Weekly Meeting News - 22 Apr 2013

15 Apr 2013

Guests included Theresa Cavaliere, Chariho Rotarian, and Susan McCoy.  Welcomed back was Dan Alvino and Joe Potter.  

Pres. Cal's Notes:

Last Monday night we had a special Board meeting and took some time to discuss our club and the challenges we have ahead of us.  We covered everything from whether changing the time and/or day of our meetings would make a difference, to looking at ways to engage those of you who have not been able to get to meetings, and how to reach out to new members.  Nearly everyone has agreed that what we do is valuable to our community and meaningful to them.  Realistically though, we talked about the large number of outside events that we support and how it may be causing fatigue and burn-out.  We talked a bit about the history of our club.  I shared the results of the survey that I sent out.  As a result of our discussion this week I have a question for you today  -  some of you have had a hard time making it to meetings on a regular basis.  We would like to know why and if there is anything that we could do to change that?  (You are important and we miss you!)  So please drop me a note or email and let me know.  Let's talk about it.

Our sympathies went to Joe on the death of his sister, Frances Green.

Chowder Cook-Off -  Tickets were distributed at meeting.  If anyone hasn't received tickets or needs more, contact Rose.

Past President Bob will be speaking at the District Conference in Plymouth.

Lisa Konicki is looking for volunteers for the BoldrDash event at Misquamicut  -  contact Donna Greene at Dgreene@westerlychamber.org  - if you can help on May 18 or 19 anywhere from 6am to 5pm.

Guest Speaker - Donna Nabb from Westerly Parent Academy

Donna updated members on the success of the Parent Academy in its first year of bringing courses and services to parents.  It Mission Statement states that "the Westerly Parent Academy is a community-wide collaborative of learning opportunities supporting the success of our youth, parents and community."   Working with community partners, the "academy" provides courses at no cost to parents and guardians to assist and support them to increase their knowledge and develop their personal, educational and vocational skills.

 22 April 2013

Six of us attended International Night at White's of Westport.  Celebrating twenty years of exchange students in our District, begun by attorney David J Oliveira who was President of the Rotary Club of Westerly.  Rona Mann has taken up the task over the years working with the short-term students and organizing the International Night event each year.  This year's group includes inbound students from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Peru, Poland and Slovakia.  Outbound students - three long-term and 7 short-term -  will be going to Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.  They all recently participated in the RYLA weekend and spoke highly of the weekend.  Monday evening was wonderful - the food fantastic and the students were the best ever!!!