Rotary Club of Sackville Bulletin July 21, 2016

Posted by Wayne Harper on Jul 24, 2016

Charlie was in the Chair today, beginning the meeting with a moment of silence for Pauline Spatz, a very good supporter of many causes in Sackville. She was a very proud recipient of a Paul Harris Fellowship in 2012.

Charlie's "story-of-the-week" relates to the "twins" (his grandsons). Living in Kittery Maine, they do not see many "people-of-color". In fact they mostly see them on TV and it is usually President Obama they see. Hence they categorize all "black" people as Obama. Recently they were in an elevator when a black man entered. They pointed to him and exclaimed "Obama". The man said he was not Obama and bent down so he could talk. The man went on to talk about how he hoped all men of all races could get along. According to Charlie, the boys are likely to remember this for a very long time.

There were no visiting Rotarians this week, but Mariah Inglis accompanied her mom, Louise to the meeting. There are no birthdays in the coming week, no Pin Pal stories from the past week and make-ups were earned for the Gold Mine Draw committee at the weekly draw.

The 50-50 draw this week was worth $57. Sue P. had her ticket drawn, but she failed to cut for the 9 of

, instead picking the Queen of

The Happiness that has prevailed the last few weeks continued today. Bill started this trend as he was glad the Town's first refugee family had finally arrived.............Wynn surprised several of us as he wasn't supposed to be here today. He returned to look after business following Pauline's death. He will return to the Links at Glen Abbey tonight for his volunteering duties..........Louise was happy that she and the family are back from Vancouver, where she met a gal whom she has been friends with for the past 30 years.........George was sad that Pauline had passed away as he recalled her being part of his Yoga sessions each week..........Dianne was sad and happy. She will miss Pauline's smile but was happy she was leaving for Golf in "Schube" later today. She will also be attending Carline McIsaac's wedding this weekend. Carline was a Rotary Exchange (outbound) student a few years back. Leslie Van Patter will also be coming back for the wedding..............Pam was happy that she will be flying to Toronto later today to take grandson Mitchell to a Blue Jays game..............Susan P. had a PSA regarding the breakfast at Cape Jourimain this Saturday from 8 to 11 am.............Gayle is happy that her twin grandson are here for a visit. She would like to see a "twin-off" between her grandsons an Charlie's.

Duty Roster Next Week

Chairperson Dale Greeter Bill

Introducer George Thanker Louise

Speaker - Bonnie Russell and Adam Niles (student exchanges)

There were no Committee reports this week and President Josh did not have anything for this week.

Gayle had the pleasure to introduce our speaker this week - Dr. David Fleming, a professor of Physics at Mount Allison University.

David's presentation today centered on finding Arsenic in strange places. He began by recapping his previous presentation 3 years ago:

• Arsenic is well known as an acute poison,

• Health effects from chronic exposure through drinking water are significant and widespread,

• Associated with skin cancer and other skin effects, elevated rates of bladder, kidney, and lung cancer.

• They used XRF to search for trace elements in samples.

• Elements of interest (other than arsenic) have included lead, selenium, zinc, strontium, and iron.

A Consumer's Report of November 2012 had a lead story on finding Arsenic in food. This lead to a new project to see if it was true or not. They purchased 14 different types of rice and rice products from a local grocery store: two varieties of brown rice; an instant brown rice; two varieties of white rice; a rice mix blend; seven grain blend; microwave rice; rice cereal; brown rice cereal; rice cracker; brown rice cracker; brown rice flour; and rice snack bar. All samples were measured first by XRF using a portable desktop system at Mount Allison. Samples were analyzed for signals from arsenic, manganese, iron, nickel, copper, and zinc. These same samples were then sent to the Health and Environments Research Centre at Dalhousie University for ICP-MS chemical analysis. The results from XRF were compared with results from ICP-MS for the different elements. Their conclusions were statistically significant correlations between XRF results and ICP-MS results were obtained from arsenic, zinc, iron, manganese, and copper. The highest concentration of arsenic observed was still fairly low, at about 0.3 parts per million. The highest levels were observed in brown rice and brown rice products. Further, lab-based desktop XRF is capable of providing measurements of elemental concentrations in a variety of samples. Currently they are expanding to look at methods to track zinc, arsenic, and selenium in fingernails/toenails.

David was thanked by Joyce. She presented him with a pen and certificate. A book will be donated to a local library in his name.