The Christmas party marks the end of another great year with Rotary.  We sure have had fun and learned a lot about the world too.  This Saturday will be the last day for the Rotary Barn this year.  Most importantly we’ve made friendships and made a vibrant and caring  Rotary Community together.

Welcome Peter Lynch to the Boothbay Harbor Rotary Club family.  We are lucky to include you.  Can hardly wait to see your Yankee Swap gift.

Our club has a long tradition of delivering wreaths to widows and now widowers of Rotarians.  Chip Griffin and Robin Reed have led this wonderful tradition.  But this year, Marty Helman accompanied the 2 “wise men” to deliver Christmas wreaths to Rotary widows which Marty believes a breaking of a glass ceiling to have a “wise” woman help deliver the wreaths. Yeah Marty! How wise!

Last Thursday Patty Seybold introduced the new Nurse Practitioner, Melody Rees from the Boothbay Region Health Center. Melody provided a passion-felt detailed description of how she came to the center and her current call to both practice as an NP but also to be the practice manager!

Melody first visited the Boothbay Region in 2016 and then vacationed here until receiving a text to invite her to apply for an open Nurse Practitioner  job at the center. With many changes in staff over the past couple years the center now will have 2 MD’s, Melody, and hire one more nurse practitioner to be at full staff. They follow about 3600 patients. Melody has a special interest in women’s health issues as well as general primary care patients. The goals of the center are primarily access and affordability for care. They can assist with rides to appointments if scheduled ahead of time. They can see paying for care patients at lower cost than the insurance pricing. They do holistic visits trying not to limit patient time to allow for complete assessments and understanding of each patient’s story. They offer some added assistance in pharmacy prescription samples when available. Generally, patients are seen 8 times a year. They do offer walk-in visits also. They are working to add some diagnostic equipment to prevent patients from having to go off peninsula for tests.

Overall, they aim to offer quality chronic care, early diagnosis and regular follow up. Melody is excited to be part of our community and join with all in engaging in improved health care in our community!

We plan to see you this Thursday, all dressed up in your “Ugliest” finest.  It will be a evening full of laughs and Christmas Spirit.  I think the Rotations might make a surprise (not so much now) visit.  Then we are off for the next two weeks,  returning the first Thursday of January 2023.