April 5, 2016 Newsletter

Opening Ceremonies: President Ashley called the meeting to order. The invocation was given by Rotarian Laurie Fogelman and we said the Pledge of Allegiance with great pride. The greeter was Rotarian Dave Wheaton.

Visiting Rotarians: We had no visiting Rotarians

Club Anniversaries: Larry Johnston – April 1, 1989, Jo Cooper – April 8, 2014

Birthdays:  Michelle Beal is celebrating her birthday on April 8th

Wedding Anniversaries: We had no wedding anniversaries

Guests: Dr. John Graham, his wife Julie and daughter Lucy were our guests

Door Prizes: PE Carl Lusby won a Jackson Lab calendar and Scott Kimball won a bottle of Green Apple wine made by Tony Buchard

50/50: Terri Stephens Smith won the50/50 $13.00 but she could not find the duck (who is now MIA).

Happy Dollars: (Donation of 4th quarter will be determined by winning Auction Team) Terri was happy to be going to visit grand children, Laurie Folgeman is happy her granddaughter turned 3, Chris Coleman is happy for his son’s new job, Nancy Mayo is happy for our new members, Iris Simon is happy to be going to Las Vegas. Irv is happy about his new acting part, Rod Fox is happy for Laurie's return to our club, Jack Frost is happy that UMM is honoring him, Charlene is not happy about Syracuse loss to Villanova in the college basketball finals and Tony Bouchard is happy to once again be going to Calif.

Queen of Hearts: PE Carl won the draw for the Queen but lost on his card selection and did not win the $30.

Rotary Business: The club voted to move regular meetings to Betty's Hilltop Restaurant with a vote of 85% in favor. Indian Point clean up will be on Saturday, May 7th. Rotary Charity Auction posters for the Friday, May 13th event to be held at Big Cats were passed out. Members were reminded about the District 7790 Conference to be held at Sugarloaf on May 20-22. Also a reminder that we will be honoring Paul Harris Fellows on Tuesday June 14th at Big Cats.

Program: Our guest speaker was Dr. John Graham from the Jackson Lab in Bar Harbor. He introduced and explained the CRISPR (Cluster Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) project that is changing the future of medicine and how diseases such as AIDS, Sickle Cell, Hemophilia, Cancer Melanoma, Lung Cancer and other diseases can be altered by changing a DNA chain. This is accomplished by removing a portion of the DNA chain and splicing in a modified link that will counter the disease. CRISPR allows for modifications of any of the over 3 billion gnomes in our body and at in as little as four months or one third of time in the LAB. He also pointed out how this therapy cured President Jimmy Carter of cancer last year. CRISPER is being used in many forms and is the future of medical therapy.