Soundings (8/23/05)

Guests: Fred Sexton (Bellingham) Jim McKellar (Whatcom North), Liz Balas (Sunrise), Phil Gubbins (Ohio), Lydia Stone, Dick Smith.

Announcements
1. Tournament for the Kids (Sept 22): Steve Brummel announced we still need hole sponsors;
2. Many "Pure Water" raffle tickets have not been paid for yet. Names will be announced at next meeting in case those people forgot.
3. Dick Stark needs 4 or 5 workers to help assemble the playground equipment we purchased for ? next Tuesday from 2-3pm;
4. Fellowship: Eddie counted 14 people interested in the crab feed idea for mid September, some Thursday afternoon. Need a host on Eliza (Jeff Kochman?).

Bucks in Bay
Brad Cornwall- some trip;
Orphalee - birthday and rooster
Stowe - wife received US citizenship;
Stew - Bham Festival of Music, too many house guests, concert at Bellwether;
Curtis - 18 year anniversary;
Art - 60th high school reunion, thanks to Orphalee and Stan for helping paint;
Bill Gorman - his Studebaker back on road, photo in the Herald;

SAA by Cy Lindberg
Fines for Bill Gorman, Judge Nichols' motorcycle, John Templeton, Ed Zech's corkscrew, Carol's phone, "age bomb"(?).

Program
Orphalee introduced Larry Stinson, an attorney from Chilliwack, BC who took part in a Rotary Rotaplast Program trip to China recently. Rotaplast is a volunteer medical project that has worked to restore the physical and emotional lives of impoverished children through free reconstructive surgery. The goal of Rotaplast International is to eliminate the incidence of untreated cleft lips and palates in children worldwide by the year 2025. Programs have been put on annually throughout the world since 1990. Larry's group went to Chengdu for a week, basically taking over a local hospital for the week. The US group consisted of:

5 surgeons;
5 anesthesiologists;
2 pediatricians; 2 orthodontists;
8 nurses;
1 speech therapist.

Larry himself was the "quartermaster" in charge of getting the supplies from San Francisco to Chengdu and then back again after the week was finished. During the actual one-week program in Chengdu, his job was to be the scrubber; sterilizing and packing the instruments and surgical equipment for each successive operation. On the first day at the hospital after equipment set-up, they selected the patients. Some needed multiple procedures, some were as old as 14 years who would need to relearn to talk after the operations. There were 5 operating "theaters" working 7am to the late evening, each one performing up to 7 procedures per day. In all, over 269 operations were done, and 151 children were worked on. The Chinese also provided assistant surgeons and a scrub nurse in each operating room,; it was a learning opportunity for them.

Costs: Such an endeavor in SE Asia is about $90,000, and in Latin America costs about $60,000.

Volunteering? You can find out about volunteering for the program through through District 5050 or www.rotaplast.org.

Causes of cleft lip and palate? Not known, but some genetic influence and some environmental (pollution) may increase the occurrence of it.

Respectfully submitted, Stowe