Happy New Year! 

It has been a minute since we last met but I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday and was able to spend some quality time with loved ones. 

Our last meeting before our holiday hiatus was our annual holiday party. We started the meeting by presenting the Aldrich Library with a check for $15,000 from our annual Heritage Days Breakfast on the library lawn. In attendance to receive the check was Nancy Pope, Chair of the Library board and Garret Grant, Assistant Library Director. 

While everyone enjoyed a delicious lunch catered by Gusto's, Tom shared some music with us. Songs were composed by George Milne with Dick Shadroui playing the piano and lyrics by Linda Milne. Rotarians sang the tunes. 

Fines started to fly!

Karl started by fining anyone who hadn't heard Eddie on the Barre Beat podcast. On the podcast Eddie shared how Barre Rotary helps in the community, and more specifically the BOR Concession Stand. Eddie is always looking for volunteers to help run the stand if you have a free evening and would like to help. Funds from the efforts at the concession stand are distributed to the different organizations that people volunteer on behalf of. 

The next fine was against President Emily, myself…I misspoke when issuing the first fine and got fined myself. I quickly learned the proper language for fines by the next fine. 

There were several happy $$ given that week. Eddie started us off with happy dollars for being busy in his position as the treasurer and running the BOR Concession Stand. For a wonderful meal from Gusto's, he followed it up with it being the best meal in a long time. And finally for the SHS Hockey teams as they won their games. 

I gave a happy dollar in celebration of Riley (7) celebrating her birthday. She got her ears pierced and we visited VT Teddy Bear where she got to choose a stuffy to build. 

Tony followed with a happy dollar for giving blood and reading his RI Magazine while doing so. He was also happy to have Alex & Tayler coming into town to celebrate Christmas & New Years. Tony also had a thankful $ for his sister-in-law for providing our delicious holiday themed cupcakes for lunch. 

Caroline also added some dollars to the coffers, she was happy to see Louisa Tripp and for the Youth Speech Contest, first round speeches will be held during our February 11th meeting. She also had a wish dollar, with hopes that Tony could introduce Alex & Taylor to her son Andrew to help inspire him. 

GAME TIME!

Our holiday game this year was a challenge to wrap a box while wearing oven mitts or mittens, with the goal of having the nicest wrapped box. Teams of 3 were created and teams worked together to wrap their package. 

Team Rinker & Blow came out with the win while Team Haigh, Earle & Milne came in a close second. The winning team won holiday themed head bands. 

Team Babic, Tripp and Goulette had complaints that their tape was defective. Following the game it was brought to the clubs attention that while some of the mittens had holes for their fingers to act freely the honor system for not using them was broken. A fine on Ted was proposed for using the finger holes in his mittens. The fine passed with proper fining language by President Emily. 

YANKEE GIFT SWAP

Next up on the agenda was the Yankee Gift Swap where each person drew a number. Gifts were grabbed in number order from 1-14. The first person also has the opportunity to steal a gift at the end, everyone else either had the option to grab a new gift from under the tree or to steal another's gift that had already been opened. If your gift gets stolen you then get to choose a new gift. Members had fun sealing gifts and grabbing new gifts from under the tree. Gifts included local gift cards, meat claws, a shortbread gift basket, mug warmer, head lamp, tool set, and chocolates. 

President Emily wrapped her gift to look like a dustpan but it held gift cards to local establishments. If you'd like to see that making of that it's up on our social media sites. 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/4275810406071655

The meeting ended with one last dollar from Paul, he was sorry to have missed Bob Pope at our holiday function as he always enjoys seeing him at this meeting, and wishes him well on his recovery from surgery.