Charlotte Shelburne Rotary Club
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Trinity Episcopal Church Community Room
 
President Richard Fox led the pledge and Kris Engstrom gave the devotional.
 
Richard introduced the visitors
 
Kevin O’hara from the Barre Rotary Club
 
Upcoming events:
March 11  Club Assembly
March 12  Board Meeting
March 13 Williston Ski Challenge
March 18 David Carlson
March 25 Mike Smiles Lake Champlain Maritime Museum
 
Announcements:
Two Events are in the works
1.Sugar on Snow at Palmers Sugar House - Date coming
2.Food Drive - End of Month
3.Dave Rice – Administration –Looking for meeting minutes takers
4.Sam Feitelberg – The planned dedication for the Veteran’s Memorial is July 19th
5.March 25 10-4 – Evan Webster having a workshop at his business – “Process of Screen Printing” – limited space please talk to Evan if interested.
6.Linda Gilbert – Very successful 4 week “Hands to Honduras Tela”
a.Neonatal Intensive Care Unit near completion
 
Sergeant at Arms
Evan Webster offer up ‘another year of democracy’ following yesterday’s town meeting day.
 
Collected $69 in Happy Fines
 
Lucky draw – The 6 of Spades was drawn and the $148 pot rolls over to next week
 
Guest speaker:
Lara Keenan introduced our guest speaker Rik Carlson.
 
Rik has a B.A. in English Literature  from the University of Hartford, He owned and operated Emerald City Bedrooms on Shelburne Road in Burlington Vermont for 23 years. He became ill with a debilitating disease in January of 1995. His condition was not understood by the medical community, often mis-diagnosed, not taught in medical schools, and totally misunderstood by society as a whole.
The talk followed how Rik fought back:
He founded a 501c-3 in 1998 , Immunedysfunction.org, created a web presence http://www.immunedysfunction.org/, wrote a book We’re Not in Kansas Anymore , produced dozens of audio and video materials, directed the 60 minute documentary film “Invisible”, testified in Washington DC for Health and Human Service, 2007; awarded 3 medical scholarships to the University of Vermont College of Medicine, and is currently promoting the “Adopt a School Nurse” campaign.
 
Rik distributed copies of his book, articles from the New York Times “A Disease Doctors Refuse to See”.
 
Rik’s talk was an eye opener.