Newsletter - Archive  Aug 12, 2009

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Rotary Club Business and Member News

August 12, 2009

Opening:

Pledge              Pres. Rich

Prayer               Mark

Song                 Joe M

Visiting Rotarians and Guests:

None

Announcements:

Pres. Rich       Signup sheet for committee work is circulating.  We'll finalize assignments next week.

                       Read note from Womenade affirming our choice of Julian Smith for the Citizen of the Year.

Henry              Distributed the draft budget for 2009-2010 which we'll vote on next week.  In future, he will have this on the website in the Members Area,

and will update it periodically.

John B             Minutes of three Board of Directors meetings have been posted in the Members Area of the website.

Happy Bucks:

Pres. Rich       His dad celebrated his 94th and is settling into Spruce Woods

Don                 Mark filling in for our no-show speaker last week

Joe M              Ann is back home from Dover Rehab after six weeks

Chip                Good to be back again after surgery

Sandy             Ditto

Madiha            Wonderful vacation on the Cape

Bill D               Now feeding grandson Wil and his father

Pete                Week in ME with the grandkids

Henry              Nice day ahead of us

Program:

Peter Wellenberger, Great Bay National Esturarine Research Reserve

Peter began his studies at UNH in Hotel Management, but switched over to Environmental Science when Onassis was working to put a refinery in on Great Bay.

That threat to the future of the bay resulted in the formation of the Save Our Shores campaign which worked to nominate Great Bay for Federal protection.  To-date, Senator Gregg has directed $56 million toward that effort to preserve Great Bay, Little Bay and the estuarine extent of the feeder rivers.

The Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership is a consortium of like-minded groups led by the Nature Conservancy.  They share the values of habitat protection, natural resource preservation, and response to environmental threats.  Their interest extends to the entire watershed which encompasses 450,000 acres, 100 miles of shoreline, 2585 acres of eel grass (habitat for shellfish), and 1202 acres of mudflats.  Altogether, the area represents 9% of NH.

Great Bay is home to 20 species of waterfowl, 27 different shore birds, 13 wading birds, and osprey and bald eagles.  It is also an important stop on the migratory routes of many birds.

Peter showed us several maps illustrating land that has been purchased outright, land in conservation trust, and land that is in the preservation pipeline.  4171 acres have been put in trust.  All of this land must be managed and volunteers are relied on to walk the land every year.

Threats to Great Bay arise from NH's fast-growing population and consequent loss of forest (10-20%) and farmland (17-20%), non-point source pollution, and the at-risk biodiversity on land not yet under conservation.  Many of those whose property is not under conservation are of an age when they might be open to thinking about the future of their land - this is the consortium's challenge.

The consortium is successful because they have agreed on their goals, embrace consensus decision-making, and share their organizations' resources.

Megabucks:

Pres. Rich had the ticket but couldn't find the six of clubs.  $64 pot rolls over.

Upcoming Programs:

Aug 19     Official Visit, DG Jeffrey Pelkey, RC of Kittery

Aug 26     Chip Noon, Classification Talk

Sep 2       Sean McDonnell, UNH Football

Sep 9       Richard Weyrick, Oyster River Watershed Association

Your Scribe: Ric