Two very busy and talented students joined us as our Students of the Month. Pictured nearby, Aubree Bryant a senior at Pittsfield High and Brendan Bayles, a senior at Taconic High. Ms. Bryant is a volunteer at Berkshire Pride and at the Elizabeth Freeman Center, has a part time job at Mazzeo's, is involved with school theater program and is a dancer to boot! She plans to study early childhood education when she starts college next year. Mr. Bayles has a part time job at Guidos, volunteers at his church, is part of the school theater program, plays the guitar, piano and is a singer. He plans to study broadcast journalism as his college major.  

Auction Chair Jim Bronson will deliver auction item solicitation form packets at this week's meeting. Many thanks to John Hudnall and Brad Felix who worked with Jim to assemble the packets late into the frosty Monday Evening! As we will discuss, additional help will be needed in this year's Auction, slated for Saturday March 28th at the Berkshire Hills Country Club. As we enter 2026, our goal is to gather as early as possible, as much as possible! The help requested is centered around this effort, to include soliciting items we traditionally receive and scouring your contact lists for new and additional items. Experiential items are especially sought after. We have lost two key members of the Club and auction committee in the last year, we will need your help in obtaining the items that were on the lists of those members. The auction efforts and planning will move to overdrive after the first of the year. We plan to have a committee meeting in early-mid January to update members and continue the planning work.

Member Minute: Ben Wax updated us on things in his orbit: Ben is the VP of finance for 180 Degrees - he's been with the human services firm for about 4 years. Ben is married to wife Farrah, the couple celebrated 24 years of matrimony this year. Their oldest daughter attends UMass where she is a sophomore and the youngest is a senior at PHS.  When we last spoke with Ben, he was dashing out to deal with a broken water pipe at his office, hopefully things have calmed!

 

Guests of Honor: Last week, we were joined by AJ Enchill + Tony Wimperis in bold, because they become official members today - Congratulations to our newest Rotarians! We were further honored by the presence of this month's students: Aubree Bryant + Brendan Bayles.

 

Rotary on the Road: Please be on the lookout for an email toward the end of the month, informing you of our meeting location for the January 8th luncheon. We return to our usual schedule as we meet at Mazzeo's again on January 22nd, we'll let you know the plans for the January 15th 3rd Thursday soiree.

 

Auction Reminders: Please be working as you can on obtaining the items (same or similar) that you have gathered in the past and kindly look through your contacts as we seek additional items, especially experiential items (event / theatrical / musical / sporting tickets, trips, other types of tickets i.e. museum or other cultural experiences, etc.) - March 28th will come quick! 

 

Host Families Needed: As reported by Alex Reczkowski, there will likely be a student or two looking to travel to the Berkshires, would you or someone you know be interested in becoming a host family?

 

First Lady Erin Carlotto - 3/5

Gwen Davis- 3/12

Adrienne DeBlieux Speed - 03/26

 

 

Please make sure if you are to be absent from your assigned invocation date that you secure a replacement or let President Eric know of your absence.

 

 

 

Who will be our next lucky winner! Jack of Clubs is your ticket to Rotary riches!  The pot is currently $185.