The Rotary Club of Boothbay Harbor celebrated our most recent activity, planned new ones, and prepared for next year at our most recent meeting.

We have successfully completed our “Teacher Appreciation Days” at all local schools. Thank you, Irene Fowle, for organizing and club members for pitching in and making these pizza lunches a success. It seems a small thing to do, but it was tremendously appreciated by our hard-working teachers, and garnered great press in the Register as well. It couldn’t have happened without the generous contributions of restaurants and especially Pinkham’s Gourmet Market. Here’s a shout-out to all who helped make these Appreciation Days a success!

Next on the docket: Mock interviews with students in Rick Scott’s Financial Literacy class at the high school. These are a great opportunity for the kids to practice job-interviewing and learn to present themselves, and great fun for the Rotarians who play the part of potential employers. The interviews will take place in early May; president Jeff Long will have more information as time gets closer.

For the past year, Judi White has been spearheading the initiative to deliver soups to the Food Pantry on an every-other-week basis. Judi reports that Amy has made – and we have delivered – over 3000 pints of soup! Food for Thought is tremendously enthusiastic about this contribution, and has asked that we consider stepping up to deliver soup on a weekly basis. This is something for Board consideration, and it has the support of us all.

Meanwhile: Opening Day at the Big Grey Barn is Saturday, April 2. In anticipation, club members gathered last Saturday to move furniture and generally get the barn ready. Don’t forget: Barn sales are our major source of income and make possible all the good we do locally and around the world. The sales can’t happen without YOU to help pick up, sort, organize, fix, and sell. Sign up to help out via Jim Herbold or online.

And while you’re at it: We’re back to hybrid meetings, and meeting in the Clubhouse is rich with fellowship and fun, but can’t happen without members signing up as steward, waiter, greeter, 50/50, scribe, trash taker, and more. You can help out, again, via Jim Herbold and online.

As the meeting progressed, there were many Happy Dollars for our visitors – Nancy Adams, Rick Chaplain and Nicole Evans, for friends who hadn’t been seen in a while, and especially for Lynn Thompson, who Ham Meserve announced will be the new theatre manager. Mike Thompson also contributed toward his happiness that his wife is once again gainfully employed.

Our speaker was our own Bruce Harris, our club’s president-elect, who has just completed president-elect training along with all 550 or so club presidents-elect from throughout New England. Training was via Zoom this year and offered a firehose of information; Bruce did a terrific job sharing both what he learned and how he processed his learnings in terms of our club’s strengths and needs.

The first area Bruce discussed was strategic planning. Best practice, he said, is to redo strategic planning every three to five years, which means it’s time for us to renew ours. Bruce believes that the difference between those clubs that – like us – have thrived through the pandemic and those that have not done so comes down to flexibility, generosity, caring, good leadership and willingness of members to pitch in. He pointed out that we need to continue to foster these attributes post-pandemic.

Membership is our lifeblood, and although we are doing a pretty good job in attracting new members, Bruce showed statistics that suggest we need to do a better job in retaining our new people. In general, one-half of all new members leave Rotary within the first two years, and we are not immune … the antidote is to be sure to find out what interests our newbies and engage them from the start. Bruce said that in his case, within a year of his joining he was asked to be club president, but that there are probably less overwhelming ways to involve newcomers.

Training is essential in an organization in which all the jobs changeover annually. Bruce pointed out that the Rotary International website (www.rotary.org) is rich in resources, including everything from “what is it” to “how to.” He recommended that we take advantage of the website as much as possible.

Public image is a key focus of Jennifer Jones, our incoming Rotary International president, who has asked us to “Imagine Rotary” and tell the story – our Rotary story. Bruce pointed out that our club’s story is that we give away over $100,000 each year to the community – that’s pretty amazing!

Our initiatives overseas is primarily through The Rotary Foundation, the 501(c )3 that underlies all the work we do. At presidents-elect training, a keynote speaker was Dr. Tunji Funsho, chair of Rotary’s PolioPlus campaign in Nigeria and, not incidentally, honored by Time magazine in 2020 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. While we all know that Rotary’s PolioPlus program has taken polio from an epidemic that killed and maimed 350,000 children per annum in the mid-1980s to just a handful today, less well known is that the operation that makes vaccination and surveillance possible is not disease specific and the science developed to combat polio has been used effectively to control COVID and Ebola and more. Also less often discussed is the fact that because Rotary is not a political or governmental body, we can work with all people, and are currently doing so with the Taliban in Afghanistan to ensure that polio immunizations in that country continue.

Lastly, Bruce spoke about Diversity-Equity-Inclusion (DEI) and explained how equality and equity are different things. We can treat everyone the same (that’s equality), but if their needs are different, that might not create equity. Similarly, inclusion is more than just letting people walk in the door – it involves embracing them. And while Lincoln County is overwhelmingly white, Bruce pointed out that diversity is more than race - it is age, culture, sexual orientation, gender, and so much more. In all these attributes, Bruce said, our community is as diverse as any other and we need to always ensure that our activities reflect that diversity. He said we can do that by continuing to confirm that all our interactions are welcoming, respectful, and full of kindness.

I think I speak for all in attendance that Bruce’s words were well met and that we look forward to another fun, fruitful year under his leadership.

Next Thursday, we will hear from Paul Zalucky, retired CIA officer, who will share his thoughts about the war in Ukraine. All members and friends are invited to this special meeting.

Are you interested in fun, fellowship, and giving back to the community? Check our Rotary – we’re always looking for like-minded people to join us. Meetings are Thursday evenings at our Clubhouse on Montgomery Road and via Zoom. Check us out at www.boothbayharborrotary.org