an AFS exchange year in Bellows Falls, VT, also had one of his mayoral team who had gone to St. Michaels. He appears to be very friendly, supportive and accommodating.
Due to a failure of action by the director of the hospital, the plan for the Neonatal Unit was not forwarded to the national office for health (PRONASA) where the departmental engineers redesigned the unit with much enlarged specs. This did not meet the needs of the doctors and nurses of the hospital and resulted in a stalemate. As the result after much negotiation, the club’s plans were finally approved a few days before the volunteers went home and so no work was done.
The women’s health unit was very effective. The rest of the teams were very creative in taking care of the extra volunteers for the diminished number of projects. The operative word was “pacientia” –“patience.” A basketball/soccer field park was renovated, three toilets and electricity were installed at one school, two schools were painted and one restored with a new building. A rural health clinic was repainted and its sink restored. The team never felt unsafe and all was very quiet.
Linda expressed the appreciation everyone had for the club’s support.
Williston Richmond Rotary Club Ski Challenge (Repeat from last week)
Chris Stewart of the Williston Richmond Rotary Club announced and invited our club to their club’s ski challenge to raise money for Vermont Warm low-income heating assistance fund. It will be held on March 14th at Bolton Valley ski Area. Registration starts at 3PM. Races will start at 5:30. Rotary Club teams of four members can compete for the trophy. Lift and race registration is $47. Dinner only will cost $30 per person.
This is a family event. Contact club at: http://bit.ly/1br6hxo
Jim Spad’s Humor
A man was rushed to a hospital with a heart attack where he had emergency open-heart surgery. As he recovered, a nun visited him with lots of paperwork on a clipboard. It was a Roman Catholic hospital to which he had been taken. The nun’s job was to determine how he would be paying for his operation. She began by asking if he had health insurance – “No.” “How about money in the bank?” - “No.” “And do you have any relatives who can help pay? - “No, the only relative I have is a spinster sister and she’s a nun.” The nun became indignant and retorted, “Nuns aren’t spinsters! Nuns are married to God.” The patient replied, “Perfect, send the bill to my brother-in-law.”
Sergeant at Arms –
Fritz Horton – Notoriety for being on Front Porch Forum.
Ric Flood – Will be in Las Vegas on a four-day business trip.
Eric Hanley – Going as a stand-in on a trip to Ireland.
Elaine Dates – She attended a flower show in Rhode Island where she was tasked with decorating a red Jaguar car with a floral design. The prize was a picture of her in the car.
Lara Kennan – Notoriety fine for having been on WCAX-TV for five minutes discussing libraries. Also happy that the library is almost fully recovered from its flood of earlier this January.
Linda Schiavonne – Welcome back Tela people.
Tod Whitaker – Happy Spring is coming
Denny Bowen – Going to Trapp Family Lodge next week for skiing.
Fritz Horton – Hoping he isn’t too notorious.
Dennis Webster – Celebrating his arrival in the US from Canada in 1966 and this country has been really good for him. But he was having a hard time not rooting for the two Canadian hockey teams that won gold medals over the US in the Olympics.
Ross Saxton – Happy to have had a dollar with him.
Mark Joczik – Had a wonderful time in Ottawa and western Quebec dogsledding. He was unfortunately there when the US lost in hockey to Canada.
Kris Engstrom – Welcome back Tela people.
John Hammer – For being able to drink water out of the tap. You can’t believe how great it is.
Rosalyn Graham – The sap ran at Shelburne Farms last weekend and two lambs were born last week. She put in a plug for Teachers Tree Service that did an outstanding job removing eight pines from her property.
Doris Sage – For longer days and more light.
Deb Hanley – Daughter Megan is in the Dominican Republic for two weeks on a Spanish immersion trip.
Linda Barker – For the Canadian hockey gold medals.
Linda Gilbert – For the wonderful welcome she received in Tela and happy to be back.
Guy Lopez – On his way to a Canadiennes hockey game and happy to be here.
Steve Dates - He will be at PETS next weekend where Doris Sage has been recruited as a simultaneous French/English/French translator.
Speaker – Ross Saxton, Director of Conservation and education, Lake Champlain International
Ross began by describing the Lake Champlain International (LCI) organization as one that promotes “Clean water, healthy fish and happy people.”
The mission statement is: Lake Champlain International (LCI) is a federally recognized 501(c)(3) non-profit organization actively involved in shaping the future of Lake Champlain's water and fisheries health for the well-being of the people who depend on it today and tomorrow. To protect, restore, and revitalize Lake Champlain and its communities, LCI educates, advocates, and motivates to ensure that Lake Champlain is swimmable, drinkable, and fishable, understanding that healthy water resources are essential for a healthy economy and a healthy community.
He pointed out the following interesting facts:
· The LCI has run its principal fund-raiser, the LCI Fishing Derby, for 33 years.
· The ratio of watershed drainage to lake area is 18:1, one of the largest ratios of its kind in the US. It covers 425 square miles and drains 8300 square miles.
· The lake is 120 miles long, 12 miles wide at its widest and over 400’ deep.
· Water retention can be as long as three years
· Over 570,000 people use it while 200,000 use it as a source for their drinking water.
· The lake is worth $3.8 Billion per year in tourist dollars.
· It is considered the fifth most important bass fishing lake in the world.
The major challenge is to control phosphorous entering the lake that promotes blue-green algal blooms. These blooms lead to cyanotoxins that are poisonous and cause oxygen loss resulting in fish kills. Sources of phosphorous are farming, run-off and detergents. Other challenges are: garbage, lampreys, zebra mussels, Asian milfoil, and interestingly enough ibuprofen (which is only absorbed 30% by the bodies of patients) and in Burlington Bay, there is a slight presence of caffeine.
The LCI is working hard to educate and prevent these vectors from affecting the lake. They have a program called the “Blue Program” where they will visit private homes and firms to help them reduce pollution sources. The program can result in grants of up to $200 to help remediate problems.
He made the point that “Bad policies flow downhill.” He pointed out that the LCI is fighting to change these bad policies.
Contact for the LCI is at www.mychamplain.net
Word of the Day – Imbolc, n. (Used by Kris Engstrom in her invocation.) – Could that have been “In Bulk” – referring to a way one buys grains and nuts at a supermarket? – No, it is a holiday with a variety of names, depending on which culture and location you’re looking at. In the Irish Gaelic, it’s called Oimelc, which translates to “ewe’s milk.” It’s a precursor to the end of winter when the ewes are nursing their newly born lambs. Spring and the planting season are right around the corner.