WEEKLY REMINDER 9-1-11
Service Above Self
The Amherst Reminder
Volume 86 Issue 1 September 1, 2011
President Irv opened the meeting and Arthur Quinton led us in singing God Bless America.
Invocation: Arthur Quinton (with the assistance of President Irv who gave the last line for emphasis) recited a section of the poem “If” from memory.
Visiting Rotarians and Guests: Ellen Cary reported no visiting Rotarians. Andrew Bullak introduced his oldest son, Theo and his father George as his guests. Ron Archer introduced Sue Clark and Kathy Rice presented Robin Brown who will be inducted next week.
Rotary Minute: President Irv asked us to reach out to Chad O’Rouke whose home and property on the Connecticut River was flooded during Tropical Storm Irene.
We will, once again be having a Rotary Foundation drive led by President Irv and President Elect Georgia Moore.
Announcements and Reports: Sandy Perron reported for the COVAC ride that there was still a position open for someone to work at the rest area in Vernon, Vermont. She told us that the recent flooding has caused a road closure that may affect both the route and the location of the rest stop in the Deerfield area. The people working at the rest stops will be contacted next week. There are currently 40 riders signed up for the ride. President Irv announced that the pick-up location for rest stop supplies will be the Amherst Regional Middle School at a time to be announced.
Ed severance announced the all the auction forms were on the back table and that information on the ACTV auction is on our tables.
Carlton Brose asked for assistance from those members who have many years in our club in putting together a pamphlet of the history of the club for our anniversary.
Good News: John Barbaro is back from vacation and has power back. President Irv announced his wife, Penny, completed a 20 mile cancer benefit walk in Montreal but was delayed in returning to Amherst by the tropical storm. Bill Gillan announced his vegetables are coming in very well but, as the result, his stand has been vandalized twice. After having the lock broken the first time, he installed a heavy duty lock. The creative vandals broke the hasps on the door the second time.
Sargent-At-Arms Ziomek made his rounds and collected money from each table as no one could answer his questions. He warned us that fines may be going up as a result of his recent visit to another club where the person introducing him paid dearly for announcing he was from the Amherst, NH club and that we should make ourselves familiar with the article “Charity Without Boarders” (p. 31) in this month’s Rotary Magazine as that will be the subject of next week’s quiz. The Sargent was questioned on the accuracy of the answers to one of his questions (What tennis player has won the US Open the most times?) and promised he would pay a fine if his answer was wrong (Jimmy Connors). He also asked Bill Gillan what he had lost. Bill didn’t know.
Dick Kraus introduced our speaker, Professor Neil Forbes, an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts who is studying why standard cancer treatments fail in patients with breast cancer through his alliance with Bay State Medical Systems. He spoke about the failure of chemotherapy in getting to parts of solid tumors due to the lack of blood vessels and his work with genetically engineered bacteria as transport agents for a toxic (to the cancer cells) protein which kills the cancer cells.
Raffle: The raffle was won by Sargeant-At-Arms Stan Ziomek.
Reminder written by Ellen McKay.