Members in Attendance (8):  Roberto Martinez, Jim Leyhane, Debbie Brown, Pat Bailey, Peter Brown, Dick Drumm, Debbie Rodriguez and Ray Hannan.

By Zoom (1):  Charlie Foote.

Guests (1): Chris Bystroff, Ph.D., Professor at RPI.

President Brown called the meeting to order. 

Theme for the Year: “Building Community”

MEETING NOTES:

YMCA Caring Community Basket Brigade: Roberto Martinez spoke to Shannon Romanowski about the YMCA Thanksgiving baskets. They are fully covered for volunteers and funding this year.

Adopt a Family: Roberto Martinez will speak to Richard Zazycki, Executive Director of Circles of Mercy, about when the families will be assigned for the Cate’s Kids Adopt-a-Family Program this year. The Club will adopt a family. Donations are due by Friday, December 15th. Debbie Rodriguez will collect the donations and deliver them to Circles of Mercy.

Holiday Party and Silent Auction: The party will be held on December 14th at Moscatiellos. The cost is $30 per person. If you have not yet done so, please contact Roberto Martinez and let him know your intention to participate and the number in your party. Phil Kellerman is organizing a silent auction this year. He is seeking donations. Please call or email him at philkellerman77@gmail.com about your donation. Past donations have included gift baskets, bottles of wine and gift cards. If you have sponsored a new member, please make sure you invite them to the holiday party.

Holiday Schedule: There will be a Rotary meeting on December 21st. There will be no Rotary meetings on December 28th and January 4th. The first Rotary meeting of the new year will be held on January 11th. Speakers will be needed for next year.

Water for Kenya: During Peter and Debbie Brown’s recent trip to Maasai Mara Kenya, one of their guides told them about the St. John Fischer Nursing School Clinical Program that sends student nurses to Kenya for a week of clinicals. Peter spoke to Vivianne Cunningham, of St. John Fischer, and discussed the possibility of SRC Rotary helping with the program. Due to unrest in the region, the College will not be doing the clinicals. However, a well (bore hole) is needed. Women walk long distances to obtain water which creates both physical and economic issues. Previously drilled wells often fail over time due to lack of maintenance. Peter Brown is interested in looking into this project. There is a Rotary Club in the Rift Valley. Peter Brown spoke to the person in charge of water projects at Rotary International. There is a grant available to develop water projects. The Global Grant request must include provisions for training and maintenance, have an assigned owner of the water supply and at least 15% of the grant funds raised must come from outside the country. The Club will need members to work on the project, fundraise and determine further details.

Foundation Dinner: will be held on November 16th at the Edison Downtown in Schenectady.

Next Meeting: Thursday, November 16th, dinner at 6:00 pm at Moscatiello’s Italian Family Restaurant, Route 4, North Greenbush. Also, you can join the by Zoom using the link on the websites calendar page. Jeff Simon, Superintendent of the East Greenbush School District will provide an update on the Elephant in the Room project.

Entree choices are Chicken Rustica Salid, Chicken Florentine or Penne in Pesto Cream Sauce.

Growing populations utilize greater resources. Eventually resources are exhausted leading to starvation and death. Therefore, the need for birth control. According to Dr. Bystroff birth control has existed since the beginning of time. Early birth control included cultural taboos regarding sex and the use of various herbs which blocked ovulation or caused a miscarriage. Modern methods include barrier (condoms, diaphragms), hormonal (the pill, the patch) and long-term methods (IUDs and sterilization).

Per Dr. Bystroff, 55% of pregnancies are intentional. The other 45% are unintentional. Unwanted children perpetuate the cycle of poverty. In 2016, 41.3 million pregnancies were unwanted. Dr. Bystroff began researching contraceptive vaccines at his laboratory at RPI With funding from the Grantham Foundation. Why contraceptive vaccines? Vaccines are widely accepted worldwide, they last a long time, they are safe and cheap, and they are reversable.

Recently, his first research paper entitled “Bacterial production of recombinant contraceptive vaccine antigen from cat sper displayed on human papilloma virus-like particles” was published. One of the four virus studied worked very well in mice. It has taken five years to get to this point.

The global fertility rate is declining due to the decrease in the number of children per woman. Families are smaller and some women elect not to have children.