News of The Rotary Club of Portland, Maine July 19, 2020
Rotary’s New Frontier  
 
          Peter Dugas, (bottom right) a volunteer with the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and Peter Monro, (top right)  a former journalist, will talk Friday, July 24 on how climate stabilization meets Rotary’s Four-way Test. The link between Citizens Climate Lobby and Rotary was described in an April 2019 issue of Rotary Magazine (link here). A year ago, then Rotary International President Barry Rassin called climate change “Rotary’s ultimate mission.”
 
            Dugas will use an online simulator called En-Roads to demonstrate visually the impacts of changes in building efficiency, agriculture, electric vehicles, renewable energy, and new technology may have on global temperatures from now through 2100.
            Dugas is currently the co-chair of the Portland, ME chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby. He earned a BS from Brown University and has served on Governor Baldacci’s climate Review Board. A professional educator, he recently renovated a drafty and inefficient 19th Century building into a hyper-efficient apartment building where he lives with his wife and daughter.
 
            Peter Monro is a former journalist whose 25 years of landscape architectural practice in Portland is now being archived at the Maine Historical Society. His love of the outdoors includes hikes on the Camino de Santiago and kayaking on Casco Bay. He earned his BA at Wesleyan University.
Gracie Johnston Steps Down
 
     Gracie Johnston announced at last Friday's Board meeting that she has been named General Manager and Director of Sales for Mix Maine Media, an independently owned radio group with three top performing radio stations in Augusta and Waterville. She will resign from the Rotary Club of Portland in order to fulfill her new responsibilities. “While I am excited about this opportunity, I am very sad to leave the Club, and especially to relinquish my opportunity to be President.”
 
     Gracie joined Portland Rotary in 2015 and has been deeply engaged. She led the Community Services Committee and has been instrumental in the Club’s Recovery Task Force efforts to assist those impacted by substance abuse disorder. Board members expressed congratulations to Gracie on her new role, coupled with regret. She will be missed.
 
 
The Show Must go ... Online
by Bob Martin
 
          Nick Callanan, founder of The Maine Outdoor Film festival, and chief of No Umbrella Media, shared the frustrations of producing a major event during the COVID-19 PANDEMIC. “We had the festival booked at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and venues around town, then the coronavirus presented a unique set of challenges. We were running five parallel business plans,” he said. “An exercise in adaptability as the sands shifted under our feet.”
            
            The Maine Outdoor Film Festival (MOF) provides opportunities for independent filmmakers, especially those who have an affinity for Maine, to tell their stories. “We wanted to create a film festival that was stamped as ‘Portland, Maine’,” Callanan said. “The Jewish Film Festival does a great job, but there’s nothing uniquely Portland.” But due to COVID, he said that the major festival was being shifted to 2021 and a smaller event will be held this year at Thompsons Point, adapting a film-screening event to an outdoor venue. “We have sold about half the available tickets,” he said. “But we may have to pull the plug if the numbers get too high.” The group also created a virtual film festival online and Callanan provided a promo code for Rotary members to use for access (10toPortlandRotary) and receive a $10 discount. He also said that MOF would contribute $10 of each of these Virtual Gold Pass tickets to the Rotary Club of Portland.
 
            Callanan got started into film production while working for a rafting company in The Forks. “Someone had to follow the rafters down the rapids with a video camera so we could sell them a DVD of their experience. That someone was me,” he laughed. He continued with creating films and does work all over the state. “Name any town,” he said, “and I’ve been within 50 miles of it.”
 
            Callanan shared one of the short films which will be shown on the virtual festival which is available here.The link will also lead to other MOF films, or you can go to the MOF Vimeo channel available here.
 
Bits & Pieces Tom Talbott
 
  • Our July 17 meeting included thirty participants. In Zoom Pre-Meeting Blues Dick Hall shared how his boat got loose and was totaled on the rocks.  His thoughts of making a save were dismissed, lest he lose more than just a boat.  Good call!  Sorry for your loss.
  • President Ellen Niewoehner spiritually rang the bell, calling the Zoom boxes to order.  Noting some crazy weather at her camp this week – wind, hail, tornados, and thunder, she hopes to enjoy this upcoming sunny weekend.  
  • Cyrus Hagge had the notion to provide our Invocation and did not shun his duty, sharing a whimsical poem about “ations”. 
 
If we meet and I say “Hi”, 
That’s a salutation.
If you ask me how I feel, 
that’s a consideration.
If we stop and talk a while,
that’s a conversation.
If we understand each other,
that’s communication.
If we argue, scream, and fight,
that’s an altercation.
If we later apologize,
that’s reconciliation.
If we help each other home, 
that’s cooperation.
And all these ‘ations’ added up,
make civilization. 
(And if I say this is a wonderful poem,
is that exaggeration?)
 
  • Ellen welcomed a former member of our club, Andreea Paine, who would later introduce our guest speaker.
  • Charlie Frair provided details for our upcoming Flags for Community Heroes event. Starting on Sept 11th, 100 flags will be standing tall at the Maine Mall rotunda for a two-week display. Each flag will have a sponsor and a commemorative plaque.  The entire presentation is moving, touching, and inspiring. To make this fly, we need to get the flags sponsored, and ideally, we find people from outside our club to participate.  Start a list of who you can talk to.  An associate, a neighbor, a friend, someone who they would like to honor.  Certainly, we’re not restricting anyone in the club who wants to be a sponsor, but we are sensitive to always asking and raising money out of our own pockets. 100 flags, $100, earns $10,000.  The flags were all purchased last year, so it all goes into our charitable fund.  Without Maine Outdoor Challenge, this is an important fundraiser. 
  • Bill Blount said thanks to new member Asheesh Lanba, the link to our August 21 Hadlock Field Event is on our Portland Rotary website here. You can pay online, or bring a check the day of the event.  We can only accommodate 50 people, so please sign up now.  There will be plenty of room at the picnic tables for social distancing,  while at the same time getting together again for the first time in 5 months.  Masks are required for all activities, just not while eating!
  • Ellen said she’d received a special package in the mail – the “Past President’s Pin”, that will be bestowed upon our immediate past-president Amy Chipman.  Ellen spoke of the great and memorable job Amy did last year, particularly in mobilizing and implementing new systems to deal with the COVID crisis. Amy, from her Zoom box, said how proud and honored she was to serve, and then added she has some special pins of her own to present – Paul Harris Fellows.  Those will be presented in-person at our Hadlock Field event. 
All Hands Hold Books Taking Root 
 
          Liz Fagan reports that Rotary’s All Hands Hold Books is moving to a few more countries. The June conference reached participants in seven countries. "All indicate that they are going to make it happen, so we’ll learn more as they report back." 
 
          She’s received some interest from a special education teacher in Hyderabad Telangana, India who wants her to participate in a conference attended by people from 11 countries on July 25. Pakistan and New Zealand seems to be the constants.  “I honestly have to do the math to find out what time it starts! So far it looks like Sri Lanka Time,” she said.
 
          She said the group is working on the concept of curbside pick-ups at libraries to assure that books are in the hands of children instead of collecting dust in closed buildings. Rama Raju, in Hyderabad, reports that all schools and colleges in India are closed. Millions of children without school are experiencing the COVID SLIDE. 
 
          Liz said there is a keen interest in this idea of getting books off shelves and into the hands of children from educators and specialists all over the world. Kosovo National Library and the Psycho-Social Research Center in Pristine are up and running. Members of Portland Rotary have contributed to that effort. 
 
          Bringing this concept closer to home, Liz suggests that Club members could work with libraries (school, college, or public) in their towns to organize curb side pick-up and gather books for delivery by Rotarians to Long Creek, Preble Street, Boys and Girls Club, and homes. Liz calls this “a Rotary Book Mobile.” Let Liz Fagan know of your interest.
Club Meets August 21 at Hadlock Field
 
    The Portland Seadogs will welcome the Club to the outdoor gathering facility at Hadlock Field on August 21. Pre-registration is required and can be accomplished on the club website. Since the Seadogs are bringing in staff to accommodate our meeting, the cost of the ballpark lunch will be $26. which can be paid by check on the day of the meeting, or in advance by credit card on the Club website. There is a limit of 50 persons at the meeting, so early registration is highly recommended.
 
Help Wanted
     The Windjammer, the oldest Rotary newsletter in Maine, is searching for new contributing editors to complement its seasoned staff. We can’t promise a Pulitzer, and our readership is small, but the duties are light, the frequency of work is minimal, and the rewards are great. Know that you write for history. For more information, contact Bob Martin.
 
A Moment of Reflection | by Bob Martin
 
     I met John Lewis when I was a rising senior in high school. It was August 1963 on the Mall in Washington. My girlfriend and I had wandered into a tent on the grounds of the Washington Monument just off Constitution Avenue. We thought it was a water station. Turned out to be a meeting place for people on the program. Lewis greeted us, introduced himself, dismissed our embarrassment, and thanked us for coming. 
 
     Washington was a town where you could bump into people from the headlines almost anywhere. I waited behind Chief Justice Warren Burger while he paid for a six-pack of Black Label beer in the checkout line in a Safeway in Arlington one day after work. Justice Arthur Goldberg once got confused at a traffic light one night on New Mexico Avenue and backed his Cadillac into my Volkswagen bug. Twice. Each time, I got out and suggested he put the car into drive. He’d had a little too much sauce. He kept apologizing until his wife told him to shut up and let her drive. But that day in August in the tent was different.
 
     Sidney Poitier was in the background helping Roy Campanella steer his wheelchair toward the tent’s exit. There was a palpable sense of excitement in the air. Not excitement for what was going to happen, but excitement for what we all were doing. My parents were not enthusiastic about my participation in the march, believing there would be trouble. I ignored them. The police didn’t wear any riot gear that day; they just wore their usual patrol garb. After all, the Chief of Police, having been asked earlier in the week what demonstrators should prepare for, said that people should avoid putting mayonnaise on their sandwiches because it might spoil in the August heat. I knew Lewis to be a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), but that was about all. We exchanged greetings and parted, joining the throng again marching toward the Lincoln Memorial. Sometime later that day, Lewis spoke. My girlfriend and I looked at each other realizing that he was the guy we’d talked to an hour or so earlier. I never saw him again in person, but I never forgot meeting him in that tent. 
 
     These passages from Lewis’s 2012 memoir Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Changeare a good summation of how he lived:
 
“Our actions entrench the power of the light on this planet. Every positive thought we pass between us makes room for more light. And if we do more than think, then our actions clear the path for even more light. That is why forgiveness and compassion must become more important principles in public life.”
 
“Anchor the eternity of love in your own soul and embed this planet with goodness. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates. Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won. Choose confrontation wisely, but when it is your time don’t be afraid to stand up, speak up, and speak out against injustice. And if you follow your truth down the road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself.”
Speaker Schedule
 
July 24 | Peter Monro, Citizen Climate Lobby
July 31 | David Cyr, Skowhegan Savings on PPP Loans
August 7 | District Governor Peggy Belanger
August 14 | TBD
August 21 | Portland Sea Dogs
August 28 | Musical Program with Nannette Duncanson
September 4 | No Meeting
September 11 | Flags for Heroes
September 18 | Kevin Hancock on his new book
September 25 | Earle Shettleworth on John Calvin Stevenson
October 2 | Jonathan Sahrbeck, Cumberland County DA
 
The Windjammer
is published online every week by
The Rotary Club of Portland, Maine.
 
Contributing Editors:
Jake Bourdeau
Dick Hall
Erik Jorgensen
Julie L’Heureux
Ben Lowry
John Marr
Tom Talbott
 
Managing Editor
Bob Martin
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