President Del opened the meeting by paying tribute to members of our club who do volunteer work or serve on boards of area non-profit organizations. He asked members to stand as he indentified various types of organizations. By the end of the exercise, nearly every member was standing – a statement of the degree to which our RCOB membership values volunteerism and the organizations they support.
Announcements:
An announcement regarding RYLA was made by Katherine Deets. RYLA is a Rotary leadership program for youth ages 18 – 30, and this year’s RYLA will be held May 25 -28 in British Columbia. There is online registration available – contact Mauri Ingram or Kathryn Deets for more information.
March 9, 2017 Board Briefs
Las Vegas Night was a success and we made $13,436.50 and plans are already made to hold it again next year. The committee is working on selecting a date. We also have a total of $11,864.71 from the past Wacky Wicket proceeds for a total of $25,301.21 available for student exchange, video expenses and costs for next year. The Board is considering transferring some of the proceeds to the RCOB Foundation – Undesignated account for future Service Fund Grants.
District Assembly meeting 4/1/17 will be held in Canada. Del would like current and future board members to attend. The club must pay for 5 members whether they attend or not.
Rotary International has adopted new Constitution changes and the club is required to adopt them and make changes to our RCOB Constitution. The Board approved the adoption and also wants to redo our 2011 Vision and Strategic initiative. Followed by By-Law changes if needed. The Board would like to do this around October, 2017. The cost will be about $1,000 and would take about 4 weeks to organize.
New Business:
Membership – Letters of Resignations were received and accepted with regret from Sallye Quinn and Patricia McKeown. Sallye has taken on a Board of Director position that will take up most of her time for 1 year. She has promised she will return after that. Patty has recently retired, traveling and has many transitions in life. We are hoping she will also return to us.
Past President, Larry Halgren attended the Board meeting to make a suggestion that he was encouraged to look into further.
BOARD REPORTS:
Arlie Norman:
International Service
Paul Grey reports that the host district in Uganda and our District 5050 have approved our project grant request. We are now waiting final approval from TRF.
International Foundation
Lisa Saar apologizes for not having done much recently but will be calling her committee together for a meeting at an upcoming Club meeting.
New Generation/Youth
Mauri is getting last survey info in and her committee will be meeting soon to go over the results. She will be reporting RYLA upcoming dates soon.
Student Exchange
Monty reports that things are moving ahead well in planning for next year's student exchange.
Scholarships/Awards
Cathy Buckley reports that Scott Grey will be presenting students being honored for excellence in music. Theater honorees will be presented March 27.
Chuck Snyder: Honorary Membership criteria
Chuck and Dominique presented a suggestion found on the Internet regarding Honorary Membership criteria. The Board discussed the outline, made a few suggestions and they will re-write and present at the April 13th Board meeting.
President Del reported that we have members suffering health problems; Andy Day and Irwin LeCocq. Andy injured his back skiing and Irwin is recovering at the Mt Baker Care Center from a recent hospitalization. Del opined that Irwin would likely enjoy visitors.
President Del reminded us that we have been sent a District 5050 survey and asked that we respond to the survey as soon as possible.
Mike Meggyesy informed us that he has a large office copier that he has been trying to sell on Craigs list on behalf of the club. So far it has not sold. He would be delighted if there is a buyer among our membership, since he would like to get the copier off his porch.
Katherine Riordan announced that there will be a club happy hour next Tuesday, location to be announced. Previous happy hours have been successful and a lot of fun so we are all encouraged to participate.
Guests of Rotarians:
John Inglis introduced his wife Donna, Mother-In-Law Marnell Farley,Marie Baton and Micki Jackson
Lisa Saar brought Timothy Sheehan
Dominique Zervas introduced Izaac Burrous with Corion Landscape, Ian Johnson, Jennifer Moehl, Sally Baird and Cathy Beecham
Paula McCandlis brought Eric Richey, Chief Deputy Criminal Division Whatcom Prosecutor’s Office and Laura Plaut, Executive Director of Common Threads
Scott Hume introduced Brittany Burton and Maria Rorbacher with the Dance Studio
Lynda Hinton broughtKyle Gebhardt with Strider Construction
Presentations:
Bob Diehl presented a Rotary Minute, a brief recounting of some clubs activities and antics in the “old” days. Bob, being a 4th generation member of our club, a member for over 40 years and a past-president had many amusing recollections. He recalled the great club meetings and Christmas parties at the Leopold Hotel and the 3-course meals they had at meetings, served along with ample spirits. On one occasion, apparently when he was club president and at a slightly wild party, a favorite club waitperson tossed a chocolate pie in his face. He mentioned that a big money maker in those days was the club circus. As is the case now, a favorite club event was the annual cruise. He was reminded from the audience, by Jack Mulhern, that on one cruise going into LaConner one member fell overboard. Members in those days had their share of fun.
Program:
Program Chair, Sandy MeIntire introduced our speaker, Dr. Marie Eaton, Director of the Palliative Care Institute at Western Washington University, who spoke on ‘Palliative Care and Advanced Care Planning.”
Dr. Eaton set the stage for her presentation with the sobering reminder, “It Always Seems Too Early Until It’s Too Late, ” and then proceeded to describe where the Palliative Care Institute fits into the area palliative care network, what is meant by palliative care and what she is doing in the field
The Palliative Care Institute is part of a community of care under the umbrella of the Northwest Life Passages Coalition, which consists of eleven area organizations including Peace Health St. Joseph Medical Center. Their goal is to provide palliative care, care to people who have chronic and serious illnesses and for whom a cure is not possible. This care is normally provided by an interdisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains and family members who work together to provide the needed support. The support includes aspects of medical, clinical, psychological, practical, social and spiritual attention. Such support can be necessary at any age, at any stage in a serious illness and importantly, only about 20% of palliative care is clinical. She further discussed issues of keeping terminally ill patients alive beyond what might make sense, and when intervention can be a “medical mistake.”
Dr. Eaton discussed the realities of the trajectory of dying, and the fact that only about 10% die without a significant period of suffering. She explained that palliative care refers to a system of symptom management of a life-limiting illness, whereas hospice care deals with symptom management and comfort specifically at the end of life. Recently, there has been a conceptual shift in the palliative care approach, in that palliative care is introduced earlier in the path to death process and as time goes on, it becomes more important. This allows a more natural transition to the hospice care at the end of life.
The last part of Dr. Eaton’s presentation was devoted to those things one should do when you cannot speak for yourself. Although over 80% of Americans believe it is important to talk about end-of-life treatment, only 30% have actually had that conversation with their families and even fewer have conferred with their doctors. She described the differences among a living will, an advanced care directive and a POLST (physician orders for life-sustaining treatment) and emphasized that for most, a living will is not adequate. She advocated that we should have an advanced care directive, review it periodically and go over it with family and your doctor. Upon being diagnosed with an advanced disease or frailty, she advises completing a POLST and making its contents known to all who could be concerned. The benefits to you and family are: reassurance that survivors will be carrying out your wish, that there will be less bereavement trauma to family and friends and that there might even be a potential cost savings to families and communities.
Dr. Eaton concluded by summarizing the key steps in advanced care planning: reflect, learn, decide, talk, record and file and revisit. She expanded on what each of these steps entails, especially emphasizing the importance of “talk,” of bringing all family members into your planning conversation. She pointed our that those interested can benefit from workshops such as the “Your Voice – Your Choice: Lets Talk About It” program given on March 22, at 6:00 pm at the St. Lukes Health Center. More about palliative care and Dr. Eatons program can be found https://pci.wwu.edu.
Speaker links to include
The PCI website is https://pci.wwu.edu There are a number of links there and some information about other programs.
Debbie Ahl recommended this website: https://mydirectives.com/ This personal advance care plan is free to the individual consumer; allows you to identify three healthcare agents; actually checks with those three identified individuals to see if they are willing to serve in that capacity, and can be accessed 24/7 via the internet. As Marie Eaton said today, the directive doesn’t do much when it’s sitting at home in your safe.
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