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6/5/19
Charlotte Shelburne Hinesburg Rotary
Trinity Community Room
Guests today: Emma Bissonette, CSH scholarship winner and her mom, Stephanie Bissonette, Josh Ashooh, CSH scholarship winner and family, Mike, Sarah and Samara Ashooh, David Buley, Cub Scouts
Erik Kolomaznik called the meeting to order and recited the Pledge of Allegiance
Susan Grimes read the Invocation
Recitation of the Four Way Test. The Test creates checks and balances, keeps us on the right path, recharge our Rotary battery and gets us ready for the week ahead.
Chris Davis shared his Rotary experience and what it means to him.
Chris moved to the area in early 80’s, working on his grandparents farm. He tried to get out and about. In the course of his rounds with town officials he met Chuck Denham, a Rotarian, who invited Chris to come along. At the time, the Club met at the Ponderosa Steak House, then the Travelodge. Back then, Chris had a newborn son and was running his grandparents farm, as well as serving as volunteer fire chief in Charlotte. He got “kicked out” for not meeting the attendance requirements, which Chris thought was okay. As he says, the fire station would do the same thing.
Chris was invited back a couple of years later. Why does he do it? For the folks who were here, who are here and are going to be here. He finds it’s great to be able to get out of the office, see people, have breakfast, do projects. His life has changed so it’s been easier to attend meetings. “It’s for all of you guys and all of the visitors". Chris chose Bill Deming as next week’s Rotarian to share his story. .
Trafton introduced the Scholarship winners. Rotary had 10 applications for the scholarships this year. Trafton noted that one of our main missions is supporting youth and the scholarship is a testament to that.
One scholarship is in memory of Denny Bowen, consummate volunteer.
One scholarship is in memory of Alan Bates, who was here for everything even when fighting cancer.
Motto for both guys was “never give up or give in”
Katherine Ash, winner of the Denny Bowen scholarship was not able to be here due to work commitments. Will be attending Simmons college. She wrote this note and sent it along-
“Dear members of the CSH Rotary club, thank you very much for awarding me the Denny Bowen Memorial scholarship. I am very grateful to have my work in this community recognized and it is a great honor to be able to carry on Mr. Bowens legacy through my work. I regret to say I will not be able to attend the meeting in a couple of weeks to accept the award personally but I thank you all again for generous support for my education. Best Katie Ashe”
Joshua Ashooh- winner of the Alan Bates memorial scholarship- is heading to UVM. He thanked the Rotary for recognizing his service with the scholarship. He plans to major in mechanical engineering and will be using the scholarship for academic expenses. Joshua would like to something with aerospace after earning his degree. He noted he has tried to give back to the community, as he had lots of mentors throughout his life. He plays tennis and has coached kids at the Edge, served on the board of the library, worked on 4 miles of trail in Montana on the border of the reservation, as well as having spent the last 4 summers building trails in the northeast.
Emma Bissonette will be attending the University of Rhode Island- studying marine biology. Her goal is to work in rescue and rehab for sea turtles. She volunteered at the VT Association for Blind and Visually Impaired, helping folks get out in the community, going camping, as well as many other activities. She said working with the visually impaired was an eye opening experience.
Abigail Ferrara, another scholarship winner, was not in attendance.
Erik reminded us the most effective way of growing our community is to invite people to our breakfasts. Share the Rotary love with your friends!
June 12 will be club and committee meetings.
Chris Davis is Sergeant at Arms
Notable Happy Fines:
Linda Barker: her daughter Erin won a broadcaster award!
Sam Feitelberg: Youngest granddaughter graduated high school in Los Angeles and is headed to UC Berkeley.
Charlie is happy to back. Spent the winter in Florida, some time in Honduras with Linda and the gang then went to Croatia.
Linda Gilbert- Happy for the CVU boys lax 10-9 win against Essex. Get ready for a nail-biting time in the final next week against Burr and Burton!
Lots of folks happy for the scholarship winners
Keith is happy for a spa day in the eastern townships. About 2 hours from here and it’s a great day off! Hot tubs, sauna and steam baths. “Bolton Spa”
John Dupee is happy for his granddaughter graduated 3rd out of 339 with a full ride college scholarship.
Bob Sanders honored the 75th anniversary of D-Day for his father and all the other veterans of D-Day.
Linda Gilbert has the winning number. $50 on the line- pot rolls over.
Speaker today is David Buley who is the retiring pack committee chair for Troop 607.
Charlotte Shelburne Scouts has changed from Boy Scouts to Family Scouting. 10% of the pack now is made up of girls, and they love it. 32 scouts in total with 6 earned their Arrow of Light and matriculated into the Shelburne troop.
David has been in scouting for 49 years.
This pack is tying to more outdoor activities- more hiking this year including a winter hike.
The pack would also like to be more active in the community and do more community service
Dave noted that Rotary is a great role model for scouting.
The Pinewood Derby has been going since before the 70’s. The first pinewood derby was held in California in 1953, and since become an honored Scouting tradition. David still races to this day. His car is called “Dead horse” because “you can’t beat a dead horse.” Kids (and adults!) build the 7 inch cars to run down the 32 foot track in 2 and a half seconds- it’s extremely competitive with less than a 10th of a second difference between first and second place- very exciting! The kids love it, including siblings. Kindergartners build lego cars at the event, which is a great way to engage them. Competitions generally see a car for every scout, as well as kids and parents. Some parents pull out their cars from when they were kids.
The pack enjoys camp in the summer at Camp Sunrise in Benson, VT. The Scouting camp offers 4 weeks of resident summer camp complete with platforms with tents, archery, nature, crafts, and waterfront activities. Each pack attends camp for five nights. There is a fee for camp but no child is denied scouting activities due to financial reasons. Scouting recently changed policy on dues and now Scouts who sell popcorn earn sweat equity and can use that equity to pay dues and pay for camp.
How has adding girls to scouting affected the girl scouts? Boy Scouts has been rebranded to Scouts BSA. Families want to be able to bring their kids to the same events and dads want to be able to share scouting with their daughters.
Girls scouts offer different skills- programs are not meant to replace each other, they are meant to be complimentary.
Erik presented a book to David for inclusion in a community library.
Meeting was adjourned at 8:24.