Newburyport Rotary - Newburyport Clipper

The March 22nd meeting was conducted by Kate Kelly since Pres. Geri is still on vacation. Ted said that he was playing "My Country Tis of Thee", by request of our interim president. The invocation was given by George Cashman and luch was American chop suey or hanger steak. After lunch Ted and Jay led us in singing #24 in the songbook, "Daisy", in honor of the impending spring weather.

Guests and Visiting Rotarians

The guest book was read by Mike Lagasse. Our guests were Cherylann Kelly, guest of Peter and Jeff Gowan, our speaker.

Student Guests

Scott Eaton introduced our students, Jamie Connor and Becca Burger from Newburyport High School.

Jamie is a senior involved in Opportunity Works photo essay book. Record magazine staff, art club, TZ Tees internship, National Honor Society, babysitting and working. Her favorite class is her internship whee she works as a graphic designer. With her help, they have created a new company, TZ Tees. She also enjoys English and art classes. Jamie plans to major in graphic design or communications design.

Becca is a member of Model United Nations, debate club, math team and Interact. She enjoys Spanish, French and English and likes learning new languages. Although she is a junior, Becca would like to live in Italy and speak Italian, Spanish and French after graduation.

Announcements

Kate Kelly announced that there would be no birthday, anniversary, badge or picture fines today.

Happy Dollars

Cindy was pleased to announce that Mike Strem and Dean McLellan will be honored as co-founders of the Newburyport Education Business Coalition at the Second Annual "Ed Award" for Excellence in Education. The event will take place on Saturday, April 30, at 6:00 pm at the Elks Lodge. Please consider attending or advertising in the program book.

Program

Cindy introduced our guest speaker today, Jeff Gowan, Economic Development Director the City of Newburyport.

Jeff lived in Pelham, NH and is also on the Planning Board in that town. He spoke about creating a balanced and well planned approach to the development of the city. He is gathering information about the business make up of the city, their plans to expand, number of employees, etc. The NIMBY (Not in my Backyard) and BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) attitudes really slow things down and end up making projects more expensive. He feels there is a lack of good communication between the boards in the city. We need to streamline the process of obtaining permits.

There were many good questions and comments brought forward. Kate thanked Jeff for speaking and presented him with a Rotary mug of candy.

Raffle

$20.00 was won by our waitress.