Charlotte Shelburne Rotary Club

Wednesday, March 26, 2014 7:30 a.m.

Trinity Episcopal Church Community Room

 

President Dave Jonah called the meeting to order and led the Pledge of Allegiance. Kris Engstrom gave her usual apt devotional – including an optimistic look for spring.

 

Dave introduced our guest (and speaker) Joe Sinagra from Myers Containers.

He also circulated a stack of thank you notes from local worthy causes who had received donations from the club.

 

Coming events:

Rotary meetings

4/2 – William Young and T. J. Donovan on Vermont’s opiate emergency

4/9 – Marvin Malek, MD, President, Vermont Physicians for National Health

4/16 – Club Assembly

 

Club projects

4/11 – Charlotte senior Center volunteer appreciation dinner – 5 p.m. – need some more volunteers to prepare and serve dinner and clean up

4/25 – 4/27 – District Conference at Burlington Hilton

Club members are encouraged to attend and if you plan to attend (it’s free) be sure to go to the website and sign up. Even if you have already signed up to be a volunteer to help with registration or as an ambassador, you need to sign up as a participant so the hotel has the right numbers of attendees.

Elaine dates, Program Chair for the Conference reported that Richard Fox and Linda Gilbert are almost finished with the details of the program. It’s been a real team effort.

 

Braving the elements to help with Maple Open House

Dave expressed Shelburne Farms’ appreciation for the great work of the Rotary volunteers who directed traffic and organized parking for Saturday and Sunday last weekend. The volunteers for those two days were Bill Deming, Bob Sanders, Richard Fox, Denny Bowen, Tod Whitaker, and Doris Sage under the stalwart leadership of the Parking Czar Bill Root.

Bill, who has been organizing Rotary’s volunteer parking projects at Shelburne Farms for 12 years, expressed thanks to the volunteers who braved the cold winds to make everything run smoothly.

 

Bowl-a-thon

Ric Flood reported that all is under control for the annual bowl-a-thon, our biggest fundraiser of the year. The bowl-a-thon will be held in June at Champlain Lanes. As is the usual practice, Rotarians send letters to their friends (typically the friends who have asked them to donate to their favorite causes) … and the good news is that Ric and his office staff handle the printing of the letters. Before they can provide this valuable service, everyone needs to update their list – and Ric’s office will email those lists to everyone soon for review.

Ric pointed out the astonishing fact that last year he had lists from 19 or our more than 60 Rotary members. And we received $25,000 in donations. If everyone gave him a list, we could raise a lot more money.  It’s a challenge!! Give him names for your list!!

 

Conversations

Lara Keenan reminded everyone of the Conversation series talk on March 26 when Fran Stoddard (well-known as host of Profiles on Vermont Public Television) interviews two well-known book illustrators.

Since you won’t receive this in time to get to the Conversation event on March 26 at 4 at All Souls Interfaith Gathering, here’s a reminder that next Wednesday, April 2, at 4 at All Souls, Fran will interview nature author Marilyn Webb Neagley – it should be interesting. And it’s free.

 

Veteran’s Memorial

Sam Feitleberg announced that an exciting raffle will be held to raise money for the Veterans’ Memorial to be built on the Shelburne Parade Ground. Tickets in the raffle are $25 per ticket or $250 for a book of ten. And the prize will be dinner for eight at Rustic Roots on May 21. The drawing will be on May 12.

 

Sergeant at Arms

Richard Fox announced an exciting $46 in the pot for the person who might win the lucky draw. He then collected Happy Fines – with a focus on Signs of Spring.

Tod Whitaker – seeing robins return

Chris Davis -- just happy

Steve Dates – next week he’ll bring his laptop

Elaine Dates – she’ll remind him again

Kris Engstrom – thanks to Lara for the chance to share her love of flowers with an audience at the Pierson Library

Pat Sokolowski – thanks for the get well card – glad to be back

Bob Maynes – happy to see signs of spring

Ric Flood – to Aruba next week with his wife and daughter

Linda Schiavone – happy it is spring – soon

George Schiavone – the snow is getting soft

Lara Keenan – had 15 Girl Scouts at the library on Saturday

Denny Bowen – after last weekend’s Maple Open House – happy to report no frostbite

Trafton – a sign of spring – the returning raptors dining on a squirrel carcass on the snowbank by the road

Michael Clapp – happy

John Dupee – happy

Howard Seaver – a sign of spring – ski boots are on sale

Carole Obuchowski – robins on her yard – and their efforts to feed the birds are just making the squirrels happy

Fritz Horton – remember that next Tuesday is April Fool’s Day – when you can say anything to anyone without fear of reprisal

Bill Root – the successful parking project

Dennis Webster – Josephine Fox is close to walking (that’s a proud grandfather speaking)

Bob Sanders – thanks for the hand warmers – it was his 10th year parking cars

Doris Sage – sign of spring – there are buds on her lilac bush

 

Lucky draw – Chris Davis had his ticket drawn, but that was the end of his luck. Maybe next week.

 

Guest speaker Joe Sinagra, Sustainability Director for Myers Container Services

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Myers Containers Recycling Service was founded in 1994 by Jeff Myers in Winooski as a household waste hauling service. Today it is still a family-owned business, now with three generations of Myers involved, and a tradition of community involvement including working with the Boys and Girls Club and the Cancer Society.

Their business continues to expand and evolve with a focus on stimulating economic activity and an exciting new recycling business that earned them a VEDA loan. With the addition of 12 new employees related to the new recycling business, they now have 60 employees in three locations, Colchester, Moretown and St. Johnsbury.

The focus of the new recycling center is the recycling of construction and demolition waste. They work with contractors and homeowners to plan the most efficient removal of waste from projects, accept it in a zero sort dump in front of their new building behind Rathe’s, (their building won an award as Best New Heavy Industry Building) where it is hand sorted for recycling. He pointed out that disposal of construction waste earns significant points in the LEED award system.

Much of their construction waste is wood which is typically chipped and manufactured into plywood or wood products. They also recycle asphalt, brick and concrete which are crushed and used as road base, and also recycle plastic, metal and cardboard.

One of the biggest challenge for recycling is sheetrock which, if put in a landfill, creates a strong sulphur smell as it decomposes. It was the huge amount of sheetrock damaged and dumped following the Tropical Storm Irene that caused the closing of Moretown Landfill. Recycling the sheetrock by stripping off its paper siding and crushing the remainder to make speedy-dry and fertilizer is a better solution.

Now there is only one landfill operating in the state. It is in Coventry, which presents problems of fuel, time and road damage as the big trucks haul from all over the state. And it has only 5 to 7 years capacity remaining. Joe said there are three other sites approved but not opened for landfills in the state.

 

Reported by Rosalyn Graham

In absence of John Hammer