Weekly Bulletin - September 24, 2015 Meeting

Posted by Richard Garcia 
on Sep 30, 2015
 
Our speaker was Joanne Simon, an acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist, who has been in private practice over 30 years. She also works at The Healing Garden, and runs a free veterans clinic.
 
 
 
Guests:
  • Lee Carpenter, Framingham Rotary club
  • Dana Gray, Honorary Member
  • Joanne Simon, Speaker
 
Announcements:
  • The Repair Café in Stow (with the Council on Aging) was a success; the next one is October 17 in Bolton (with Bolton Local).
  • Purple Pinkie Day is coming up. Rich has spoken with the principal of the Lancaster elementary school about the dictionaries, and mentioned PPD; he’ll schedule time to talk with him further about it. No reports from Stow or Bolton.
  • The Concord club is sponsoring a talk, “The American Dream is Still Alive: From an Indian Heart” by Krish Dhanam. The event will be October 2 at 7 pm at Concord-Carlisle High School.
  • The Acton-Boxborough club is sponsoring a Masquerade Ball, to be held at the Holiday inn Boxborough on November 7. Cocktail hour begins at 6:30. The theme is “The Roaring 20s, and the ball will benefit local food banks.
  • We will hold a joint meeting on November 12 with the WPI Rotaract club.
  • Our next meeting will be October 1, in the morning. This will be a Club Assembly, when all committee chairs will have the opportunity to report on their work, and invite people to participate.
  • October 14 is the district membership forum.
 
Happy/sad fines:
 
Dan: generally happy, and contributed an extra dollar because someone somewhere in the world is sad.
Don: happy that he is not riding a bike across the country.
Nancy: saw their granddaughter, and happy the restaurant didn’t burn down while she was gone.
Mary: the school year is good, and the weather awesome.
Lee: happy to be working with Don on a “plane pull”: teams of 10 pull an airplane and see who can pull it fastest, to benefit the American Cancer Society.
Jackie: sad that a family in Bolton suddenly lost their father/husband.
Dana: has been living a bachelor life for three days, while Karin has been away at Rotary Zone Training in Providence, but is traveling to see her tonight.
Ron: happy and sad, that his son passed his driving test.
Jim: spent two nights in Brooklyn, for a high school class reunion.
 
Program:
 
Our speaker was Joanne Simon, an acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist, who has been in private practice over 30 years. She also works at the Healing Garden, and runs a free veterans clinic.
 
Acupuncture is based on energy flow through some 165 meridians, or energy channels. These are not nerves or nerve channels; acupuncture does not permit needles to enter anywhere near the nerves.
 
She then had us locate an acupuncture (or acupressure) point called Large Intestine 4, between the thumb and forefinger. (It’s called “large intestine” because it can be used for intestinal disorders, not because of where it’s located.) This point can be massaged for 5 minutes on each side of the body, for relief from headache. Other points that can have the same effect are Lung 7 (along the forearm) and Gall Bladder 20 (behind the ear). Still other points are located on the temples, and above the eyebrows.
 
She then guided us to two points for stomach aches and for nausea—stomach 36 (just below the knee) and pericardium 6 (in the channel between the tendons in the front of the forearm). These are very useful for cancer patients, who can develop nausea from chemotherapy. Finally, for leg cramps was suggested a point just below the ball of the foot and toward the inside.
 
Acupuncture isn’t covered under most insurance plans, but most allow you to buy a rider that does cover it. And there are affinity programs you can join that cover acupuncture.
 
A huge benefit of acupuncture is that it’s drug-free—no need for opioid pain-killers that are so addictive. Oregon has a huge number of addicts now, and they’ve just added acupuncture coverage to their Medicaid plans to combat the problem.