President Gina Pattison opened the meeting at our new lunch meeting site; Heart Rose Club in the former Shriner’s building, Gina welcomed all to the October 26, 2023 meeting of the Brattleboro Rotary www.brattlebororotaryclub.org
Invocation - Betsy Gentile.
Gina led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance .
26 Members and 3 guests attended the meeting.
Guests:
Bill McKim, Julian Mutter (guest of Marcy Jones), Norma Hardy (guest of Ted Kramer)
New Member:
Adrian Lezcano was welcomed today to his first official meeting as a member. Welcome Adrian!
ROTARY MINUTE
For the Rotary Minute -
President Gina presented the Rotary Minute from Roger Allbee on an article in the November Rotarian Magazine “The road to peace”.
Note for future presenters; The Rotary Minute could also have the speaker talk about their personal involvement in Rotary or personal background.
Years of Service in our Club for October:
Stay tuned.
On Behalf of our Club and all Rotarians, thank you for your Service Above Self
Meeting location - New Location – The Heart Rose Club – 11 Green Street in Brattleboro
Announcements
Events coming up:
Stan provided a print out of all upcoming projects. It includes:
• Groundworks 11/8
• Groundworks 12/6
Rob Szpila announced that the Brattleboro Sunrise Club will have 2 more Brattleboro History tours this season. You meet by the fountain by the Co-op and walk to the upper end of Main Street. One is tomorrow (Friday) at 4:00 and the last one is on Saturday at 11:00. Rob highly recommends the tour; he went on one and learned a lot about the town and had a lot of fun doing it. The tour takes about an hour and a half. There is an online reservation system and a suggested donation of $20 - $40.
Mark Anderson announced that on November 5th at 2:00 the American Legion has a Veterans Town Hall. Also on November 5th at 2:00 at Leland & Gray Union High School, Bill Holiday will do a presentation on his book about Kennedy’s assassination.
ED NOTE: Weekly assignments for the invocation or motivational thought can be found on the club website.>
JOKE OF THE WEEK
For our joke or song of the week:
Greg Worden presented a series of Halloween jokes:
What do ghosts use to do their make-up? Vanishing cream.
What is a ghoul’s favorite drink? Anything with boos.
Where does a ghost go on vacation? Mali-boo or the Dead Sea.
Why is a ghost so bad at lying? You can see right through them.
What’s a mummy’s favorite way to relax? Solving cryptograms.
What do you get when you put a spider on an ear of corn? A cobweb.
ED NOTE: 2022-23 weekly assignments are posted on the club website.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
Jim Haine announced:
11/2 Steven Fox from BMH
11/9 Club Assembly
11/16 Logic
12/7 HCRS’ Police Social Work Liaison Program
NOTE: 2022-23 weekly assignments, are posted on the club website.
REMINDERS
Please bring your bottles and cans to the Putney Road redemption center to benefit Pure Water for the World. Please remember to inform the staff that the bottles and cans should be credited to the club.
Dart Everett bragged for Carla Lineback who was in the 2nd Class of the Peace Institute and went to Japan.
Betsy bragged $10 for Tucker Kramer, Ted Kramer, Teddy Kramer, Mike Mandracchia, Bill Penniman and herself. They painted the new offices in the Milk Room at the Retreat Farm.
Marcy bragged $10 – his pony tail is gone! It took a lot of courage and there were some in our Club who gave him inspiration, including two who rose to the top. He took great comfort in thinking of Greg Worden and Ted Kramer. Marcy also bragged for recently spending one month in Greece with Deedee. They stopped in Amsterdam and saw a friend they had not seen in 42 years.
Bill Vermouth recently spoke to Tom French who wanted to brag for his granddaughter Olivia who is on the Canadian Olympic Rugby Team. Bill had a quiz for the members. 1) How long has Olivia been on the Canadian Olympic Rugby Team? Rick Manson gave the correct answer of 7 years. 2) Olivia is now on two Olympic Teams and a Rugby 15 Team. What is a Rugby 15 Team? No one knew the answer which was it is a team with 15 players. Olivia is the Captain. Bill said that Tom has had leg problems and was nearing the end of PT and inquired about wheelchair access to come to a Rotary Meeting. But since then other complications have come up and he is not sure if he will be able to come to a meeting.
PROGRAM
Guest Speaker:
PROGRAM
Speaker:
Ted Kramer introduced our Guest Speaker, Brattleboro’s Chief of Police, Norma Hardy. She has been Chief since 2021. Prior to that she was with the NYC Port Authority for NY and NJ. She is a nationally recognized speaker and poet.
Chief Hardy shared her thoughts on her two years as Chief. The past year has been tumultuous within the Department. There have been 5 homicides within a 4-month period. She tries to praise her officers; they are definitely overworked. They do not complain even through these stressful times. In the past two years there has been growing support for the department. She does not have as many negative reactions as she did in the first 2 months.
Chief Hardy tries to be out in the community as much as she can, attending things like Rotary, walking downtown. When she took over, she was down 11 officers. She would like to be able to say that it is better now, but it is not much better. They are getting candidates for the Police Academy; they have 2 now and are hoping for 4 more in February. A new hire is away at the Academy for 17 weeks and then they have 12 weeks of training with officers before they go out on their own. They have 2 new officers; Officer Lopez is from Colorado and Officer Evans is local. They have a total of 17 officers now and are trying to get 10 more to be at full staff. A lot of hard work and dedication goes into taking care of this community. Year to date they have had 9,000 calls for service and have made over 800 arrests.
There is a lot of community outreach including Coffee with a Cop which is held at different locations. She has also gone to the Academy School to read to the children. Chief Hardy is interested in starting a Build A Bike Program in Brattleboro. Teams are formed and they bring bicycles in and put them together for kids. It is a program for less privileged children in the community.
Chief Hardy said it is very interesting being in Brattleboro. She is very happy with changes that have happened. She now has an Assistant Chief who has the same authority as the Chief when she can’t be
there. She will hopefully be promoting two more officers by the end of this year or early next year. Police officers can go anywhere and work for more pay. We are very fortunate to have them here.
Chief Hardy opened it up to questions, of which there were many.
Scribe of the day - Cathy Coonan
DISCLAIMER
Weekly changing scribes and questionable IT may have resulted in oversights and errors. We regret any mistakes.
.png)
