Rotary Drummer

January 20, 2006

Guests:  Inam (who will soon rejoin the club) and Maggie Smith from People’s Bank

Announcements:

The Board of Directors meeting took place this week and much of our planning for the spring was discussed:

• We’ll be attending both Bluefish and Sound Tigers games as a group.
• We are investigating a project to plant desirable trees on Schenk’s Island with the Interact Club.
• We’ll have lunch one week at the Teen Center – Tim LaBant (a WHS grad) will cater the lunch.

Pat reported on the Katrina Fund that we established with Danbury Rotary Club.  The money is yet to be allocated, but Danbury has started to communicate with a school that may benefit from the aid.

Pat said he is part of the Emergency Response Team for Wilton and he urged others to join.  This week the community team was called out twice to help keep traffic moving in areas where downed trees and power lines were an issue.

Our storage closet at Silvermine Tavern has been cleaned out – perhaps too thoroughly as some banners are missing. Most of the inventory belongs to the Norwalk Rotary Club.

Speaker:  Daphne, the new Director at Weir Farm Art Center (formerly Weir Farm Trust)

Daphne showed us a slide show of images from the various programs in which Weir Farm has engaged over the past 15 years since it became a resource open to the public.  She pointed out that two entities exist at Weir Farm today (the home of American Impressionist J. Alden Weir):  the National Park Service, who maintains the grounds and the Weir Farm Art Center, in charge of programs ongoing there.  This relationship has existed since 1990.

The new name and mission of Weir Farm Art Center will bring changes:

• The artist in residence program will be expanded, with new housing in the studio thanks to a grant from the Department of the Interior.  Currently 12 artists stay on the property to work for a period of one month each. 
• The visiting artist program will be curtailed as it required too many staff resources.
• Gallery exhibitions will present the work of artists in residence.
• Fund raising efforts will ratchet up – “A Night in Tunisia” on June 10^th will be a gala to benefit the artists in residence program.
• Jazz in the Garden will be expanded to include a variety of artists and jazz.
• Workshops will continue to involve the community in the site.
• Daphne said that this is a moment of truth for the organization – their $400,000 annual budget needs to double immediately and grow after that in order to achieve the mission set forth recently.