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We Can Never Get Enough
of Your Blood!

Call to Order

With a continuing concern for timeliness, President Mike called the meeting to order at 12:28PM.

Pledge

As the bell rang, we all rose to salute our flag, only to discover that our Pledge leader, Chris Rosell, was nowhere to be found! Graciously, Gary Bayless took on the responsibility and the Stars and Stripes were honored.

Our Rotary Moment was offered by Terry Galazzo with a celebration of the safe return of our POWs and a prayer for the MIAs and a speedy resolve to the conflict in Iraq.

Our three Visiting Rotarians were introduced with the elegance and eloquence that only Bob Marigo can evoke. Perhaps the word got out that Bob would be our greeter today, thereby significantly reducing the number of visitors! Paula Wrenn, our wonderful program chair introduced her guest from the Blood Bank of the Redwoods.

Other contributors of note included the Doug Dilley and Dave McDonald showing up this week to do set up, Pat Stoll collecting the cash, Scott selling losing tickets, Caroline capturing Kodak moments, and yours truly making hen scratches on a cocktail napkin to provide you with this meaningful document.

Announcements

Dave McDonald reminded those of us planning to participate in our Rebuilding Together project this Saturday, to meet at 7:00 AM at Finley Center. This is a wonderful project that again gives us the opportunity to give back to our community. Special thanks go to Dave, Terry Galazzo and Anne Abrams for all of their work in making this happen.

President Mike yet again reminded us of the upcoming District Conference May 1-4 in downtown Fortuna. Be there or be square!

Recognition

A 15-day tour of England and Germany for John Meislahn and his four-year-old son showed courage on both of their parts. And with all bonding experiences comes a learning. Neither could wait to see Mommy again! Hmmm. $75 kindly accepted.

Steve Wright and Paul Schwartz have both been mugging for the press lately and both said business was good. So good that Paul bought a BMW SUV and is celebrating his 18th wedding anniversary. Steve, on the other hand is probably changing 18 diapers a day! $20 each – 18 seems more fitting.

For the umpteenth time, Joe Perez was called on. After reminding President Mike of his previous generosity, he admitted having played golf with the infamous “Sparky” and fessed up to a 50th birthday. While only fined $5, he showed his magnanimity by donating $50 to Paul Harris.

After some incomprehensible banter between Ken Kushnir and Paul Schwartz about commissions, fees and the like, Ken challenged Paul to match a Paul Harris donation. Prudent Paul wanted to verify his current PH status, but, alas, PH guru Harry Rubins had forgotten his list !! ($5 for Harry). Eventually Paul and Ken each ponied up $100 for the Paul Harris and Harry had a Cheshire-cat smile.

Next on the hit list was Marv Hyman who had sense enough to offer up $100 just “to not tell you (Mike) whatever it is you want to know!” Good move, Marv!

Inspired by this, Pete LaMonica shared a little about his recent 10-day trip to Tahiti and donated another $100 hoping Mike would “shut up.” Do we have a theme developing here?

Raffle

Having extracted as much money as possible from this meeting, President Mike moved on to the raffle. As mentioned before, Scott Bartley was selling tickets for today’s event. And guess who had the winning ticket to draw for the $400 pot? You guessed it – Scott, but the elusive black marble was not to be found!

Moving on to the luscious red wine...and the winner is...Scott! (NB, he declined the wine saying his cellar was quite well stocked, thank you.) Hello! Perhaps this is a motivation for us to sign up to sell tickets.

Program

Today’s program was a very informative presentation by Blake Dunbar about one of our very worthwhile community programs, the Blood Bank of the Redwoods. Blake has been with the organization for about 4 years and offered some history and data that gave us all a better understanding of the work they do.

• Founded in 1948, it has been serving the community for 53 years
• Currently 32,000 units of blood are donated annually
• 80% of donations are done off site via the mobile van
• A mobile van will come to a location for as few as 15 donors and as many as 150, simply contact them for scheduling
• To donate you must be 17+ years old, weigh 110+ pounds and be in good health
• You may not donate if you have traveled to a malaria-known area, lived in the UK between 1980-96, have had cancer or AIDS, or are anemic on the date of donation
• Blood may be donated as often as once a week, platelets every 24 hours
• There are 8 different blood types – A + & -, B+ & -, O+ & -, and AB + & -. O+ is the most common and O- is the universal blood type
• After donating, samples are sent to the Sacramento facility for testing and is usually available within 36 hours
• Blood is good for up to 42 days
• To meet the changing demands, blood is traded with other facilities including Stanford Medical and the Sacramento facility
• Blood is shipped by FedEx and packers require extensive training to properly pack the blood
• FDA requirements have considerably increased the number of questions asked prior to donation and efforts are being made to stream-line this process

President Mike adjourned the meeting at 1:20 and the room was quickly vacated to avoid the on-coming rain.

Respectfully, albeit somewhat irreverently submitted...

Your Bulletin Reporter: Tarina Hall		Your Editor: Jim Valinoti

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Changes or comments?

Contact Jim Valinoti at valinoti@sonic.net or (707) 829-2300.

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