A well attended, entertaining meeting!
Jim King presided and introduced guests Jim (31 years in Rotary) and Judy Burns from Vernon Rotary, here for summer curling, and regular attending friends Cory and Debbie. Mike then took over and introduced his delightful daughter Megan, our guest speaker and her partner Jeff.
Megan recently received her MSc from UBC School of Kinesiology and spoke to us on spinal cord injury (SCI) in general, ICORD (International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries) more specifically and then PARK (Physical Activity Research Centre) where she is the Operations Coordinator. All of this is located at UBC which is one of two facilities in Canada, the other being in Toronto. Megan led us through SCI and the injuries that leave a person paralized to various degrees according to where in the spinal cord the injury occurs. She shared that there are some 86,000 Canadians living with SCI now with about 4,300 new cases each year and the cost of traumatic SCI runs at an estimated $3.6 billion per year. Those with injuries are likely to additionally suffer from obesity, cardio diseases, bone density losses, pain and depression.
It was evident from her enthusiatic, informative and entertaining presentation that Megan loves her profession from the perspectives of working with the folks with injuries and also all the associated research and innovations. Megan is also program coordinator at BC Wheelchair Sports Assoc.
Megan brought Jeff into the conversation as he is paraplegic ....paralyzed from the mid chest down. Very upbeat and independent and obviously coping well as he is ranked #2 in wheelchair tennis in Canada and #3 in ping pong....very active with a sports focus.
With Dad being the program coordinator, we are hoping that he has an 'in' to bring Megan back and speak to us again on SCI and her research...maybe even more Olympic full contact wheelchair rugby videos!
Sandi gave us a short update on LOTB - there are only 47 tickets remaining which is excellent. Next week's meeting will be devoted to planning the event.
Harold shard that he has 19 Camel Backpacks purchased for the Save the Rhino project and the money for the 20th, which was the goal. Well done! He is now looking for anyone going to South Africa who would be able to take a few with them to ensure they get to the proper destination. Let him know..
Mike needs to know numbers for the August 31st evening social at Kismet Winery so let him know directly or respond to the email he will send out. There will be no noon meeting that day.
Finally, special recognition to Tracy and Gordon celebrating birthdays today!
Think LOTB!