Posted by Jon Secrest
The Great Empress Pong started her first meeting with this day in History…......  
 
1891- President Harrison attends the dedication of the Bennington Battle Monument in Bennington
1954- Sports Illustrated Magazine is published
1969- Second day of the Woodstock concern in NY
 
Quote for the day……Fools are the only folks on Earth who can absolutely count on getting what they deserve.  –Stephen King
 
Sorry, I forgot to get the attendance list.  If you were too lazy to get out of bed then for shame; if you had a good excuse, we still like you.
 
SPEAKER NEXT WEEK:
 
Some confusion here, but I think you know who you are.  In a pinch, Attorney Secrest will discuss, “How to Disinherit Your Children and Give Everything to the Cabana Boy.”  Actually, Tristam said Anwyn is speaking—I think he meant as the main speaker.  See below.
 
GUESTS:
 
Sarah Gauthier, former Student Rotarian, now at Southern New Hampshire Univ.
Michelle Simpson, our Speaker
Jennifer Jacobs, from the Tiny House Fest, guest of Erin
Katya Matthews, almost a transferee from the noon club
 
ANNOUNCEMENTS:  
 
Rotary car show coming up—we’re grilling.  Sign up.
 
Tristam:  Buy coffee.  Plus he’s flying out with Marty Cohn of noon club as the advance team for the quilting materials being donate.
 
Alisa:  Rotary Romp coming up!  August 28th:  run/walk/bike at 5:30, then everyone can meet at Marina for drinks and food around 6:30, to counter any calories burned.  Some discussion about whether the dude who is blocking part of the trail in a legal dispute would ruin the Romp, but Dan pointed out that none of us will get that far.  (But Damon and Sadie might).
 
Kevin:  Fines for no pins.  Also, he’s leading a “Rotary Cares” segment on BCTV in conjunction with noon club, to start in September.  Great idea!  Free PR for the clubs to promote Rotary, and will feature speakers from the clubs.  Half-hour shows, LIVE!  No pressure.
 
Jim:  You should be getting an online (non-anonymous) survey which you should really complete, to start the club’s visioning process.
 
Me:  My colleague Amelia Darrow’s daughter (Anwyn?) just got back from spending the summer at our Honduras project, and will be here next week to talk about it. 
 
Damon:  the first meeting was had with the principal and others to strategize about starting our Interact club at the high school this fall.
 
Damon also:  Presented a Paul Harris scholarship to . . . Empress Pong!  She actually teared up, because in the 60 years she’s been in Rotary, this is her first.  Yay!
 
BIRTHDAYS: No Birthdays today
ANNIVERSARIES:   Nope
CARDS:  No winner, losers.
 
 
BOWL OF LIFE:
This Rotarian owned a restaurant and bakery in Dover:  Toni!  Now she continues to deal with other people’s money but gets more sleep.
 
BRAGS:
 
KJ: Was in Canada visiting family.  He forgot the real purpose was for a wedding, but fortunately he evidently packs a spare suit on all trips. Also Rescue is selling raffle tickets again for a Subaru. $20 apiece or 5 for $100, great deal, drawing is in October.  Ed actually won this last year by buying almost all the tickets.
 
Lisa: Thanks to Michelle and her daughter Caroline for providing fashion advice to Lisa to help make her presentable for photos she needs to take—she won a huge national award as a top travel agent.  Use her, she’s clearly good.  And now well-dressed (sartorially savvy!).
 
Erin: for Jennifer Jacobs, present at our meeting.  Jennifer is running volunteer efforts for the Tiny Housefest.  Sign up, it’s coming in just over a week.  Limited tickets for the education tent, which includes local and national speakers.
  
Val: She met Jennifer Jacob’s father!  Except it turns out it was the father of the other Jennifer Jacobs.  She went on to describe him anyway—he’s a great guy who moved to the area.  Also, kudos to Lyssa who got the $150,000 grant.  Also, she had two great weeks in France and Germany with daughter Lieutenant Lauren and Lauren’s boyfriend, a Captain (Von Trapp?) Lauren has two more years there.  Val et al rented an awesome place in Brittany, France.  (Vive le Bretagne, ou tous les fermiers sont bien populaires avec des vaches!).  (Your scribe was a French major). 
 
Nick: Bragged for Kevin and KVT organizing a really cool visit to the Patriots practice, where Nick took his son.  They had perfect seats among 20,000 fans.
 
 
GUEST SPEAKERS:    Michelle Simpson was our guest speaker today.  She’s the Exec Director of Oak Meadow, now an anchor tenant of the Brooks House, but still has a presence in the Cotton Mill where they started.  Publishes homeschooling materials nationwide and has a local school without doors. 
 
But she was here today as volunteer head of the Brattleboro Downtown Alliance, formerly Building a Better Brattleboro.  They are a communications hub.  They do lots—run the downtown lighting, supervise the flowers that Dick DeGray tends daily, and keep the town’s best event calendar, at Brattleboro.com.
 
They work with merchants between the coop and the courthouse.  When Tiny House Fest reached out to them, they recommended that the festival not bring in out-of-town vendors, and the local businesses were swamped with business.
 
Focused on economic development.  Have been doing Facebook marketing to towns and cities in Massachusetts and New York to draw visitors.
 
Started the successful February Brattleboro Pub Crawl (a vocal “Huzzah” from Josh was heard).  In the second year attendance was up 30 percent even though it was a blizzard.   Typical of the mission of People, Profit, Planet.
 
They did the popular Golden Ticket parking promotion, to educate the public that the parking situation isn’t bad and folks should come.
 
They are working on getting lots of grants.
 
Working with the police on the panhandling issue.
 
The Board meets the second Monday of the month at noon; public welcome.
 
Val said there should be free parking, and Michelle said ask Peter Elwell, he has persuasive reasons why not.
 
I asked about how to judge efficacy of online marketing.  Michelle says they can tell who clicks on what, like someone then going to Brattleboro.com, but no great way of telling how many people then actually come.
 
Have a great week, and don’t go blind staring at the eclipse.