I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July celebration with family and friends. I am looking forward to seeing you this Tuesday, July 13.  We encourage you to come earlier at 11:45 am to enjoy lunch and social time. We will start our meeting at 12 pm with no break and ending after our speaker by 1 pm. Your time is valuable and we want our Rotarians on Zoom to have a better experience. 

The annual dues and quarterly bills have been mailed to you. We are asking you to make a reservation for lunch ahead of time by noon on Friday before each Tuesday’s meeting.  This will help the Marriott staff up for our meetings.  You can pay ahead through your quarterly bill, pay on-line for your lunches by the month or by each week or you can make a reservation with Rob Black and pay at the door. Hopefully we will all get accustomed to planning ahead.

We are excited about having Connelly Akstens as our speaker on this coming Tuesday. Thank you to our President-Elect, Steve Hug for reaching out to Connelly. Connelly has offered a copy of Without Shame for us to auction off for our Charities Foundation.

Connelly Akstens has spent most of their life living in the shadow of shame afraid that others would discover their gender confusion and face terrible consequences. The past two decades, with the help of their spouse Susanne, have been a process of coming out of hiding, becoming known, and leaving shame behind. Akstens has been blessed with many odd experiences, stunning misadventures, and the acquaintance of wonderfully quirky people. This process has led to the book, Without Shame.

Akstens has been honored to do education and outreach for SpeakOUT Boston and to lobby Congress with the National Center for Transgender Equity. Additionally, they have taught, published, and run programs on transgender awareness at colleges and universities. Akstens is a member of the Independent Book Publishers of America, a board member of the Independent Book Publishers of New England and a volunteer at The Players at the Barker Playhouse.