News of The Rotary Club of Portland, Maine June 25, 2020
President Amy Chipman Speaks June 26
Amy Chipman will close out her year as President with a review of the Club’s activities and accomplishments in 2019-2020. Amy will have the distinction of being the first club president to preside over a club that convened virtually, but still met the challenges of extending service to others. In the beginning of her year, she said: “to be a member of the Rotary family is to be a part of something much bigger than yourself.” One of the highlights of her year was the trip to Coimbatore Texcity in India.
Amy joined Portland Rotary in 2002. She is the First Vice President of RBC Wealth Management in Portland. She grew up in Cape Elizabeth and earned her BA at Wheaton College in Massachusetts.
View From City Hall | Jake Bourdeau
Kate Snyder is the current and third Mayor of Portland Maine. At the club meeting on Friday June 19, 2020, she presented her background and approaches to helping Portland meet its challenges. Ms. Snyder was overwhelmingly elected to a four-year term in November 2019, and not only works with the city officials, but represents Portland’s interests in Augusta and Washington.
Mayor Snyder earned a BA from Skidmore College and a MA in Public Policy at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School. As her three children were growing up in Maine, Portland was going through many financial and school related challenges. Knowing that her local school (Nathan Clifford) was on the potential chopping block, she ran for, and was elected to, the school board where she spent 2007-2013 working on budgets and other initiatives.
After getting her feet wet with the school board, she was fascinated with the public decision-making process, and moved on to other positions with the public interest in mind. Ms. Snyder worked many evenings in Augusta as a representative of the newly formed Board of Corrections. Later she became Executive Director of the Portland Public Schools Foundation, a non-profit organization raising funds for Portland School initiatives.
Mayor Snyder does not believe in the use of social media for addressing the local problems in many cases, and she looks forward to finding a common ground for what may initially appear to be opposing concepts. She would much prefer to discuss issues on the phone, where she can learn about the citizen’s concern, and work towards finding shared goals.
As Portland’s Mayor for the last six months, Ms. Snyder has already had to tackle tough topics such as the city’s responses to COVID-19 pandemic; addressing the recent protests following the death of George Floyd; working with the Police Department to implement potential changes; and, addressing the city budget in light of a potential down turn in the economy.
With the preliminary estimates showing a decrease in city funding of approximately 10% across the board due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tough decisions to furlough many city employees, and freeze budgets were implemented. It is apparent that 2020 is not a normal year, and she said that FY21 budget will need her willingness, constant attention, and Portland’s agility to enact potential changes if the assumptions used to develop the budget prove to be wrong. Based upon her presentation to the club and her experience, it seems Mayor Snyder is up to the tasks at hand.
Bits & Pieces | Erik Jorgensen
Rotary met virtually on Friday, the hottest day of the year so far. Erik Greven, who beamed in from the bridge of his boat, was arguably in the most enviable position among those of us who were on the Zoom Conference. Not to be outdone, others were also taking steps to enjoy the summer weekend: Ellen Niewoehner reported that she was headed to do some camping at Mount Blue and Bill Blount was firing up his motorcycle for the trip to Wayne. Both were to leave after our meeting.
After we overcame a number of minor technical glitches, Gracie Johnston opened with her invocation, which took the form of a reflection on the Four-Way Test, and how those elements of truth, fairness, goodwill and mutual benefit are alive around us, including on the sign in front of Portland's Williston-Immanuel Church.
We heard an update regarding one of our past speakers, Katie Spotz, who had rowed solo across the Atlantic. Now, she's got another goal, as she will attempt to run farther than she ever has before. The Ohio-native, who recently moved to Maine with the Coast Guard, will run from the Maine-Canadian border at Coburn Gore to Belfast: 130 miles in about 30 hours over Labor Day weekend. No sleep, just a few breaks to change her socks and shoes. The whole effort is to raise funds for clean water, which has been a long-term focus of her many endurance challenges. You can learn more, see some great films and support her at the website here. Go Katie!
Jan Chapman reported with regret that the club’s successful North Deering reading program has been put on hold for the time being due to COVID-19. Stay tuned.
Bill Blount said that the Tennis League, which has just resumed play after a long break, is in search of "a few good men and women" who would be interested in playing intermediate level tennis on Monday evenings over the Winter. Contact Bill for more information.
Finally, Portland Rotarian Bob Fowler had the chance to present testimony to the Legislature's Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee to provide some insight into how the Milestone Foundation and its clientele of people with substance use disorders have weathered the COVID Crisis. This meeting unfortunately happened at the same time as Rotary's meeting, and Erik Jorgensen, who was participating in both, was reminded that, despite the theoretical technical capability to do so, it is truly impossible to be present in two places at once. Please don't tell the Legislature.
Elsa DiGiovanni Awarded Youth Scholarship
Youth Service Chair Kate Brown introduced Casco Bay High School principal Derek Pierce, who told us about his plans for the school's Fall reopening plans, and the challenge to level the playing field between those who have, and those who don't have, the ability to do remote work at home. He anticipates implementing something of a hybrid model between live and online school.
He introduced our Youth Service Award winner, Elsa DiGiovanni, who joined us from her living room. The leader of Casco Bay's "Spread the Love Club", Elsa lives the mission of her club in her everyday life. Described as "volunteering all over the place", Elsa has worked extensively with a focus on asylum seekers and youth empowerment. She is a "science person" who has graduated from Casco Bay with the highest honors and is headed to Bates College next year. This suggests that Maine might have the opportunity to keep her talents in-state after college. In addition to a scholarship, Elsa's award included a chance to designate support for a charity. She chose the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Loretta Rowe Named Honorary Member
The Club Board voted by acclamation to confer the distinction of Honorary Member on Loretta Rowe. Loretta joined Portland Rotary in 1988. She is a five-time Paul Harris Fellow, served as the Club’s President in 1998-9, and Assistant District Governor from 2000-2001. For many years, she has managed the Windjammer and published the Club Roster. But those are the things we have titles for, they don’t come close to acknowledging the breadth and depth of Loretta’s contributions to the Club. The truth is, there are many things that just get done to keep the Club going that most of us don’t see. Odds are, Loretta is behind the effort.
Loretta joins the distinguished group of current Honorary Members who include Liz Fagan, Elise Hodgkin, Mark Stimson, Bob Traill, and Peggy Westcott.
All Hands Hold Books Launches
Liz Fagan announced that she and Granit Haliti in Kosovo are ready to move forward to bring language and literacy to all children in Kosovo. The two are working with QHPSM and the Kosovo National Library to coordinate distribution of books to all children who are sheltering in place while schools are closed. “We are hopeful that this enriched access to language and literacy will become a lifelong learning opportunity. The current goal is to get books off library shelves and into the hands of children of all ages,” she said.
Books and monetary donations from the US can be sent to the Non-Profit Psycho-Social Research Center at:
Qendra për Hulumtime Psiko-Sociale dhe Mjekësore (QHPSM)
Rr. Kreshniket, Bardhosh, Prishtine, Kosovo.
Postal code 10,000 Prishtine.
A USPS Customs Declaration form must also be completed for attachment to the package. Describe the item on the form as a Humanitarian Gift and assign it a very low value to avoid duties. For further information, contact Liz Fagan.
Virtual Meetings To Continue
The Club Board agreed at its monthly meeting last Friday to continue the Zoom meeting format and review the issue again in September. Subsequent to the meeting, Rotary International instructed Club leaders that "there would be no mandatory in-person meetings for the rest of the year." RI also reported that its Risk Management Team advised that “the general liability policy for U.S. Rotary clubs and districts excludes coverage for COVID-19 and other communicable diseases.”
The Board agreed to explore the feasibility of an outdoor social gathering in August or September depending upon a suitable venue, and the ability to keep the gathering safe for all participants.
A Moment of Reflection
“All of it–the rings of Saturn and my father’s wedding band, the underbelly of the clouds pinked by the rising sun, Einstein’s brain bathing in a jar of formaldehyde, every grain of sand that made the glass that made the jar and each idea Einstein ever had, the shepherdess singing in the Rila mountains of my native Bulgaria and each one of her sheep, every hair on Chance’s velveteen dog ears and Marianne Moore’s red braid and the whiskers of Montaigne’s cat, every translucent fingernail on my friend Amanda’s newborn son, every stone with which Virginia Woolf filled her coat pockets before wading into the River Ouse to drown, every copper atom composing the disc that carried arias aboard the first human-made object to enter interstellar space and every oak splinter of the floorboards onto which Beethoven collapsed in the fit of fury that cost him his hearing, the wetness of every tear that has ever been wept over a grave and the yellow of the beak of every raven that has ever watched the weepers, every cell in Galileo’s fleshy finger and every molecule of gas and dust that made the moons of Jupiter to which it pointed, the Dipper of freckles constellating the olive firmament of a certain forearm I love and every axonal flutter of the tenderness with which I love her, all the facts and figments by which we are perpetually figuring and reconfiguring reality–it all banged into being 13.8 billion years ago from a single source, no louder than the opening note of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, no larger than the dot levitating over the small i, the I lowered from the pedestal of ego.
How can we know this and still succumb to the illusion of separateness, of otherness? This veneer must have been what the confluence of accidents and atoms known as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., saw through when he spoke of our “inescapable network of mutuality,” what Walt Whitman punctured when he wrote that “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
–Maria Popova, Figuring, Pantheon Books, New York 2019
accomplishments in 2019-2020. Amy will have the distinction of being the first club president to preside over a club that convened virtually, but still met the challenges of extending service to others. In the beginning of her year, she said: “to be a member of the Rotary family is to be a part of something much bigger than yourself.” One of the highlights of her year was the trip to Coimbatore Texcity in India.
University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School. As her three children were growing up in Maine, Portland was going through many financial and school related challenges. Knowing that her local school (Nathan Clifford) was on the potential chopping block, she ran for, and was elected to, the school board where she spent 2007-2013 working on budgets and other initiatives. 
who told us about his plans for the school's Fall reopening plans, and the challenge to level the playing field between those who have, and those who don't have, the ability to do remote work at home. He anticipates implementing something of a hybrid model between live and online school..JPG)
Loretta Rowe. Loretta joined Portland Rotary in 1988. She is a five-time Paul Harris Fellow, served as the Club’s President in 1998-9, and Assistant District Governor from 2000-2001. For many years, she has managed the Windjammer and published the Club Roster. But those are the things we have titles for, they don’t come close to acknowledging the breadth and depth of Loretta’s contributions to the Club. The truth is, there are many things that just get done to keep the Club going that most of us don’t see. Odds are, Loretta is behind the effort.
velveteen dog ears and Marianne Moore’s red braid and the whiskers of Montaigne’s cat, every translucent fingernail on my friend Amanda’s newborn son, every stone with which Virginia Woolf filled her coat pockets before wading into the River Ouse to drown, every copper atom composing the disc that carried arias aboard the first human-made object to enter interstellar space and every oak splinter of the floorboards onto which Beethoven collapsed in the fit of fury that cost him his hearing, the wetness of every tear that has ever been wept over a grave and the yellow of the beak of every raven that has ever watched the weepers, every cell in Galileo’s fleshy finger and every molecule of gas and dust that made the moons of Jupiter to which it pointed, the Dipper of freckles constellating the olive firmament of a certain forearm I love and every axonal flutter of the tenderness with which I love her, all the facts and figments by which we are perpetually figuring and reconfiguring reality–it all banged into being 13.8 billion years ago from a single source, no louder than the opening note of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, no larger than the dot levitating over the small i, the I lowered from the pedestal of ego.
