Sunrise Rotary minutes November 12, 2025
7:15, Meeting comes to order
Present: President Debra, John, Jim, Tristan, Tristam, Kevin, Dan, Will, M.J., Sandy, Londa,
Mona, Melissa, Ben, Justin, Kristin, Jon
Guests:
• Melanie Kahn – Brattleboro Festival of Miniatures, Speaker today
• Brett Morrison – Connecticut River Conservancy: Friends of Island Park
• Gilbert from BUHS
Greeter: Will
Scribe: Jim Next week: MJ
Server: Mona
Upcoming meetings: Next week is club assembly; following week no meeting (Thanksgiving on
Thursday)
President’s announcements:
• Social this Friday the 14th, 5:30, Bar 580
• Trivia Monday the 17th
• Holiday party December 4, 6 pm at the Legion; sheet passing around so we have a head
count, bring spouses, friends
• Londa, MJ and Melissa helped put the little garden to bed last Sunday; this Sunday (16th)
at 10 a.m. we’ll put the big garden to bed, anyone who can come help out
• Board meeting last week
o Relief for Jamaica, we’ll contribute to Scott Farm: many who work at the farm
have been severely impacted by Hurricane Melissa
o Support school nutrition project: Tristam reports that our club has decided on
$650, will ask noon club to split that; not sure about other upcoming academic
year holidays but overall good news that the program is restarting
• Speaker gifts. We will order “to go” cups with lids as speaker gifts
Member announcements:
• Tristam got in touch with Jason, who is doing great
• Sandy updates Trivia Night this coming Monday. New awesome flyers. Question team:
Londa has some help this month, Tristan is one. Are all the usual helpers on board? Yes.
• Sandy also updates holiday party: no meeting Wed Dec 3, party Thurs night Dec 4 at
Legion. $20 per person, cash bar, and we will collect toys for a charity –
• MJ is leading on gifts for kids. We used to go through Groundworks but they no longer
do it so we will partner with Winston-Prouty. We’ll know more next week. I’ll have a list of what’s desired or needed by way of gifts, you can initial what you can bring and then we’ll gather the gifts with descriptive tags and W-P distributes appropriately
Debra thanks Sandy for all the social life he has created
Breakfast break.
Birthday: Londa. Happy Birthday chorus.
Rotary Anniversary: Tristan, 26 years.
30-For-30 (More than 2 people who did service together):
•Those who helped Kristin during and after her surgery: “6 or 7 people who took really good care of me – thank you so much”
•Gilbert adds “Support for Kristin’s recovery” to the 30-for-30
Brags:
•Mona : Lisa Shippee gave her a bag of Guatemalan coffee from Ian Diamondstone, gift to the club. Auctions off for $14 to Sandy. Ian was going to be a club member but has things going on these days.
•Mona also brags Veteran’s Day and both her parents served in armed forces. Took her dad to Winchester where veteran’s motorcycle club “Rolling Thunder” with dinner & how socializing was so good for him.
•Kristin $20 for two things: the support and help during recovery from surgery and also professionally the Retreat Farm envisioning developing a more immersive educational program to potentially include a museum, renovations to the barns, it’s a “land and its people” initiative and I’ll be moving aside from exec director of the whole organization for a while to concentrate on that.
•Justin $5 for his 11th year doing the Hunter’s Breakfast and also for Josh subbing as sergeant at arms a couple weeks ago.
•Justin calls out fines for those without pins
•Someone calls out Tristam for media appearance; confusion about amount of fine
•Sandy $5 brag for Dan Dietz saving his life – story very complicated but it’s about new tires
•Brett Morrison brags Sandy for his help creating the 501c3 for Friends of Island Park.
7:15, Meeting comes to order
Present: President Debra, John, Jim, Tristan, Tristam, Kevin, Dan, Will, M.J., Sandy, Londa,
Mona, Melissa, Ben, Justin, Kristin, Jon
Guests:
• Melanie Kahn – Brattleboro Festival of Miniatures, Speaker today
• Brett Morrison – Connecticut River Conservancy: Friends of Island Park
• Gilbert from BUHS
Greeter: Will
Scribe: Jim Next week: MJ
Server: Mona
Upcoming meetings: Next week is club assembly; following week no meeting (Thanksgiving on
Thursday)
President’s announcements:
• Social this Friday the 14th, 5:30, Bar 580
• Trivia Monday the 17th
• Holiday party December 4, 6 pm at the Legion; sheet passing around so we have a head
count, bring spouses, friends
• Londa, MJ and Melissa helped put the little garden to bed last Sunday; this Sunday (16th)
at 10 a.m. we’ll put the big garden to bed, anyone who can come help out
• Board meeting last week
o Relief for Jamaica, we’ll contribute to Scott Farm: many who work at the farm
have been severely impacted by Hurricane Melissa
o Support school nutrition project: Tristam reports that our club has decided on
$650, will ask noon club to split that; not sure about other upcoming academic
year holidays but overall good news that the program is restarting
• Speaker gifts. We will order “to go” cups with lids as speaker gifts
Member announcements:
• Tristam got in touch with Jason, who is doing great
• Sandy updates Trivia Night this coming Monday. New awesome flyers. Question team:
Londa has some help this month, Tristan is one. Are all the usual helpers on board? Yes.
• Sandy also updates holiday party: no meeting Wed Dec 3, party Thurs night Dec 4 at
Legion. $20 per person, cash bar, and we will collect toys for a charity –
• MJ is leading on gifts for kids. We used to go through Groundworks but they no longer
do it so we will partner with Winston-Prouty. We’ll know more next week. I’ll have a list of what’s desired or needed by way of gifts, you can initial what you can bring and then we’ll gather the gifts with descriptive tags and W-P distributes appropriately
Debra thanks Sandy for all the social life he has created
Breakfast break.
Birthday: Londa. Happy Birthday chorus.
Rotary Anniversary: Tristan, 26 years.
30-For-30 (More than 2 people who did service together):
•Those who helped Kristin during and after her surgery: “6 or 7 people who took really good care of me – thank you so much”
•Gilbert adds “Support for Kristin’s recovery” to the 30-for-30
Brags:
•Mona : Lisa Shippee gave her a bag of Guatemalan coffee from Ian Diamondstone, gift to the club. Auctions off for $14 to Sandy. Ian was going to be a club member but has things going on these days.
•Mona also brags Veteran’s Day and both her parents served in armed forces. Took her dad to Winchester where veteran’s motorcycle club “Rolling Thunder” with dinner & how socializing was so good for him.
•Kristin $20 for two things: the support and help during recovery from surgery and also professionally the Retreat Farm envisioning developing a more immersive educational program to potentially include a museum, renovations to the barns, it’s a “land and its people” initiative and I’ll be moving aside from exec director of the whole organization for a while to concentrate on that.
•Justin $5 for his 11th year doing the Hunter’s Breakfast and also for Josh subbing as sergeant at arms a couple weeks ago.
•Justin calls out fines for those without pins
•Someone calls out Tristam for media appearance; confusion about amount of fine
•Sandy $5 brag for Dan Dietz saving his life – story very complicated but it’s about new tires
•Brett Morrison brags Sandy for his help creating the 501c3 for Friends of Island Park.
Guest speaker Melanie Kahn:
Melanie speaks about the Brattleboro Festival of Miniatures. She has teamed up with the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance to create a festival for all of the storefronts, all of the
3 businesses, all the nonprofits, all the galleries in town are participating with the theme of miniatures in their Christmas displays, Inspired by the train club at Hatchspace Melanie started a dollhouse clubhouse at her farm. and it's grown massively. She describes the festival as an economic development plan for Brattleboro -- miniatures are a vehicle to bring people into our town to reimagine, reinvigorate, rebrand, our family friendly, whimsical, artistic, wonderful community that we all love and be bigger and louder, prouder brattleborians in all our creativity, rather than, you know, police our way out of certain situations. The Festival has 73 window displays that you can go see at this point; they have nonprofits engaged: Brattleboro Museum, Retreat Farm, 13 area schools; there is a market at the Sam’s building, display at the gallery space at the Latchis, and NEYT happens to be putting on a production of Little Women. The Reformer has covered the Festival extensively; the Festival is featured in Stratton Magazine, Vermont Magazine. The Boston Globe will be doing a feature in their travel section. Downtown windows will be in competition with each other as well and shopkeepers are deeply into it. Also, a People’s Choice Award so everyone can weigh in on their favorites.
Melanie passed around a photo of her dollhouse and brought with her a spectacular bridal scene in miniature.
The Festival is going to need volunteers to help make sure that folks who are coming to town have an excellent experience while they're here Complete drop down menu with information is at the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance webpage, a whole festival page and that's also where you can do volunteer signups and everything else. You can also contact Nancy Vitale who is coordinating volunteer shifts.You can contact her by phone or email and sign up for a shift if you want, or you can just come tell your friends come to Brattleboro, check it out.
WOW, Melanie, thanks so much, really exciting!
Four-Way Test and adjourn at 8:30
Submitted by Jim.