Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka
April 16, 2012
Rob McLaughlin led the flag salute and the invocation was led by Colonel Ron Pierre.
Visiting Rotarians
Paul McGinty, Larry Goldberg and Heidi Benzonelli: all from Eureka Southwest.
Guests of Rotarians
Chuck Edwards brought his wife Jennifer and President Greg Pierson his wife Sharon. Other guests were A.J. Gonzales, Bruce Smith and Julia Hartwell.
Birthdays
Cindy Cree (10th), Mike Cunningham (9th), Bruce Emad (2nd), Matt Messner (2nd), David Parris (21st), Jack Rieke (23rd). Christian Hill was fined for not sitting at the head table in spite of being born April 9th ($10).
Anniversaries
Jim and Claire Hoff (April 9th) even though they now live in Texas. Greg and Cathy Cloney-Gardiner (16th-today—so what are they doing at Rotary!)
Announcements
Sally Arnot mentioned that next week are the final Eureka Rotary Fireside Talks. If you have not been yet, please make effort to attend: Tuesday at Scott Guild’s home; Wednesday at Fred Sundquist; Thursday at Lowell Mafia’s, all at 7:00pm.
Jeff Leonard encouraged us to sign up to get better acquainted with our Rotary exchange students. They are happy to go to various local activities or out to dinner and it need not be fancy. Sign up with Jeff.
John Bradley encouraged our participation in Backpack Buddy Night, Sunday May 20 at Cher-Ae Heights Casino in Trinidad, 6:30-9:30pm. To reserve tickets call 269 4335 or tickets are also available with Old Town Coffee, SHN Consulting Engineers and Food for People. All proceeds benefit the Backpacks for Kids nutrition program. Click here for more information.
Colonel Ron Pierre is Ombudsman Director for Employer Support of Guard and Reserve in California. He reported that returning veterans face a 30% unemployment rate. If you have questions about hiring a vet please contact Ron at rjpservices@gmail.com or 707 845 7910.
New Member
Past President Carlton Nielsen introduced our newest member Julia Hartwell. Julia works in the health care industry and enjoys her son, Hunter who is 3 years old. Past President Tim Gallagher mentioned the high level of ethics encouraged by Rotary –especially the need to put service above self. He urged her active participation in Rotary including weekly attendance.
Recognitions
Kathy Cloney-Gardiner was recognized for the state achievement award at Washington School. That will be a tape measure worth $145.
Eric Bergel was recognized for his work at the flamingo exhibit at the zoo and also fined $145.
Finally, Dale Stockly was recognized for attending the Masters Golf Tournament a few days ago. Dale was given a tape to measure the distance from the ball to cup and paid –you guessed it--$145 for the tape.
Program
Tom Schallert director of Northern California Community Blood Bank was our speaker. Tom served as president of Americas Blood Center in 2010-11 and will be speaking in Belgium in April 26/27 about USA blood banking and the Nigeria Safe Blood projects. Tom was president of our club in 1996-97.
He spoke to us regarding his recent trips (2010/2011) to Nigeria. Nigeria is in Western Africa and has 150,000,000 people living within its borders. The median age is 19 years old, and the median life span is 47 years, so Tom and his doctor friends were honored as very senior guests. He had many stirring pictures, including one of a malaria-stricken girl in Calabar. Among other things, he mentioned their efforts to encourage malaria prevention by using bed nets. He titled their mission in the power point presentation: “Toward Improved Blood Safety in Nigeria.” It seems from the extensive amount of information he gathered and shared with the club that there is much to improve about blood safety in Nigeria. Tom, along with the two physicians who accompanied him, certainly did their part to improve blood safety. One of the labs looked good, but nothing worked; they did their best to fix what they could. As an example of the problems that they are up against, in Nigeria lizards get into equipment and chew on the wires.
Tom spoke at a very huge church with 200,000 persons every week (Redeemed Mission in Lagos-Ibadan), and they had never heard of the need to donate blood. Tom showed pictures of many donor rooms and pointed out their lack of sanitation. He did however commend them for developing rapid spreading disease testing: it works when they do the tests. They lack centrifuges and reliable power sources, and much of the blood has not actually been tested whether or not it claims to be. Tom pointed out that some blood donors give so frequently they lack any red blood cells. Such donors should be receiving transfusions, not giving blood--but they need the money.
The areas of Abuja and the north part of Nigeria are full of violence. “Nollywood” is a great concern to many Africans who fear that Nigerian television corrupts many of the youth (sound familiar?). Street and political violence are a problem in Nigeria and Tom’s machine gun carrying bodyguards were testament to the unrest in the country.
So, the transfusion challenges are legion and to add to them, the demand is three times greater than the supply of blood. Nevertheless, Tom’s chief objective was to train some trainers. All together he and his crew trained over 200 persons in the course of 3 weeks.
Rotary has taken an interest in support of this program. As an example, the refrigerator bought by our club was installed when Tom was there at Ibadan. In spite of the many challenges on many fronts, Tom noted that the infrastructure is actually improving in many cities of Nigeria. They seem to be making progress--so hope springs eternal.
Respectfully submitted,
Dan Price
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