Westbrook Community Night at the Ball Park – Benefit Recovery Liaison, a program of the Westbrook Police Dept. Wednesday, August 15, 2018. The Portland Sea Dogs take on the Trenton Thunder, AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees at 7:00 PM. Ticket $9 Westbrook Night at Sea Dogs
District Night at the Sea Dogs – Sunday August 19 at 1:00 PM. Gates open at 11:30 AM - $26. To purchase tickets: https://groupmatics.events/event/Rotarydistrict7780 Tickets purchased through this link are for the Picnic Area in Right Field. Includes buffet that runs from 11:30am until 2:00 PM - hamburgers, hot dogs, BBQ pulled chicken, baked beans, coleslaw, Coca-Cola products & Sea Dog Biscuits. Cash bar. Contact bob.wester@icloud.com with questions.
Community Food Drive - Co-Sponsored by Westbrook-Gorham Rotary and Westbrook Kiwanis. Hannaford Drive a Saco Biddeford Savings parking lot- Saturday August 18, 10AM-2PM. Contact Sarah Hutchins to volunteer. To benefit Westbrook Food Pantry and to help re-stock shelves at Westbrook High School Food pantry as school re-opens.
Rotary Night Out - Tuesday August 28 5:30PM- In place of our usual lunch meeting, join us for an evening at Westbrook Common (also known as Blue Note Park) in the heart of Downtown Westbrook. Pick up food & drink from one of the local businesses like Quill Books & Beverage or Westbrook House of Pizza. Friends, spouses and perspective members welcome. Henry Saunders will be giving a short talk on Westbrook Urban Renewal.
Westbrook-Gorham Rotary Annual Golf Tournament - Tuesday September 18, 2018 at Gorham Country Club.
The Locker Project - This week! Fresh food and baked goods distribution in Westbrook. Two or three volunteer needed for each date during the summer at either Westbrook Community Center (WCC) or My Place Teen Center (MPTC). WCCarrival 4PM on date: Aug 8. MPTC arrival 3PM on dates: July 25 & Aug 22. Help lay out food on tables and interact with the kids to encourage them to take items. You will be a welcoming presence, making sure people know they are invited to take food. Everyone is invited to bring food home with them. If you can help on any of these dates, please contact Christine Johnson. For more information, or to donate, visit their website: mainelockerproject.org
Crutches 4 Africa Work Detail – This week! Thursday July 26, starting about 5PM - The Saco Bay Sunset Club is planning to ship a container to Africa in August. We will be packaging various products for shipment so that they can be more efficiently loaded a few weeks later. Location: 20 Gooch St. Biddeford, ME. CONTACT PERSON: Dennis Robillard 468-0043. Also, if you have any mobility items to donate, please bring them to one of our next two meetings on July 17 or July 24. Those items will be taken to Biddeford on the 26th.
Donate Blood – American Red Cross has put out a call for blood due to low supply. Please consider donating during a drive near you or at the Blood Donation Center on Forest Ave, Portland. Upcoming locations in our area: Gorham High School, Morrill Ave, Gorham, Monday 8/13 1-6PM; Cinemagic, County Rd, Westbrook, Friday-Saturday 8/17-8/18, 10AM-5PM. For more locations: https://www.redcross.org/give-blood
Annual Golf Classic - It's that time of year again! Follow this link to our webpage to download and share the brochure: 24th Annual Golf Classic Information Please work your local contacts for various sponsorship levels: $100 Hole, $450 Gold, $600 Platinum. Sign up a team for $360 or donate prizes and gift cards for our raffle. This is one of only two big fundraisers, so we need help from all members to make this a success.
Can Tabs for Ronald MacDonald House – Ongoing - Thank you for continuing to collect can tabs.Please bring your collection to any meeting this spring/summer. Pat and Cliff Plummer and looking forward to accepting them for Ronald McDonald House.
CLYNK for Literacy - Ongoing - Don't forget to keep filling those bags to help fund the children's books we ask our speakers to sign for the Baxter and Walker Libraries. Extra bags are always available at our meetings. If you have been working on filling a bag for a very long time (6 months or more), please consider returning it and starting a new one. Thank you for your ongoing support of this fundraiser!
Donate to our Club's Charity through Amazon Smile – Ongoing - If you order items from Amazon.com, even if not very often, you can help Westbrook Gorham Rotary Club Charities. Go to http://smile.amazon.com/. Search for our Charity and select it. You may need to login to your Amazon account before being able to finalize your selection. Then, when you shop Amazon.com (always starting from http://smile.amazon.com/) a portion of every purchase will be donated to our charity.
For those interested in helping with the planning of our Annual Golf Classic, the first committee will meet immediately following our lunch meeting on July 24.
We ask all members to please work your local contacts to find sponsors at these levels: $100 Hole, $450 Gold, $600 Platinum. We also encourage members to sign up a team for $360 or donate prizes and gift cards for our raffle. This is one of only two big fundraisers our club holds, so we need help from all members to make this a success.
Get the club runner application for your smart phone and you will always have contact info for all club members at your fingertips! You also will have contact information for all District officers and executives.
The first step is to be sure that you can login at our website: https://www.westbrookgorhamrotary.org/ The Login Name and Password that you use at our website is your Club Runner login.
At our website, click on the Member Login link in the top right corner of your screen. You can login, register, or reset your password using this link. For most members, your login name is the email address at which you receive the Scribbler. For some longer-term members, your login name was created with a different value. If you have not logged in for a while, look for an email from Christine Johnson with this information. If you have forgotten your login name, please contact Christine who can look it up for you. If you wish, it can be changed.
To download and set up the app on your phone:
- Go to the “store” from which you download apps (e.g. Play Store, App Store)
- Search for Club Runner (logo is blue/white CR)
- Install the app
- Open the app and login using your Club Runner (website) Login Name and Password
- If you wish quick access in future, have the app remember your login information
If you have any trouble installing or setting up your app, please contact Christine. You can also see Christine or Mike at any meeting.
John Lobosco, our District Governor for 2018-2019, was our guest and speaker on July 16. John joined Rotary in 2005 when he became a member of the Rotary Club of South Portland-Cape Elizabeth. His first Rotary meeting was actually a social event, a Lobster Bake at Fort Williams. When he won the raffle that night, he knew he was meant to join. He was engaged early with club activities and committee roles, and the rest is history.
John Lobosco congratulates Deb Shangraw
John spoke about the District Strategic Plan which was developed based on visioning sessions held across the District last year. These sessions identified four areas for us to focus on to make our District and our Club stronger: Public Image, Membership, Collaboration, and Leadership & Succession Planning.
Public image - Rotary has development materials that can be customized and used by every club. John has asked each club to appoint a person to become an expert on the People of Action campaign (#peopleofaction). Clubs should plan to use the updated branding on their webpage, on social media, and on any club brochures and other promotional materials.
Membership – Our current District membership is a little over 1600, up a bit from the end of last year. During visioning sessions, participants identified a desire to become a district of 2000 by 2023. We can accomplish this goal if each club can bring in 10% new members each year and lose 5% or less. For a club our size, that means growing net 4 members in the current Rotary year. Research shows that people who lead engaged lives live longer than others. In a world of billions of people, only 1.2M are Rotarians. There are so many wonderful people in our community. Let’s ask them to join us.
Collaboration – Clubs become stronger through collaboration: sharing ideas, sharing best practices, doing what we can to support each other’s efforts. John is asking each club to build or maintain at least one Little Free Library in our community. In the works are an interactive map of international projects across the district and our next district conference. Tentatively the District Conference will be a family friendly event held on June 22, 2019 at Fort Williams. PDG Lawrence Furbish is chairing. Contact him if you’d like to be part of the planning team.
Leadership & Succession Planning - There are many tools available from Rotary.org and within the district to help members in all roles and responsibilities. He pointed to the importance of having a PE in place at the start of any new year, so the President can focus on running the club and not on finding their successor.
At the conclusion of his talk, John quoted former Ambassador Andrew Young who spoke at the Atlanta Conference n 2017. He said: “Rotary is the glue that holds civil society together”.
If you have an idea for a speaker or program, please contact Christine Johnson at cejinmaine@gmail.com. We are also interested in ideas for periodic evening meetings, service projects in lieu of meetings, or in-meeting service projects
We are now scheduling programs for August and September.
Here is the list of upcoming speakers and programs:
Rotary is about fellowship, as well as service to our community. Even if you must miss a meeting, you can remain engaged by attending Rotary-sponsored events of our club or other clubs like fundraisers, by selling Christmas Trees, by volunteering at our Golf Tournament or our Road Race, or by attending District events or training. Just let our Secretary Mike Foley know when you have participated in any of these activities at mfoley@me.com
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