BSLC Meeting for May 17,2009

THE BARBARA SMITH LARYNGECTOMEE CLUB


Please note; Member of the American Cancer Society and the IAL.
Meeting schedule for 2009: 3rd Sunday of odd numbered months, i.e. Mar, May, July, Sept, Nov

Meeting Date: Sunday May 17, 2009 at 2:00PM

Location: St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 147 West Main Street, New Britain
Parking at rear of the church and please use the rear entrance. We have been given the Library Room that has a kitchen
The meeting room is on the ground level, which is handicapped, accessible. **Family and friends always welcome to attend.





Saint Mark’s Church at 147 West Main Street, New Britain





We do need help from volunteers for hospital visitations and to also help with the very important anti-smoking
School lectures as well as the school of nursing, post operative laryngectomee care, lectures. Please consider in providing a helping hand with these important activities provided by our group.




We have set up a new website which will be more accessible in commuting with the officers of the our group. http://BSLC2.blogspot.com

Unfortunately, with our last mailing of the BSLC notice it was too late to include the changes to our New Website, by the webmaster.

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Due to the changes to the income tax laws regarding the deductions for donations the ACS who provides our mailing cost for our club asked us to find a way to eliminate the number of mailings through our website. It is important that if you do not have the use a computer that you may have a friend OR A RELATIVE who will print out our semi-monthly notice for you in order to eliminate the mailing cost to the ACS. Needless to say this will be the last complete mailing from our current club list and the next mailing will only include those who have no computer availability. Please cooperate with our plea to reduce the mailing cost provided for us by the ACS.

There has been a lot of concern over the second hand smoke issue at the gambling casinos with a ban going into effect by the government election committee with a 8-3 affirmative vote.

Attorney General Blumenthal stated this is to protect the employees from the exposure of the second hand smoke. The Indians on the other hand argue that they are a sovereign nation; but Attorney General Blumenthal insists that they had executed an agreement with the State to abide by the state health codes laws.

The Canada Free Press had an interesting article entitled “Is Cigarette Control Turning citizens in Criminals?” In this article they point out cigarettes in New York City cost nearly $10.00 per pack with the federal ATF finding counterfeit New York State/ City tax stamps?

You May all recall Justin’s anti-smoking efforts by parents with small children in their vehicles. In the 2009 session of the State Legislature H.B. No. 6318 which is being supported by 29 Senators and Representatives. I have contacted New Britain’s local representative, Rep. Tim O’Brian, and assured me that he would sign on to this bill as a co-sponsor.

Mentioning the cigarette taxes with the federal tax being jacked up from .62cents to $1.01 and with our state of Conn. adding their tax $2.00 on every pack one can only hope that this will reduce the population of smokers thus reducing the new Layngectomees.

The Day Newspaper in New London, Ct. said it well with their headline “If smoking won’t kill you, the taxes will.”

Marlou Karieva advised me that Fox channel 6l had done an article on Aug. 20th., 2007 about our school anti-smoking lectures that had appeared in the Hartford Courant entitle “A grim voice warns: Don’t smoke.

I received a communication reminding me to inform all our members from Carl Strand to alert your 911 dispatcher that you are a laryngectomee and that you may not able to speak in the event of an emergency. Needless to say that is a good reminder to always remind our new members to do just that.

Good news The Aetna and Cigna have banded smoking completely within their workplace with the Hartford Hospital, Saint Francis and the Medical center. They are planning to ban smoking on hospital owned properties as of Nov. 19th coinciding with the ACS annual Great American Smokeout.

Unfortunately, we have had one notification regarding local laryngectomee operation at the Connecticut Health Center however, there were nationally 128 new laryngectomees have joined our way of life.

On April 9th.I attended Health Day at the E. C. Goodwin State Trade School representing our group with pamphlets, literature, and answering whatever questions the students had. The Principal, Mr. Anderson, was very appreciative for our doing this for his school and he did note that the students were very inquisitive and were also taken aback with all the cancer photos I had for them to look at. He indicated that they will be talking about it for days.

Lou Tromboni and I did our annual nurses lecture at the Hartford Community College Monday April 27th., and we were well received by all the students, some 300, with our presentation. They had numerous questions for us and were very tentative throughout the presentation. Using a memory stick presenting what the cancers look like on there main screen along with our programmed Microsoft Power Point segments.


The swine flu has been hitting some our states, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts has indicated cases have been cited. Governor Rell was quoted in the Waterbury Republican American stated that the Federal Centers for Disease are providing 134,000 doses of the antiviral medications in response to the swine flu outbreak. The CDC will add the more than 11,000 antiviral treatments that Connecticut already has on hand. The governor added since there is no vaccine for swine flu yet, the anti viral medications can cut done on the severity of the systems. I strongly suggest that you as Laryngectomees keep in constant contact with your medical personnel to get whatever medical help available and to be alerted when shots are available in order to prevent getting this awful disease.

At our last meeting it was discussed but not finalized whether or not we will be holding a BSLC Meeting in July.

I will apprise you of the result of that discussion on our new Website subsequent to the May meeting. Another matter that came up was election of officers so I have printed enough copies of the by-laws so they may be reviewed and acted upon.

We are going to have a guest speaker Ms. Alice Nadeau. She comes to us through the ACS. She heads up a group in Manchester, Ct. called The Oral Head and Neck Cancer support group and has accepted to be our guest speaker at our May 17th. meeting.



I have mentioned on many occasions that we do need help with hospital visits, school anti-smoking lectures and Health Days presentations at all our area schools.


Anyone willing to provide the time please contact me.






BSLC Meeting Agenda:

1 The Treasurer’s financial report.

. Acceptance of the financial report.


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2 Nominations committee:

A. To present its recommendations.

B. Acceptance of the recommendations by the nominations committee and a vote by the membership shall take place at the following membership meeting.

4 Items to be added to the agenda may be added by any member.

5. Guest Speakers will be allowed to make their presentations prior to the business portion of our meeting.

Should any member of this club become aware of a new laryngectomee please contact any one of the club’s officers after obtaining the patient’s permission so we can supply the “headlines article” that will guide the patient and his or her family members on how to obtain necessary supplies.



I hope we will see you all at the May 17, 2009 meeting.



Frank Smith

President: Frank Smith VP. & Webmaster Thomas Mucha
40 Chestnut St., A308, New Britain, CT 06051 31 Mattabassett Street, East Berlin, CT 06023
860-224-0218 phone 860-828-3198 Phone
Email: S-NB@comcast.net Email tom@ctcomp.com

Secretary & Treasurer Al Valeri
Email alinda7@comcast.net
Speech-language Pathologist – Andrew Lee
18 Black Brick Road, Plainville, CT 06062 231 Snow Owl Drive, Southington, CT 06489

860-747-8674 860-621-4591
Email: ajlees@cox.net

School Programs – Frank Smith, S_nb@comcast.net 860-224-0218, Al Valeri, Diane Ashe
Nurses Training – Louis Tromboni 860-628-8146, Frank Smith, s_nb@comcast,net Al Valeri alinda7@comcast.net
Hospital Visits
- Frank Smith 860-224-0218 phone email: S_NB@comcast.net Al Valeri 860-747-8674 email: alinda7@comcast.net Tom Mucha tom@ctcomp.com
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FYI : our location is accessible from routes 84 to 72. The 72 exit puts on Corbin Avenue just one block from West Main Street. Route nine south exit #26 is onto Chestnut Street turn left to Main Street and turn right to West Main and Turn left and St mark’s will be on your right hand side two blocks up. Routes 91 to route nine and follow the aforementioned direction. Route nine from route 84 take the downtown exit which is East Main Street, turn right to Main Street, left to West Main and Turn right.

The ACS in Meriden mails our notice to 129 people and we email or fax it to the ACS in Springfield and nine area hospitals and the IAL. If you no longer want our notice or know someone who would like to receive it please let Frank Smith know.

If you have an email address please send it to Frank at S_NB@COMCAST.NET

Other Connecticut Clubs:
Danbury New Voices Club, Contact: Mary Burke 203-744-3586.

The Lost Chord Club of New Haven, website www.speakagain.org
Contact: Bob Herbst 203-468-1576(evenings) bobh@i2world.com

Tri County New Voice Club, Norwich,
Contact: Carl Strand 860-536-6844(evenings) c.a.strand.jr@snet.net

Websites
Somerset County Miracle Voice Club http://pages.ivillage.com/njpatsy/
www.SpeechPathologist.org http://www.webwhispers.org

IAL: http://www.larynxlink.com CT Clubs list at http://larynxlink.com/Clubs/CT-Clubs.htm

For local sales and service of an electrolarynx or supplies contact:
Professional Speech Aid Service, 20 Hartford Road, Suite 30, Salem, CT 06420
(Roseann George) 860-859-2807 or 800-454-7778 FAX 860-8593102
Website: http://www.speechaid.com email: rzgeorge@sbcglobal.net

A reminder to you to be listed with SBC Enhanced 911 as speech-disabled. Information can be found in your local phonebook. There are relay system phones for people who cannot speak clearly over the phone. See the information pages of your local phone book look under TDD/TT for more information, call 711.


The Lauder book, “Self Help for the Laryngectomee” is available free to all new laryngectomees. All SLP’s should have postcards for this purpose. If you need a supply of postcards call the Laryngectomee Information Foundation (LIF) at 1-800-356-1266.


I hope you all get and read the IAL News which comes out three times a year, in Jan., May, and Sept. There are many interesting and helpful articles. To subscribe to (or remove name from) IAL News, email info to IALHQ@larynxlink.com or mail to IAL News, P. O. Box 691060 Stockton, CA 95269-1060 .