Charlotte Shelburne Rotary Club

Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 7:30 a.m.

Trinity Episcopal Church Community Room

 President Adam Bartsch led the Pledge and Kris Engstrom gave, as usual, a timely blessing, including gratitude for the decorative snow fall.

 Adam introduced two guests, Susan Brown, a Shelburne resident who belongs to Colchester Milton Club, and Mikey, Gary Marcotte’s grandson who will soon be eligible for membership following his loyal and regular attendance at meetings.

Bill Root, Parking Czar, announced that he has almost all the volunteers he needs to the parking at Maple Open House on Saturday and Sunday at Shelburne Farms. Kris Engstrom and Bob Sanders promptly volunteered for Saturday to work with Denny Bowen, and he still hoped to get an additional helper for Sunday to work with Adam.

Susan Brown described the fund-raising Calcutta the Milton-Colchester Club is sponsoring at The Essex on Saturday, March 30. Like our car raffle, the Calcutta sells a limited number of chances (balls) for $150 each, and prizes are awarded to each 10th number drawn. The final ball holder wins $2,000. There will be a cash bar, a raffle, and dinner. Check their website for information.

Coming events:

4/12 – Charlotte Senior Center Volunteers Dinner – we will help to prepare the meal and service. We will need 6 to 8 people to accomplish this. There will be a sign-up sheet at next week’s meeting.

4/13 – A new Rotary Club has been chartered in the Ossippe Valley in New Hampshire, and we are invited to their inaugural dinner.

 Coming Meetings:

3/27 – Girls On The Run

4/3 – Humane Society of Chittenden County

4/10 – Laurie Stavrand of Refugee Resettlement Project

Plan now for:

6/21 – Our annual Bowl-a-thon – our biggest fund-raiser. Ric will be handing out lists of names of donors from the past years and soliciting additional names. He pointed out that if everyone in the Club added ten names to the list, we could easily double our earnings from this event. And it’s fun to attend whether you bowl or just eat, drink and socialize at Champlain Lanes.

Sergeant at Arms:

In a dramatic and never-before-seen break with tradition, Joke Master Jim Spadaccini (with technical support from John Beal) presented a joke in video form. Well worth watching, if you missed it on Wednesday. Here’s the link: http://vimeo.com/61275290

Gary Marcotte, in the absence of Richard Fox, and ably assisted by his grandson Mikey, collected the happy fines:

John Beal – skiing at Sugarbush on Tuesday

Denny Bowen – happy

Bob Sanders – his first time sitting at the northwest table was described as ‘enlightening.’

Trafton Crandall – happy about the snow – and about competing in the Williston Rotary Ski Challenge – though the team didn’t bring home the trophy

Dave Jonah – proud of the CVU girls for winning the basketball title

Fritz Horton – email problems kept him from getting the message that our guest speaker couldn’t come

Mark Joczik – his daughter’s 14th birthday

Eric Hanley – last year on the first day of spring he played golf – congratulations to the CVU girls

Kris Engstrom – welcome to Mikey

Linda Barker – a birthday fine and a scoot fire

Roz Graham – for a beautiful morning – and for prompt service for her broken oven by Gary Marcotte and Mikey

Steve Dates – a beautiful day

Robert Maynes – his aunt’s 102nd birthday

Terrell Titus – it’s spring – and it’s a great club

Ric Flood – daughter Megan ran a half-marathon – going to be ready for the Boston Marathon

Jim Spadaccini – Paula’s birthday

Susan Brown – happy to be visiting – thanks for lending them our number board for their Calcutta – Her Reutgers ball team got creamed

George Schiavone – a very confusing message relayed from John Hammer (John would understand that the recorder couldn’t record it)

Lucky draw: Susan picked Michael Clapp’s lucky number, but he chose the wrong card. Rollover.

 Guest speaker:

In the absence of the guest speaker who was going to talk about universal health care for Vermont, members of the club volunteered their expert, well-informed, unbiased, level-headed opinions of the state of health-care funding in the state and the country, and the prospects for change. Ric Flood commented that there are so many loose ends that the speech would have necessarily been very short. Mark Joczik, who works in the medical world, made several points:

One real challenge is that the health care business isn’t centralized

Research and development, especially of pharmaceuticals, is difficult to monitor

Tort reform will be important to cost control

Hospitals need to take more responsibility – especially related to re-admission rates

While the discussion did not prove anything conclusive about health care reform, it did indicate that Charlotte Shelburne Rotary Club could have lively, valuable pithy meetings by announcing a topic for discussion and letting the club members tackle it.