Charlotte-Shelburne Rotary - Newsletter

A fine example of the impact a local Rotary project can have: a Rotarian in Philadelphia began collecting coats for cold children in the city, and the project has grown to the point that it has distributed 500,000 coats in 26 states.

Helping Families of Guard Members

The families of members of the Vermont Guard who are deployed overseas occasionally have problems with finances, home repairs, car troubles, and members of Charlotte Shelburne Rotary have been researching the best way to assist these neighbors. There was a discussion of adopting Guard families in our towns, but this ran into privacy concerns. Instead the recommendation was that we make a donation to Support the Vermont Guard, an organization that provides support for families of Guard members who need help. The board recommended a donation of $1,000. Moved, seconded and approved.

Close to the Double Match Goal

Steve Dates reported that we have 16 donations of the 20 we had hoped for in the Polio Plus Double Match campaign. There are three weeks left for club members to make donations of up to $50 which are matched by the club and earn points with Rotary Foundation. Call Steve or Elaine if you would like to participate.

Bon Voyage H2H Team

Our Hands to Honduras team is heading south. Some have already left and more were leaving Wednesday afternoon. A total of 44 volunteers are going to spend two weeks or more working on much needed projects in Tela and surrounding towns. The club has donated $5,000 to H2H which operates under the umbrella of our CSR Foundation.

Skiers Needed

Remember the Rotary Ski Challenge on March 5 at Bolton. Trafton Crandall is the captain so contact him if you’d like to participate.

Plan Ahead – District Conference Coming

The District Conference will be held at the Davis Center at UVM in June. It will be a two-day event with a service project, speech competition and many interesting workshops and speeches.

Best Wishes

Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Chuck Dunham who has just had his third back surgery. And many thanks to the organizers of the Youth Program last week.

Sergeant at Arms

Don Condon deferred to Ric Flood for joke duty.

Happy fines:

Rosalyn Graham – a whole string of happy thoughts – she’s leaving for Vail, Colorado Thursday for a family ski vacation – while she’s gone Sharon Beal and Judy Christensen will take over the meeting report duties – best wishes to the wonderful Hands to Honduras team for their great international work – and hooray that the Olympics are back in the country where winter is just as confusing as it is here this year
Pat Sokolowski – just happy
Tom Glaser – heading to Florida tomorrow
Bill Deming – happy
Russ Blodgett – happy – and busy
Terry Kennaugh – has two intern secretaries checking everyone in – Judy Christensen and Linda Barker
Judy Christensen – happy to be an intern
Jim Spadaccini – reminder that he did the club news for 22 years – and has the ring binders full of back copies to prove it
Steve Dates – Elaine’s favorite holiday is coming up – Valentines
Blaine Acker – happy to be with such nice folks
Bob Maynes – spent the weekend in Maine with his one-year-old grandson
Tod Whitaker – SBPA membership campaign is going well – and remember the Farmers Market on Saturday
John Hancock – celebrating their 61^st anniversary

Lucky draw: Russ Blodgett’s ticket was drawn but he chose the wrong card and missed the $190 pot.

Dr. Michael Horgan

An Introductory Course in Neurosurgery

Dr. Horgan is a surgeon at Fletcher Allen Health Center who specializes in brain and spinal surgery. He said that the techniques being used today didn’t exist ten years ago, and he described the non-invasive brain and spinal procedures he uses to repair vascular and veinous malformations, tumors, aneurysms and spinal problems.

He illustrated his talk with photographs of brains examined in the neurosurgery dissection lab, and MRIs and CT Scans, showing aneurysms and tumors and explaining the surgery involved.

He said that aneurysms occur typically in 2% of the population, usually between the ages of 40 and 60. When an aneurysm ruptures, 50% of cases are fatal, and of the remaining 50% half result in some damage to the brain and half recover.

His audience was amazed to watch a video of the location and repair of an aneurysm using tiny clips to prevent further ballooning of the weakened tissue.

He also described the surgery for removal of brain tumors, either intrinsic or extrinsic, and the techniques for pituitary surgery.

An amazing example of the move to minimally invasive surgery is spinal surgery which can now be done with small incisions that give access for miniaturized surgical tools and tiny optical devices.