Norwich Rotary Club
January 10th, 2024
Location-Bella Fiore
THE RONE
Presiding: Mary Richardson
Invocation: Barry Shead
Fellowship: Nancy Gentes
Birthday’s: Jim Daly – January 10th, Gary Young – January 12 & Andrew Nollman _ January 15th
Anniversaries: Bob Reed – 32 Years. (My God he’s old!)
Guests: Andrew Nollman introduced Jeremy Doyle & Ryan Telford who brought his two children Nate and Ben. Molly Bruno’s guest was Margarita Martens-Querido. Gary Young introduced Zachariah Stover. Mike Matera introduced Steve Martin.
Visiting Rotarians: Trisha Cunningham from Mystic Rotary.
Nancy filled in for Susy Hurlbert. Nancy’s Fellowship for today was a couple of poems Susy asked to be shared. One called “Fire & Ice” by Robert Frost and another from Emily Dickinson called “Hope” is the thing with feathers.
Membership Minute: Stan Lucas: Stan reported that this week’s induction of Paul Gaffney will take place at next week’s meeting. Please keep thinking of prospective members and organizations that would be a good fit for our club. “Keep at it!”
Announcements:
President Mary passed around thank you notes from Schwartz Manor residents and 3rd grade students who received dictionaries a couple weeks back.
The 4 Way Speech Contest will take place on April 20th.
The Whisky, Wine and Cigar event will be back again and Andrew Nollman will have details forthcoming, but the date will most likely be May 1st.
The Rotary “Day of Service” will be May 18th. Last year over 11,000 meals were packaged for the Gemma Moran- United Way Food Center. This year Area Rotary Clubs hope to package double that number! Mark your calendar now to donate a few hours of your time.
The Native Son/Daughter Lunch is scheduled for June 5th. Submit a candidate and you can find an application on the Rotary website.
If you know of a speaker for one of our meetings please contact Kevin Wickless or Alexis Kahn to get on the schedule.
Happy Dollars: Nancy Gentes
Nancy welcomed all our guests and gave a short synopsis of what happy dollars is all about. She is also looking forward to a mini-reunion with her cousins and talk about their family tree. They have been researching their genealogy and dug back as far as 900AD and found they have royal bloodlines! Who knows! We might have to address Nancy as “Your Royal Highness!”
Bill Champagne was sad to report the death of Rev. Gregory Perry. Rev. Perry was a pillar of our community and will be sorely missed.
Andrew Nollman welcomed our guests. He was happy to report that his home is just outside the evacuation zone for the flooding of the Yantic River that is looking like the worst in history. He’s looking forward to a vacation next week and plans to stay local.
Gary Young gave $10.00 for “Queen Nancy” and welcomed Zak Stover to the meeting. Gary said Romer’s extra sensitive ears could hear water dripping in their attic last night during the rain storm and he was able to get a bucket under the leak before any big damage happened.
Zachariah Stover said he’s heading to Florida to look after his cousin’s daughter and hope’s it will be temporary and they can both move back north in a few months.
Alexis Kahn welcomed Tricia Cunningham. She said that she heard from Mandy Crispim and she is recovering well from her operation. Alexis is also going on vacation next week!
Ryan Telford said he was thankful to be at today’s meeting and thanked Andrew Nollman for inviting him into the club. He said he always wanted to be a member of Rotary, but the time was never right until now. He is also happy to have his kids with him today. He said when he was a kid his dad would take him once in a while to a Lions Club meeting!
Mike Cooney said we will have to indeed come up with a proper name to address Nancy! He was glad he slept through the rain and was thankful for a good night sleep. He was also thankful that his wife did not sleep so soundly and she was up in the wee hours of the night mopping up water in their basement. He was most thankful for that she was in a great mood in the morning! Mike was sad to learn of Rev. Perry’s death.
Stan Lucas told a story of in 1963 when he was away at college the Spalding Dam broke in Norwich and his classmate saw his dad, Henry Lucas, on TV speaking to a reporter.
Mary Richardson said it was great to see everyone!
Barry Shead was sad about Rev. Perry’s passing. Margarida Martins-Querido sad now is the time to help our neighbors in need during these times of trouble.
Weekly Auction: Jen Granger gave $20.00
Lottery: Bill Champagne
Tricia Cunningham, Barry Shead & Zechariah Stover all drew cards and could not find the Ace of Spades! Ryan Telfords’ Kids won Barry’s Cookies!
Program: Mary Richardson introduced Tricia Cunningham from Always Home. Tricia explained the goal of Always Home is to keep families housed and to help parents create lasting stability for their children. We focus exclusively on serving Eastern Connecticut families with minor children and work to keep them in their own housing and out of emergency shelter, so children never have to experience the trauma of being homeless. For more on Always Home log on to www.alwayshome.org
The 4-Way Test was led by Tricia Cunningham and the meeting was adjourned at 1:20pm