Notes from Charlotte-Shelburne Rotary – July 27, 2015
 
Steve Dates substituted for Trafton this week and introduced two guests:  Charles Jin from the Westmount Montreal Rotary Club and Annette Hannah from the St. Albans Rotary Club.  Steve also announced that a gift in the memory of George Ewins, member of Charlotte Shelburne Rotary, was made by the Club to the Alzheimer’s Association. 
 
Volunteers were requested to work at the Charlotte Senior Center Barbeque on August 18th   (food was mentioned as a bribe) and more volunteers to man a booth at the Hinesburg Farmers Market table to raise money for the Hinesburg food shelf.  And more volunteers to work at the booth at Shelburne Day on August 15th supporting Hands to Honduras.
 
Michael Clapp and Bill Root reported on the Club’s activities at Camp Ta- Kum-Ta on Tuesday, July 28th.  Breakfast at night (backwards day) was cooked and served to some 200 campers and staff.  Breakfast included bacon, scrambled eggs, pancakes, oatmeal, fruit and whip cream.  Bill Root led the club in the “Good Job” camp Ta-Kum-Ta cheer.   Subsequent to the cheer, Ric Flood commented that perhaps the Club should return to singing. 
 
Michael Abrams was inducted as a new member.  He is a math teacher at CCV and has done research in the realm of “social capital” which attracted him to Rotary.  See paragraph on volunteering above. 
 
Dinners are scheduled for Terrell and Titus through September. 
 
Fines were levied on all those who wore something pastel and who had dipped, swum, boated or walked on water during this summer.
 
Clark Hinsdale, 7th generation Vermonter spoke about dairy farming in Vermont.  Clark’s talk focused on three “take aways”:  1) a better understanding as to why milk matters; 2) water quality; and 3) asked that Rotary build a relationship with the Farm Bureau.
 
Helpful to understanding Clark’s “take aways” on dairy were his handouts which cite the following statistics:
 
  1. Dairy brings in 3 million in circulating cash daily;
  2. Dairy represents 70% of Vermont’s agricultural sales; and
  3. 63% of milk produced in New England comes from Vermont.
In other words, dairy is very important to the State’s economy.   Vermont provides 1.9% of the nation’s milk supply which co-incidentally is equivalent to the nation’s surplus.
 
Clark switched to water quality and noted that the world is “nutrient starved” while our lake is absorbing more nutrients than are necessary, creating poor water quality.  Ideas to contain the use of excess manure consisted of marketing excess nutrients to other states, reducing the import of granular fertilizer from outside the State and better farm practices.
 
Clark finished with asking Rotary to get more involved in agriculture.
New Member Michael Abrams with Ric Flood and Steve Dates
 
 
Clark Hinsdale with Steve Dates